Psychopathy and Decision-Making: Antisocial Factor Associated With Risky Decision-Making in Offenders

Abstract

Psychopathy is a personality development disorder increasing the risk of antisocial behavior. Studies on the relationship between psychopathy and decision-making have received limited attention and the result of studies is mixed. A present study examines whether or not the different factors of psychopathy are related to decision-making under risk and ambiguity in offenders and how they are related. Also, the study investigates whether general intelligence is associated with decision-making or moderates the relationship between psychopathy and decision-making. The results showed that only antisocial factor of psychopathy significantly correlates with Game of Dice Task (GDT) risky selections, but there no general relation between psychopathy and Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) performance. Lastly, general intelligence neither is related to decision-making under risk and ambiguity nor moderates the relationship between decision-making and psychopathy. The study results show that antisocial factor of psychopathy was associated with decision-making under risk rather than ambiguity. Our results also suggest that the antisocial factor of psychopathy was more related to executive dysfunction in offenders.

Decision-making Styles in Adolescent Offenders and Non-offenders: Effects of Emotional Intelligence and Empathy

“…Future studies may consider the proportionality of the samples that enable the analysis based on sociodemographic variables. It is also important to use measures complementing self-reports, such as execution tests (Li et al, 2019;Sorge et al, 2015;Yao et al, 2019), physiological, neuropsychological measures, and experiments in decision-making (van den Bos et al, 2013;van Gelder et al, 2019). Likewise, adolescent offenders' decision-making styles and the variables that affect them should be studied so that resources can be provided to foster improvements in judgment processes, well-being, mental health, and social adjustment (Fischhoff & Broomell, 2020).…”

“…Among other aspects, analyzing decision-making implies knowledge of neurobiological mechanisms, the role of learning and memory, and understanding the purpose and analyzing the motivations, the context, and the dynamics that lie at the bottom of each decision (Altman, 2017). Methods for the study of decision-making are complementary to each other and include physiological and neuropsychological measures (van den Bos et al, 2013), self-reports, execution tests (Li et al, 2019;Sorge et al, 2015;Yao et al, 2019), and laboratory experiments (van Gelder et al, 2019). The decision-making analysis requires differentiation between situations, the level of importance of the decision, and cultural conditions.…”