On the associations between indicators of resting arousal levels, physiological reactivity, sensation seeking, and psychopathic traits

Kavish, Nicholas; Boisvert, Danielle; Wells, Jessica; Lewis, Richard H.; Cooke, Eric M.; Woeckener, Matthias; Armstrong, Todd A.

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2019.01.013

Cited by 8 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…The findings on the relationship between baseline HR and CU traits are similarly contradicting, with some finding lower arousal at rest (i.e., lower HR at rest) to be associated with higher levels of CU in community samples (Fanti et al, 2017;Gao et al, 2017;Kavish et al, 2017;Kavish et al, 2019b), whereas others have found no association in community (Kavish et al, 2019a;Raine et al, 2014) and clinical or detained samples across age groups (De Wied et al, 2012;MacDougall et al, 2019).…”

Section: Previous Research On Relationship Between Hrv Hr and Cu Traitsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…In sum, it remains unclear to what extent basal HRV and HR can be used as physiological indicators of CU. Some of the conflicting findings may be explained by the lower average and less varied levels of CU traits found in community samples (Kavish et al, 2019a). However, as demonstrated, the few studies that have been conducted on clinical or detained samples with higher levels of CU traits also report discrepant findings.…”

Section: Previous Research On Relationship Between Hrv Hr and Cu Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, the assessments used to measure CU-traits also differed between studies. Most used (short) subscales of rater-based (e. g., Hansen et al, 2007) or self-report instruments (e.g., Anastassiou-Hadjicharalambous & Warden, 2008), whereas some others measured CU-traits more extensively (e.g., Kavish et al, 2017;Kavish et al, 2019a). It has been suggested that especially the short subscales of selfreport instruments measuring CU-traits have been hampered by low internal consistency (Kimonis et al, 2016), which could have given rise to disparate findings.…”

Section: Previous Research On Relationship Between Hrv Hr and Cu Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Heart-wired to be cold? Exploring cardiac markers of callous-unemotional traits in incarcerated offenders

Duindam

Williams

Asscher

et al. 2021

International Journal of Psychophysiology

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Section: Previous Research On Relationship Between Hrv Hr and Cu Traitsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Previous Research On Relationship Between Hrv Hr and Cu Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Previous Research On Relationship Between Hrv Hr and Cu Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Heart-wired to be cold? Exploring cardiac markers of callous-unemotional traits in incarcerated offenders

Duindam

Williams

Asscher

et al. 2021

International Journal of Psychophysiology

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“…Indeed, research has shown that individuals with PTSD have context-insensitive fear reactivity, demonstrating fear responses to even positive stimuli (Mckinnon et al, 2020). Moreover, elevated arousal at rest (in the absence of threats) has been shown to be an indicator and predictor of psychiatric and physical illness (Kavish et al, 2019; Malpas, 2010; Smith et al, 2020; Ward et al, 1983). Thus, when studying fear-reactivity and the threat-response system, it is important to consider multiple contexts with varying levels of threat to better distinguish between context-sensitive fear-responding and patterns that might be indicative of risk (Coifman & Bonanno, 2010).…”

Section: The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Does past military experience impact fear reactivity in active-duty firefighters? Well, it is complicated.

Mitchell¹,

Balikos²,

Seah³

et al. 2023

Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy

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Objective: A significant proportion of military veterans successfully transition out of the military into civilian careers as first responders, such as firefighters. Like military service, being a firefighter is a highrisk profession involving exposure to aversive environments. Thus, it is possible that military experience might serve to buffer or exacerbate risk for negative psychological outcomes in firefighters. However, both occupations are associated with increased risk for psychopathology, such as PTSD, and little research has examined the effect of military service on processes that underlie stress in veterans serving as active-duty firefighters. The current study explores whether military service confers an adaptive advantage or an additional risk. Method: Using a case-control design, we examined differences in fear reactivity through electrodermal activity (EDA) and recording of fearful facial expressions, between 32 firefighters with and 32 firefighters without military veteran status (MVS; all men). Participants completed a semistructured, emotionally evocative interview with multiple contexts eliciting varying levels of emotion. Results: MVS firefighters had relatively elevated EDA across contexts. However, lower baseline levels indicated calmer resting state in MVS firefighters. There was greater incidence of lifetime PTSD in MVS compared with non-MVS firefighters (40.6% vs. 15.6%). Overall, firefighters with past PTSD had less EDA reactivity. Finally, number of military deployments was associated with higher fear expressions throughout the interview. Conclusions: These findings highlight the need to consider interactions between military experience and psychiatric history in future investigations examining risk and resilience in first responders. Clinical Impact StatementA significant proportion of firefighters enter the profession with prior military experience. In a sample of firefighters from an urban district, those with prior military experience differed in aspects of fearreactivity during a threatening interview task compared with firefighters without military experience. Specifically, firefighters with military experience had higher levels of sympathetic arousal across varying contexts, but their fearful facial activity showed greater flexibility. Additionally, PTSD was associated with blunted sympathetic arousal, independent of military veteran status. The results demonstrate the importance of considering military experience-an overlooked characteristic-and psychiatric history when assessing risk and resilience among first responders.

