Attention Moderates the Relationship Between Primary Psychopathy and Affective Empathy in Undergraduate Students

Abstract

Psychopathy is personality traits, which is consisted of primary psychopathy characterized by affective and interpersonal problems and secondary psychopathy characterized by behavioral problems. Prior researchers have suggested that people with psychopathy have peculiar attention, which prevents them from detecting information peripheral to their concern, and we hypothesized that this explains their low empathy. Based on these reasoning, the present study assessed whether attention moderates the relationship between psychopathy and affective empathy. Eighty-five undergraduates (40 men and 45 women; mean age = 19.8 years; SD = 1.6) completed the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and a perceptual load task. Hierarchical regression showed that a significant moderation effect was found: primary psychopathy was negatively associated with affective empathy, among those with reduced interference from task-irrelevant stimuli under a medium level of perceptual load. Future study should need to replicate this finding with clinical population.

Health-related risky behaviors in Chinese adolescents with autism: a cross-sectional study

“…Previous studies demonstrated that self-injurious behaviors are related to anxiety, while explanation of this relationship is complicated [ 58 , 59 ]. Individuals with anxiety often adopt a catastrophic cognitive emotion regulation strategy [ 60 ]. Autistic adolescents often have poor skills in emotional regulation, which may lead them to exhibit self-injurious impulsivity [ 61 ].…”

Variants of Psychopathy in Chinese Juvenile Offenders: A Latent Profile Analysis

“…In our sample, the higher the measure of psychopathic traits, the lower the levels of the total empathy scores, in accordance with our hypothesis. Low empathy has been considered a hallmark feature of psychopathy, and psychopathic individuals usually show deficits in affective responses and emotion cognition (Tamura et al, 2016). Pursuant to the response modulation theory, the solely goal-oriented focus of attention makes them undiscerning to threats or punishment cues (Zeier et al, 2009).…”

Subclinical psychopathy, interpersonal workplace exchanges and moral emotions through the lens of affective events theory (AET)

“…Several studies reveal that empathic and affective dysfunction in clinical psychopathy can be generalised to subclinical psychopaths (Seara-Cardoso et al, 2015;Tamura et al, 2016). Early work conducted by Iria and Barbosa (2009) on clinical and nonclinical psychopathic samples finds both groups have significant problems in accurately detecting and discerning facial expressions of fear.…”

“…Early work conducted by Iria and Barbosa (2009) on clinical and nonclinical psychopathic samples finds both groups have significant problems in accurately detecting and discerning facial expressions of fear. Furthermore, recent work reports on problems for both clinical and subclinical samples with affective but not cognitive empathy (Tamura et al, 2016). This manifests as having little interest in other people and a general failure to feel, identify and lend any importance to emotional events whatsoever.…”