Specifically, adults
with high levels of psychopathic traits display an «inverted» pattern of social reward, in which they report that being cruel towards others is enjoyable and being kind is not.
We also hypothesized that CU traits would show a pattern of «inverted» social reward, in which adolescents with high levels of these traits report more enjoyment of negative social potency and less enjoyment of prosocial interactions, in line with our previous findings from adults
with high levels of psychopathic traits [12,13].
Analyses with CU traits indicate that adolescents with high levels of CU traits show a pattern of «inverted» social reward, in a similar manner to adults
with high levels of psychopathic traits [13].
The researchers caution that as all participants in this study were university students, further research is needed to be able to generalize the findings to individuals
with high levels of psychopathic traits in other populations.
To find out if individuals
with high levels of psychopathic traits were better at learning how to lie than others, the researchers recruited 52 students from The University of Hong Kong — 23 who showed low levels of psychopathic traits and 29 who showed high levels of psychopathic traits based on a questionnaire that can be used to assess psychopathy in a non-clinical setting.
The researchers found that following the training exercise, individuals
with high levels of psychopathic traits had significantly shorter response times when being prompted to lie than during the initial task.
Thus, lying requires a series of processes in the brain including attention, working memory, inhibitory control and conflict resolution which we found to be reduced in individuals
with high levels of psychopathic traits.
Not exact matches
The difference may be due to how the brains
of individuals
with high and low
levels of psychopathic traits process lies.
Dr Tatia Lee, the corresponding authors said: «The stark contrast between individuals
with high and low
levels of psychopathic traits in lying performance following two training sessions is remarkable, given that there were no significant differences in lying performance between the two groups prior to training.»
Finger EC, Marsh AA, Blair KS, Reid ME, Sims C, Ng P. Disrupted reinforcement signaling in the orbitofrontal cortex and caudate in youths
with conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder and a
high level of psychopathic traits.
Surprisingly, people
with high levels of cognitive empathy and
psychopathic traits were more likely to troll.
Furthermore, low
levels of serotonin in the basolateral amygdala are related to reductions in the conditioned fear response — a response which is reliably impaired in adults
with high levels of psychopathic personality (CU
traits)[16], [17].
Furthermore, people
with high levels of CU
traits (
psychopathic personality) have been shown to have three specific cognitive and emotional deficits; a poor conditioned fear response, reduced ability to recognise fear, and deficits in stimulus - reinforcement tasks (see Moul et al. [12] for a review).
Studies have shown that youths
with high psychopathic traits have an earlier onset
of delinquent behavior, have
higher levels of delinquent behavior, and show
higher rates
of recidivism than youths
with low
psychopathic traits [4, 5].
Studies have shown that youths
with high psychopathic traits have an earlier onset
of delinquent behavior, have
higher levels of delinquent behavior, and show
higher rates
of recidivism than youths
with low
psychopathic traits.
Finally, children
with persistently
high levels of psychopathic traits exhibited
higher levels of conduct problems and proactive aggression at follow - up than those
with unstable or stable low
psychopathic traits.
Youths» reports
of high conflict
with parents and parents» knowledge / youth disclosure showed to have an impact on violence regardless
of the
level of psychopathic traits.
These findings suggest that self - report can be used to identify detained youths
with high levels of psychopathic - like
traits outside a research context, thus, even when anonymity and confidentiality are not guaranteed.