Open Collections

Psychopathic emotions: founded on an addiction to arousal

University of British Columbia

Recent advances in research on affect have shown variations in individuals' affective circumplex, which are related to differences in arousal sensitivity (Blascovich, 1990; 1992; Feldman, 1995a). Given evidence suggesting that psychopaths are hyposensitive to arousal, they should therefore demonstrate an arousal-focus when processing emotional material. The present study was designed to assess this attentional bias. Participants were 41 offenders divided into psychopathic and nonpsychopathic groups according to their scores on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991). Pleasure and arousal ratings and similarity judgments of emotional words and pictures of facial affect were employed to provide both objective and projective measures of the psychopath's interpretation of the material. Results indicated that psychopaths and nonpsychopaths did not differ in either their ratings or similarity judgments of the stimuli. However, when participants were further subdivided into sex offenders and non sex offenders, a pattern emerged that suggested that the psychopath's affective structure is indeed characterized by an arousal-focus, but only when faced with "intriguing" stimulation. Results are discussed in light of a new theory of psychopathy suggesting that psychopaths may be addicted to arousal, as represented in their lifestyles and their affective responses.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-05-25

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/8145

Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace