Acceso usuarios
Ewelina Bolek, Ewa Trzebińska, Ewa Trzebińska, A Ewelina Bolek
Most of the studies on emotion in psychopathy has, to date, concentrated on criminal trials and focused on specific emotions without examining how the emotions are experienced. This study aims to verify whether and how individuals showing different scores on a psychopathic scale present mixed emotion, which are considered particularly challenging due to accompanying uncertainty and ambivalence. Sixty individuals participated in a computer experiment in which they were shown one of four excerpts from the film evoking: (1) negative emotion, (2) positive emotion, (3) mixed emotions, and (4) neutral affect. Subsequently, they reported the level of three forms of meta-emotions toward that experience: (1) curiosity, (2) distress, and (3) being moved. The level of the trait of psychopathy was measured using the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale-III. Results revealed that individuals scoring high on psychopathy show a lower ability to experience the meta-emotion of being moved in response to mixed emotions compared to individuals scoring low on psychopathy, which does not occur in the case of negative emotions. The results provide preliminary empirical support for the idea that individuals scoring high in the psychopathy scale may experience more challenging emotions in an acutely less profound and personal way than others. This may be a new line of explanation for the emotional superficiality and callousness characteristic of psychopaths, particularly in the social domain. This is also significant the difficulty of integrating the affects and the resulting personality disorders, especially psychopathy as the most socially harmful personality. However, this study has some limitations, especially due to its small sample size, so interpretation of these results should be considered with caution
