- Title
- An investigation of the affective profile of the psychopathy phenotype and its potential fitness benefits
- Creator
- Dye, Jacob
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- This thesis is a broad investigation of the affective features of psychopathy with the view of assessing whether these deficits and differences in affect may result in adaptive features that improve the fitness of those with the psychopathy phenotype as nefarious but individually advantageous social predators. We aim to assess whether aspects of the affective profile of this phenotype; increase success victimising others through increased accuracy in the perception of vulnerable traits, increase willingness to act in ways that harm others through reduced affect-based inhibition, or increase the ability to mask deviance and ‘fake good’. The first study of this thesis is a methodological development and validation of a new procedure for collecting self-reported emotional experience and physiological response simultaneously. This methodology involves the use of eye-tracking technology to allow participants to make ratings using gaze to fixate on a response graph presented between stimulus presentations. Results suggest that this method of collecting self-reported affective response is comparable to more traditional methods of data collection, validating it’s use in future studies. The second study of this thesis utilises this methodology in combination with measures of physiological response, cognitive empathy, intelligence, and psychopathy to assess the possibility that intelligence and/or cognitive empathy have a moderating effect on the relationship between psychopathy and physiological response to affective stimuli. Although we were expecting to find the physiological affective response deficits in relation to psychopathic traits no such deficits were found. We further expected that IQ and cognitive empathy may moderate the relationship between psychopathy and affective response, but found little evidence to support this. One interesting finding was that self-reported affective response showed a negative association with psychopathic traits across multiple stimulus types. This may indicate a further usefulness for the fixation triggered rating methodology. The third study is an investigation of the relationship between psychopathy and memory for the emotional state of others. This study used a recognition memory test to assess whether people can recall the prior emotional expression of an individual when prompted with recognition of that individual’s identity while displaying a neutral expression. Results suggest some evidence of a negative association between psychopathy and expression memory. The fourth and final study is an investigation of whether psychopathy relates to increased accuracy assessing the vulnerability of others. This study utilised a stress induction to produce videos of self-reported victims and non-victims under stress. These videos were rated for a variety of traits associated with vulnerability and the accuracy of these ratings was assessed for associations with the psychopathy levels of the people making the rating. Data showed little evidence of increased accuracy, but consistent evidence of psychopathy being associated with an increased perception of others as vulnerable. Overall, evidence from this thesis suggests that psychopathy may facilitate the use of a nefarious social strategy through reduced affect-based inhibition and increased perception of others as vulnerable to victimisation.
- Subject
- adaptation; affect; GSR; memory; psychopathy; pupillary response; recall; recognition; SCR; skin conductance; stress induction; victim; affective empathy; vulnerability; anxiety; cognitive empathy; empathy; evolution; eye-tracking; facial expression; fitness
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1419677
- Identifier
- uon:37482
- Rights
- Copyright 2020 Jacob Dye
- Language
- eng
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 4 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 257 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |