A direct assessment of the role of state and trait negative emotion in aggressive behavior

Affective priming of aggression was examined in groups low and high in trait negative emotionality (NEM) using a Buss aggression paradigm. Negative affect was induced by exposure to aversive air blasts during some intervals (threat) and not others (safe). Phasic negative affect was assessed using startle reflex potentiation, and tonic distress was indexed by startle sensitization. Participants delivered shocks faster during threat versus safe intervals, indicating that phasic distress primed aggression. Following initial exposure to air blasts, high NEM participants showed enhanced tonic distress and delivered persistently more intense shocks than low NEM participants. These findings indicate that sustained negative affect biases high stress-reactive individuals toward more intense acts of aggression, with phasic distress affecting the rapidity of aggressive response.     

Psychopathy and physiological response to emotionally evocative sounds

Despite considerable evidence that psychopathic criminals are deviant in their emotional reactions, few studies have examined responses to both pleasurable and aversive stimuli or assessed the role of different facets of psychopathy in affective deviations. This study investigated physiological reactions to emotional sounds in prisoners selected according to scores on the 2 factors of Hare's Psychopathy Checklist--Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 1991). Offenders high on the PCL-R emotional-interpersonal factor, regardless of scores on the social deviance factor, showed diminished skin conductance responses to both pleasant and unpleasant sounds, suggesting a deficit in the action mobilization component of emotional response. Offenders who scored high only on the social deviance factor showed a delay in heart rate differentiation between affective and neutral sounds. These findings indicate abnormal reactivity to both positive and negative emotional stimuli in psychopathic individuals, and suggest differing roles for the 2 facets of psychopathy in affective processing deviations.     

Inhibitory control and negative emotional processing in psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder

The field of personality disorders has had a long-standing interest in understanding interactions between emotion and inhibitory control, as well as neurophysiological indices of these processes. More work in particular is needed to clarify differential deficits in offenders with antisocial personality disorder (APD) who differ on psychopathic traits, as APD and psychopathy are considered separate, albeit related, syndromes. Evidence of distinct neurobiological processing in these disorders would have implications for etiology-based personality disorder taxonomies in future psychiatric classification systems. To inform this area of research, we recorded event-related brain potentials during an emotional-linguistic Go/No-Go task to examine modulation of negative emotional processing by inhibitory control in three groups: psychopathy (n = 14), APD (n = 16), and control (n = 15). In control offenders, inhibitory control demands (No-Go vs. Go) modulated frontal-P3 amplitude to negative emotional words, indicating appropriate prioritization of inhibition over emotional processing. In contrast, the psychopathic group showed blunted processing of negative emotional words regardless of inhibitory control demands, consistent with research on emotional deficits in psychopathy. Finally, the APD group demonstrated enhanced processing of negative emotion words in both Go and No-Go trials, suggesting a failure to modulate negative emotional processing when inhibitory control is required. Implications for emotion-cognition interactions and putative etiological processes in these personality disorders are discussed.     

Moderating effects of rumination and gender on context‐specific aggression

Angry rumination has been linked previously to increased aggression. The effects of trait rumination on men and women's emotional and aggressive responses under different cueing contexts were examined. Aggressive behavior, not resulting from direct insult or provocation, was indexed by a laboratory paradigm that measured the intensity and the duration of shocks delivered to a putative “employee”. Frustration about, and cognitive focus on, the employee's poor performance was manipulated through the cover story and procedures; however, half the participants were exposed to a fearful/distracting stressor (stress focused) whereas the other half were not (confederate focused). Emotional responses and evaluations of the confederate were also assessed. Results indicated that rumination enhanced the effects of context, so that it related to greater fear and sadness in the stress‐focused context and to increased aggression and motives to aggress in the confederate‐focused context. These effects, however, were more robust for women than men. Ruminative men tended to show more hostile behaviors and motives across both conditions. Mechanisms for the effects of rumination on aggression, and gender differences in these processes, are discussed. Aggr. Behav. 00:1–17, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Neuropsychological correlates of psychopathic traits in a non-incarcerated sample

The present study examined the association between neuropsychological behavioral performance and psychopathic personality traits, measured via the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI), in a non-incarcerated sample. Specifically, performance involving general executive cognitive functioning (ECF) and response inhibition was investigated in regards to the two main psychopathy factors (affective-interpersonal and social deviance) of the PPI. A group of 95 student volunteers were administered the PPI and a variety of neuropsychological measures. Analyses revealed that total PPI scores were related to deficits in response inhibition but not general ECF. However, this relationship was qualified by the differential associations observed for the two PPI factors. The social deviance factor was associated with deficits in general ECF and response inhibition, whereas the affective-interpersonal facet was associated with enhanced general ECF performance but not response inhibition. The results suggest that cognitive functioning shows predicted associations with a self-report measure of psychopathy among non-incarcerated young adults, providing further evidence for psychopathy conceptualizations from a normal-range personality perspective.     

Psychopathy, antisocial personality, and suicide risk

H. Cleckley (1976) maintained that psychopaths are relatively immune to suicide, but substantial evidence exists for a relationship between antisocial deviance and suicidal acts. This study was the first to explicitly examine suicidal history among psychopathic individuals as defined by R. D. Hare's (1991) Psychopathy Checklist--Revised (PCL-R). Male prison inmates (N = 313) were assessed using the PCL-R and DSM-III-R and DSM-IV criteria (American Psychiatric Association, 1987, 1994) for antisocial personality disorder (APD), and they completed A. Tellegen's (1982) Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ). Presence or absence of prior suicide attempts was coded from structured interview and prison file records. Suicide history was significantly related to PCL-R Factor 2 (which reflects chronic antisocial deviance) and to APD diagnosis but was unrelated to PCL-R Factor 1, which encompasses affective and interpersonal features of psychopathy. Higher order MPQ dimensions of Negative Emotionality and low Constraint were found to account for the relationship between history of suicidal attempts and antisocial deviance, indicating that temperament traits may represent a common vulnerability for both.     

From the perverse pact to universal conflicts

We psychoanalysts – as split subjects – are not immune to charismatic leaders who preach violence against selected targets depicted as the cause of all evils. Freud, in Group psychology and the analysis of the ego, alerted us against such leaders, who can manipulate by transforming us into an uncritical mass. This would be the social equivalent of the perverse pact in repressive desublimation between the superego and the id at the expense of the ego: the latter is put to sleep, and the superego exhorts the id to do violence and regress. Socially, these perverse pacts often take place with the superego represented by charismatic leaders who foster identification with themselves, put the egos of their audiences to sleep through manipulation and thus address an amorphous mass that they can direct towards violence and destruction. An event in which such a phenomenon apparently occurred will be discussed to show how urgent it is to revisit psychoanalytic writings on these matters in order to withstand the temptation to be herded by manipulative leaders. This will certainly protect psychoanalysis and allow for its transmission. It is up to us to exercise the critical analysis that psychoanalytic tools equip us for so that we can detect such summons to perverse pacts and denounce them.     

The effect of rumination on recall of emotional words: comparison of dysphoric individuals with and without a history of nonsuicidal self-injury

ABSTRACT

Prior research and theory has suggested that rumination plays a role in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), and rumination increases recall of negative autobiographical information in dysphoric individuals. Across two studies, we investigated whether rumination (versus distraction) differentially influences the recall of emotional words among dysphoric persons with and without a history of NSSI. Participants encoded unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant words and then were randomly assigned to either focus on the meaning and consequences of their emotions (i.e. rumination) or unrelated thoughts (i.e. distraction) before they were asked to recall encoded words. Across the two studies, we did not find a significant effect of rumination on memory for emotional words among dysphoric people with (Studies 1 and 2) or without a history of NSSI (Study 1). We did find that people were more likely to remember neutral words as opposed to unpleasant or pleasant words across studies, regardless of rumination condition. Together, results from these two well-powered studies provide fairly compelling evidence that rumination after encoding has little to no effect on recall for emotional words in people elevated on symptoms of depression or with NSSI history. These findings can be used to refine theories of rumination and NSSI.     

Psychopathic traits,gender, and motivations for sex: Putative paths to sexual coercion

Evidence suggests that both men and women perpetrate sexual coercion. Psychological factors, including psychopathic traits and power motivations, have been proposed to characterize male-perpetrated sexual coercion; however, it is unclear whether these factors play a similar role in female-perpetrated coercion or whether other motivations (e.g., intimacy, affect regulation) should be considered. To improve our understanding in this area, the current study first examined relationships between psychopathic traits and sexual coercion in a sample of 1199 undergraduate students (756 women), with gender as a potential moderator of these relationships. Second, the role of motivations for sex (e.g., power, affect regulation) in accounting for the psychopathy-coercion relationship was examined in men and women. Data were collected using an online survey and analyzed using multigroup path analysis. Results implicated impulsive-antisocial traits as particularly important to male-perpetrated verbal (e.g., manipulative) and nonverbal (e.g., physical) coercion, and that this relationship was partially explained by motives for sex involving power. In contrast, psychopathic traits did not appear to play a major role in female perpetrated coercion; instead, emotional value (i.e., intimacy-related) motivations for sex were associated with verbal (e.g., manipulation) coercion in women. In sum, our results support a conceptual model of male perpetration where men who are high in impulsive-antisocial traits may engage in sexual coercion in an attempt to feel powerful. Further, the findings in the female sample suggest that factors other than psychopathy, such as gender role beliefs in regard to sexual encounters, may be particularly important to female perpetrated sexually coercive behavior.