Psychopathy and aggression : does the manipulation of distress cues lead to an inhibition of aggressive behaviour in individuals who score high on psychopathic traits?

Abstract

There is evidence that people with psychopathic traits have fundamental impairments in psychological processes whereby distress in others exerts an inhibitory influence over aggressive behaviour (Blair, Mitchell & Blair, 2005). Recently however, a study showed that increasing the salience of distress cues can overcome this impairment in children with psychopathic traits (Baardewijk, Stegge, Bushman, & Vermeiren, 2009). Over a series of experiments, the hypothesis that exposure to more salient cues of an opponent’s distress would lead to a decrease in the level of aggression in individuals who score high on psychopathic traits was tested, utilising two computer games (based on the Taylor Aggression Paradigm). It was predicted that there would be a significant interaction between psychopathy (as indexed by high versus low scores on psychopathic traits) and game condition (low versus highly salient cues of distress). The results from all four experiments failed to support the hypothesis. Rather, the opposite pattern of results was found in Experiments one and two (utilising university students), and Experiment 4B (adolescent participants). A secondary aim of this research was to determine whether aggression engaged in during the games was proactive (i.e. motivated by the participant’s achievement of a goal) or reactive (i.e. an emotional reaction to the participant). It was hypothesised that trait levels of proactive aggression would partially mediate the relationship between psychopathic traits and aggression engaged in during the games. The results of Experiment one failed to support this hypothesis; however the results of Experiment two supported this prediction. This hypothesis was unable to be tested in Experiments three and four, due to the lack of a relationship found between CU traits and aggression engaged in during the task. Overall the results from this research failed to support the hypothesis that exposure to more salient cues of an opponent’s distress leads to a decrease in aggression in individuals who score high on psychopathic traits. Rather, increasing the salience of distress cues either had no effect or increased levels of aggression in participants who scored high on psychopathic traits. The implications of these results for theories of psychopathy and future research are discussed.