Passive avoidance in syndromes of disinhibition: psychopathy and extraversion

According to the physiological animal model proposed by Gorenstein and Newman (1980; see also Newman, Gorenstein, & Kelsey, 1983), psychopaths and extraverts may be characterized by a common psychological diathesis related to behavioral inhibition (see also Fowles, 1980; Gray, 1982). One aspect of this diathesis involves deficient passive avoidance learning, which has been central to explanations of "unsocialized" (e.g., Trasler, 1978) and antisocial behavior (e.g., Hare, 1970). Results from three experiments supported our prediction that psychopaths and extraverts would exhibit deficient passive avoidance relative to nonpsychopaths and introverts, respectively. In addition, the passive avoidance deficit was particularly evident in tasks that required subjects to inhibit a rewarded response in order to avoid punishment. The latter finding may be important for explaining the inconsistent results regarding passive avoidance learning in psychopaths (e.g., Chesno & Kilmann, 1975; Schmauk, 1970). Discussion of the results focuses on the importance of reward in mediating the passive avoidance deficit of "disinhibited" individuals and on the existence of an indirect relationship between psychopathy and extraversion: one that is consistent with the observed experimental parallels as well as with the more ambiguous evidence regarding a direct correlation between measures of the two syndromes.     

Reaction to punishment, reflectivity, and passive avoidance learning in extraverts

Passive avoidance learning occupies a central role in accounts of disinhibited behavior, ranging from psychopaths' persistent criminality (Hare 1970) to extraverts' gregariousness (Gray, 1972). To explore the mechanism underlying passive avoidance deficits, we assessed the relation of extraversion, neuroticism, and response latency after punishment to passive avoidance learning by using two successive go/no go discrimination tasks. The tasks were designed to examine two aspects of subjects' reactions to punishment: response speed on trials immediately following punishment (Experiment 1) and time to terminate punishment feedback between successive trials (i.e., reflectivity; Experiment 2). Consistent with previous findings, the results of Experiment 1 showed that extraverts commit more passive avoidance errors than introverts do (Newman, Widom, & Nathan, 1985) and fail to pause following punished errors (Nichols & Newman, 1986). In Experiment 2, only neurotic extraverts displayed this pattern of performance differences. In both experiments, longer pausing following punishment predicted better learning from punishment for both introverts and extraverts. These results suggest that, in the presence of salient cues for reward, extraverts' characteristic reaction to punishment interferes with processing punished errors and may contribute to their more general propensity for impulsive, nonreflective action.     

Effects of punishment on response latency in extraverts

Previous findings indicate that in comparison to introverts, extraverts are prone to form responses that are resistant to interruption by punishment. Because the tendency to stop and reflect following punishment may be crucial for subsequent learning, the present study was designed to examine differences between introverts' and extraverts' reactions to punishment using response latency on the trial following punishment as the dependent variable. Sixty-six extraverted and 66 introverted male undergraduates performed a pattern-matching task in which they received noncontingent 50% success and 50% failure feedback under three incentive conditions including reward only, punishment only, or both. As predicted, a significant interaction was found in the both condition, reflecting the tendency of extraverts to respond more quickly and introverts more slowly following punishment feedback than following reward feedback. No significant effects were found in the other two conditions; however, a tendency was noted for extraverts to respond more quickly overall when only reward was given. A second experiment using reward-only and punishment-only feedback replicated this finding and yielded a significant interaction of Group X Condition. The results indicate that in contrast to introverts, extraverts are activated by the availability of reward and, paradoxically, that punishment may facilitate rather than interrupt extraverts' reward seeking behavior.     