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“…More recently, Kavish and colleagues (2019) examined the associations between four indicators of autonomic functioning, including heart rate, and two traditional measures of psychopathic traits and found little evidence supporting an association. Importantly, Kavish et al (2019) used the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional traits (ICU; Frick, 2004) and the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy scale (LSRP; Levenson, Kiehl, & Fitzpatrick, 1995). The ICU strictly assesses the affective component of psychopathy, and the LSRP, although it includes some behavioral items, does not appear to measure antisocial behavior as explicitly as the PCL-R, which includes ratings of items such as juvenile delinquency, early behavioral problems, revocation of conditional release, and criminal versatility.…”

Section: Sensitivity: Internalmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Longitudinal Association between Resting Heart Rate and Psychopathic Traits from a Normative Personality Perspective

et al. 2019

Self Cite

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A large body of research has accumulated investigating the possibility of an association between resting heart rate and psychopathic traits, with meta-analysis suggesting a modest, negative association. Some recent research suggests that prior findings of an association between heart rate and psychopathy may be influenced by inclusion of antisocial behavior in the assessment of psychopathic traits. The current study explores this possibility in a longitudinal sample of British males by comparing resting heart rate at age 18 to psychopathy assessed from a Five Factor Model perspective and from the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV) at age 48. Our psychopathic personality scale, created using the Big Five Inventory (BFI), was significantly correlated with the PCL:SV and was most related to the antisocial factor. In correlation analyses, resting heart rate at age 18 was not significantly related to BFI psychopathy, but was positively related to BFI Openness and Conscientiousness, and these associations held up after controlling for childhood SES, BMI at 18, and whether the participant smoked during the age 18 assessment. Additional analyses controlling for smoking status were conducted to address the biasing effect of smoking on heart rate during the age 18 assessment and a significant negative association between resting heart rate and BFI psychopathy emerged. Future research should replicate these results using other normative personality approaches to assess psychopathic traits. Sensitivity: Internal Owing to its translational, clinical, and forensic relevance, the topic of psychopathy has elicited a large amount of attention from scholars across the psychological sciences for decades (Cleckley, 1941; Hare, 1991/2003; Patrick, Fowles, & Krueger, 2009). There have been various lines of research on the topic, including how best to conceive of and measure the construct, including its attendant factor structure (i.e., psychometric debates: see Cooke & Michie, 2001; Hare, 1991; 2003; Skeem & Cooke, 2010) and core features (i.e., debates about the relevance of boldness/fearless dominance: see Lilienfeld et al., 2012; Miller and Lynam, 2012), as well as on the relative contributions of genetic and non-genetic factors to trait variance (Henry et al., 2018; Tuvblad et al., 2018). Consistent evidence suggests that variation in psychopathic tendencies is partly heritable-just like most quantitative human traits (Polderman et al., 2015). While parsing the heritable and environmental components is interesting, further clarifying phenotypic pathways that may contribute to the development of psychopathic traits is just as important if not more so (see Mitchell, 2018). Unfortunately, the evidence base for many of these pathways remains inconsistent. Psychophysiological studies of psychopathic traits have been of some interest to researchers since the 1970s (e.g.

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On the associations between indicators of resting arousal levels, physiological reactivity, sensation seeking, and psychopathic traits

Cited by 8 publications

References 47 publications

Heart-wired to be cold? Exploring cardiac markers of callous-unemotional traits in incarcerated offenders

Heart-wired to be cold? Exploring cardiac markers of callous-unemotional traits in incarcerated offenders

Does past military experience impact fear reactivity in active-duty firefighters? Well, it is complicated.

The Longitudinal Association between Resting Heart Rate and Psychopathic Traits from a Normative Personality Perspective

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