نتایج همدلانه، اخلاقی و ضد اجتماعی در ارتباط با اجزای متمایز از اختلالات فکری و روانی در افراد سالم: یک رویکرد مدل سه وجهی

In the present report we analyzed the associations between the facets of the recent Triarchic Measure of Psychopathy (TriPM) and distinct dimensions of empathy, morality, and antisocial behavior. Three hundred and seventy-four participants from the community completed the TriPM, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. A subset of one hundred and three participants completed a self-reported delinquency scale. In line with the multidimensional nature of the TriPM, we found that different facets of psychopathy were associated with distinct domains of empathy and morality. In addition, every TriPM subscale was positively related to self-reported delinquency, although meanness lost its predictive power when its shared variance with disinhibition was controlled. Our results lend conceptual validity to each of the Triarchic model’s traits and suggest that psychopathy should not be regarded as a unitary construct, but rather as a combination of dimensional traits with distinct etiologies.

The conceptualization and operationalization of psychopathy continues to be a topic of debate, even after decades of prolific research (Skeem, Polaschek, Patrick, & Lilienfeld, 2011). Hare’s (1991) two-factor model has been the most influent conceptualization of the construct. The model characterizes psychopathy as a constellation of affective, interpersonal, and behavioral traits grouped into two inter-related factors, which aggregate into a super-ordinate dimension (Hare, 1991 and Hare and Neumann, 2008). However, several aspects of this model, particularly its unitary nature, have recently been challenged. For instance, research on psychopathy’s nomological network suggests that distinct aspects of the construct are differently associated to external criteria, such as negative emotionality (Hicks & Patrick, 2006). The Triarchic model of psychopathy (Patrick, Fowles, & Krueger, 2009) holds as a primary premise that psychopathy reflects a confluence of three separable traits: boldness, meanness, and disinhibition. Boldness captures dominance, fearlessness and invulnerability to stress. Meanness is defined as the callous self-interested pursuit of resources, without considering consequences for others. Disinhibition is characterized by lack of behavioral restraint and impaired emotional regulation. According to the model, two major etiological mechanisms, trait fearlessness and externalizing vulnerability, underlie the emergence of these traits (Patrick et al., 2009 and Skeem et al., 2011). Although boldness and meanness are phenotypically distinct, they share low fear as an etiological substrate. Boldness is conceptualized as reflecting an adaptive phenotypic expression of dispositional fearlessness. Environmental influences, particularly parental maltreatment and early physical abuse, and difficult temperament, are assumed to shape trait fearlessness into meanness (Patrick et al., 2009). Unlike boldness and meanness, disinhibition is seen as etiologically separate from trait-fearlessness and related to the functioning of the prefrontal structures underlying inhibitory control (Nelson, Patrick, & Bernat, 2010). In the present study, we explored the external correlates of each TriPM component, examining their associations with three central constructs associated with psychopathy – empathy, morality, and antisocial behavior. We predicted that each component would show specific patterns of association with distinct dimensions of these constructs. Although reduced empathy is considered one of the core features of psychopathy (Hare, 1991), little empirical work has been done on how subcomponents of psychopathy relate to the cognitive and affective aspects of empathy. Studies suggest that psychopathy is associated with reduced affective, but not cognitive, empathy (Blair et al., 1996). However, one further important qualification, from the dual-process stance, is how each component of psychopathy is specifically associated with the distinct facets of empathy. For instance, measures of empathy have previously shown distinct patterns of association both with the unique variance of each PCL dimension (Seara-Cardoso, Neumann, Roiser, McCrory, & Viding, 2012) and with the two orthogonal dimensions of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory – Revised (PPI-R; Lilienfeld and Widows, 2005 and Patrick et al., 2006). Here we extend these findings by analyzing the associations between the Triarchic components of psychopathy and the dimensions of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; Davis, 1980). The IRI conceptualizes empathy as a set of dimensions related to how one is responsive to others: perspective taking reflects the tendency to adopt the psychological point of view of others, fantasy assesses the tendency to transpose oneself into the feelings and actions of characters of fiction, empathic concern assesses sympathy and concern for the misfortune of others, and personal distress measures feelings of personal anxiety and discomfort in tense interpersonal contexts. Given the self-oriented aspects of personal distress, we hypothesized this dimension would be negatively associated with boldness, but positively associated with disinhibition. Also, given that amorality and callousness describe meanness to a great extent, we expected this facet to be negatively associated with all the other-oriented dimensions of empathy. According to Blair, 2005 and Blair, 2007 Integrated Emotion System, psychopathic individuals are impaired in the development of care-based morality. The model assumes that abnormalities in the amygdala and related structures compromise the ability to associate harm-causing behaviors with distress cues. This is proposed to compromise the development of a sense of concern for others that normally inhibits instrumental antisocial behavior. While there is evidence that psychopathy is associated with reduced concern for the welfare of others (Aharoni, Antonenko, & Kiehl, 2011), less is known regarding the association between psychopathy and other domains of morality. Haidt and Graham (2007) have proposed that basic intuitive morality extends to at least five domains. These encompass, besides harm/care and justice, ingroup loyalty, respect for authority, and spiritual purity. Studies on the association of psychopathy and the moral foundations show that psychopathy is associated with reduced concern with harm and justice (Aharoni et al., 2011 and Glenn et al., 2009). We extended these analyses by examining the associations between the Triarchic components of psychopathy and each domain of morality. We predicted that care and justice would be negatively associated with meanness, but not with disinhibition. However, given the pervasive pattern of law-defiant behaviors that characterize disinhibited individuals, we expected negative associations between disinhibition and respect for authority. The final external criterion we used was antisocial behavior. Although PCL scores are good predictors of antisocial outcomes, such as recidivism (Yang, Wong, & Coid, 2010) or violence (Kennealy, Skeem, Walters, & Camp, 2010), these associations seem to be restricted to characteristics of psychopathy assessed by the antisocial and impulsive facets of the PCL (Kennealy et al., 2010 and Yang et al., 2010). However, in a study using the TriPM in a non-forensic sample, Drislane et al. (2014) have shown that high levels of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition were associated with increased frequency of arrest. While these results suggest that all three facets are associated with higher rates of criminal behavior, this study did not report the unique associations between facets and self-reported delinquency, which we have done in the present study. In line with Drislane et al. (2014), we expected higher scores in all components to be positively associated with self-reported delinquency.