Psychopaths lack the automatic avoidance of social threat: Relation to instrumental aggression

Abstract

Psychopathy (PP) is associated with marked abnormalities in social emotional behaviour, such as high instrumental aggression (IA). A crucial but largely ignored question is whether automatic social approach-avoidance tendencies may underlie this condition. We tested whether offenders with PP show lack of automatic avoidance tendencies, usually activated when (healthy) individuals are confronted with social threat stimuli (angry faces). We applied a computerized approach-avoidance task (AAT), where participants pushed or pulled pictures of emotional faces using a joystick, upon which the faces decreased or increased in size, respectively. Furthermore, participants completed an emotion recognition task which was used to control for differences in recognition of facial emotions. In contrast to healthy controls (HC), PP patients showed total absence of avoidance tendencies towards angry faces. Interestingly, those responses were related to levels of instrumental aggression and the (in)ability to experience personal distress (PD). These findings suggest that social performance in psychopaths is disturbed on a basic level of automatic action tendencies. The lack of implicit threat avoidance tendencies may underlie their aggressive behaviour.

Individual differences in bodily freezing predict emotional biases in decision making

“…Instead, there was large individual variability, possibly reflecting individual differences in the degree to which angry vs. happy faces elicit defensive behavior; for example in aggressive vs. anxious individuals (Roelofs et al, 2009b, 2010b; Von Borries et al, 2012; see also for a review on the relation between anger and approach motivation, Carver and Harmon-Jones, 2009). Here, we exploit this individual variability in bodily freezing and demonstrate that it predicts the effects of emotional stimuli on instrumental action.…”

“…We have used happy and angry faces, because these emotional faces have been suggested to activate the appetitive (approach) and aversive (avoidance) motivational systems respectively (Roelofs et al, 2009a,b, 2010b; Volman et al, 2011; Von Borries et al, 2012). In contrast with emotional faces such as fear, disgust, sadness, for which the elicited behavioral tendencies may be complex (Marsh et al, 2005; Seidel et al, 2010), happy and angry faces have been shown to induce approach and avoidance behavioral tendencies respectively (Marsh et al, 2005; Roelofs et al, 2009a,b, 2010b; Seidel et al, 2010; Volman et al, 2011; Von Borries et al, 2012). …”

“…Emotions are well-known to influence decision making (Damasio et al, 1996; Damasio, 1997; Roelofs et al, 2009a,b, 2010b; Von Borries et al, 2012). Such emotional biases may reflect interactions between distinct (e.g., emotional vs. deliberative) systems for behavioral control (Kahneman and Frederick, 2002; Camerer et al, 2005).…”

Don’t stand so close to me: psychopathy and the regulation of interpersonal distance

“…Research on motoric approach/avoidance to social stimuli using a computer joystick task showed that high psychopathy scorers display less avoidance of social threats (angry faces; Von Borries et al, 2012), but it is unknown whether this would extend to actual interpersonal distance regulation during social interactions. To investigate this question, we used a paradigm based on that developed by Kennedy et al (2009) to assess interpersonal distance preferences in a community sample varying in psychopathy.…”

Why do fearful facial expressions elicit behavioral approach? Evidence from a combined approach-avoidance implicit association test.

“…These findings were interpreted as signifying that angry expressions are perceived as aversive, whereas fearful expressions are perceived as appetitive. Many experiments have now examined the appetitive and aversive qualities of expressive faces, and have generally found, for example, happiness to be predominantly appetitive and anger to be predominantly aversive (Rotteveel & Phaf, 2004; Seidel, Habel, Kirschner, Gur, & Derntl, 2010; Theodoridou, Penton-Voak, & Rowe, 2013; van Peer et al, 2007; Vrijsen, van Oostrom, Speckens, Becker, & Rinck, 2013), although the degree to which these effects occur may be moderated by personality variables (Heuer, Rinck, & Becker, 2007; von Borries et al, 2012; Roelofs et al, 2010) or affiliation goals (Krieglmeyer & Deutsch, 2013). However, no study has replicated or adequately explained the original, seemingly paradoxical finding that fearful facial expressions elicit behavioral approach in perceivers.…”