Reward dominance and passive avoidance learning in adolescent psychopaths

This study tests predictions that adolescent psychopaths are hyperresponsive to rewards (Quay, 1988) and deficient in passive avoidance learning (Newman & Kosson, 1986). Forty male adolescent juvenile offenders were divided into psychopaths and nonpsychopaths using cluster analysis. Subjects were administered a passive avoidance learning task which required learning when to respond to cards associated with either reward or punishment. Results showed a greater responsivity to reward in psychopaths, with no group differences in passive avoidance errors. Results lend support to the view that psychopaths tend to focus on the prospect of reward under conditions of mixed incentives and, when sufficiently motivated, are capable of improved performance. Together with findings of recent psychophysiological studies, these results suggest that adolescent psychopaths may have latent abilities which could have treatment implications.The authors are greatly indebted to the boys and staff of the testing institution for their kind cooperation in this study. Thanks are also due to Dr. Rand Wilcox for statistical consultation and Cheryl Eurton and Marni Ayers for assistance in data coding.     

Incentive and feedback effects on target detection: A chronometric analysis of Gray's model of temperament

Chronometric (i.e. reaction time) techniques were used to investigate the response, arousal, and attentional components of Gray's (1971, 1982) model of temperament. Subjects were tested in a game context, where each trial consisted of an incentive warning signal (positive or negative), a visual detection target (left or right visual field), and a feedback signal (positive or negative). Several findings were consistent with Gray's proposal that extraverts tend to respond impulsively given signals of reward whereas introverts respond with inhibition given signals of punishment. Extraverts made more overall errors than introverts in the first experiment, and more errors following positive incentive signals in the second study. In addition, introverts responded more slowly than extraverts following negative feedback in the first study. Evidence was also found in support of Gray's proposal that introverts allocate more attention to negative cues than extraverts. Following negative feedback, introverts showed a reflexive attentional bias in favor of negative locations in the second experiment. However, no support was found for the temperamental differences in phasic arousal suggested by Gray's model. The magnitude and build up of general alerting effects following positive and negative incentives were similar for introverts and extraverts.     

Temperament, executive functions, and the allocation of attention to punishment feedback in passive avoidance learning

Several theories have been proposed to account for the apparent non-responsiveness to punishment cues or aversive events demonstrated by members of some disinhibited groups. Included among these theories are those that emphasize individual differences in temperament, temperament-related biases associated with the allocation of attentional resources, and impairments in executive functions. This study examined the relative contribution of each of these variables to the prediction of passive avoidance errors (PAEs, or failures to inhibit responding to punishment cues) during a computerized go/no-go task. Variations in temperament, attentional allocation to punishment feedback, and executive functions were found to independently and additively contribute to the prediction of PAEs in a mixed sample of men and women recruited at a university campus (n=145). Results from this study, therefore, support multiple theoretical perspectives on PAEs as assessed by the go/no-go experimental paradigm.     

Left Hemispheric Lateral Preference and High Neuroticism Predict Disinhibition in Two Go/No‐Go Experiments

Although disinhibition is widely implicated in impulse‐control‐related psychopathologies, debate remains regarding the underlying approach and avoidance processes of this construct. In two studies, we simultaneously tested three competing models in which varying levels of extraversion, neuroticism, and hemispheric lateral preference are associated with disinhibition. In both studies (Study 1, N = 92; Study 2, N = 124), undergraduate students were randomly allocated to one of two versions of the go/no‐go task: one where participants were primed through reward to make more “go” responses and another where no such priming occurred. Neuroticism, extraversion, and hemispheric lateral preference measures were also collected. Across both studies, disinhibition was greatest in individuals who reported both a left hemispheric lateral preference and high neuroticism. This pattern was only found for those who were primed through reward to make more “go” responses. There was no association with extraversion. Contrary to previous research, our results suggest that left hemispheric asymmetry and neuroticism and not extraversion drive disinhibited approach, following the establishment of a prepotent approach response set. This has salient implications for the theoretical understanding of disinhibited behavior, as well as for the study of continued maladaptive approach behavior.     

Expectation of success following noncontingent punishment in introverts and extraverts

Recent findings indicate that extraverts are more likely than introverts to continue responding in the face of punishment and frustrating nonreward (Newman & Kosson, 1984; Tiggemann, Winefield, & Brebner, 1982). The current study investigates whether extraverts' expectations for success are, similarly, resistant to interruption and alteration. To test this hypothesis, 50 introverted and 50 extraverted male undergraduates were exposed to pretreatment with either a 50% level of noncontingent reward or a 50% level of noncontingent punishment. As predicted, there were significant Group X Pretreatment interactions on all dependent measures. In comparison to those introverts who received the punishment pretreatment, extraverts exposed to the same pretreatment placed larger wagers on their ability to succeed, and reported higher levels of perceived control. In addition, relative to their estimates for the pretreatment task, extraverts exposed to noncontingent punishment increased their expectation for success, whereas introverts exposed to noncontingent punishment decreased their performance expectations. No differences were observed between the two groups following pretreatment with noncontingent reward. The results suggest that extraverts are characterized by a distinctive reaction to punishment involving response facilitation as opposed to response inhibition.     

Delay of gratification in psychopathic and nonpsychopathic offenders.

Delay of gratification is a prototypical measure of self-control that merits systematic investigation in psychopaths. White male prisoners were provided with repeated opportunities to select an immediate response with uncertain reward or a delayed response with a higher rate of reward under one of three incentive conditions. Psychopaths' performance depended on their level of trait anxiety and incentive condition: Whereas low-anxious psychopaths were relatively unwilling to delay when omission of expected rewards also incurred monetary punishments, they displayed relatively superior performance when the task involved rewards only. Findings complement those for passive avoidance learning in psychopaths and suggest that inhibitory self-control in low-anxious psychopaths is somewhat impaired under conditions involving a combination of monetary rewards and punishments.     

Deficient response modulation and emotion processing in low-anxious Caucasian psychopathic offenders: results from a lexical decision task

The clinical and research literatures on psychopathy have identified an emotion paradox: Psychopaths display normal appraisal but impaired use of emotion cues. Using R. D. Hare's (1991) Psychopathy Checklist-Revised and the G. S. Welsh Anxiety Scale (1956), the authors identified low-anxious psychopaths and controls and examined predictions concerning their performance on a lexical-decision task. Results supported all the predictions: (a) low-anxious psychopaths appraised emotion cues as well as controls; (b) their lexical decisions were relatively unaffected by emotion cues; (c) their lexical decisions were relatively unaffected by affectively neutral word-frequency cues; and (d) their performance deficits were specific to conditions involving right-handed responses. The authors propose that deficient response modulation may underlie both the emotional and cognitive deficits associated with low-anxious psychopaths.     

Externalizing psychopathology and behavioral disinhibition: working memory mediates signal discriminability and reinforcement moderates response bias in approach-avoidance learning

Research has suggested that reduced working memory capacity plays a key role in disinhibited patterns of behavior associated with externalizing psychopathology. In this study, participants (N = 365) completed 2 versions of a go/no-go mixed-incentive learning task that differed in the relative frequency of monetary rewards and punishments for correct and incorrect active-approach responses, respectively. Using separate structural equation models for conventional (hit and false alarm rates) and signal detection theory (signal discriminability and response bias) performance indices, distinct roles for working memory capacity and changes in payoff structure were found. Specifically, results showed that (a) working memory capacity mediated the effects of externalizing psychopathology on false alarms and discriminability of go versus no-go signals; (b) these effects were not moderated by the relative frequency of monetary rewards and punishments; (c) the relative frequency of monetary rewards and punishments moderated the effects of externalizing psychopathology on hits and response bias for go versus no-go responses; and (d) these effects were not mediated by working memory capacity. The findings implicate distinct roles for reduced working memory capacity and poorly modulated active approach and passive avoidance in the link between externalizing psychopathology and behavioral disinhibition.     

Chimpanzees’ use of conspecific cues in matching-to-sample tasks: public information use in a fully automated testing environment

Social animals have much to gain from observing and responding appropriately to the actions of their conspecific group members. This can in turn lead to the learning of novel behavior patterns (social learning) or to foraging, ranging, or social behavioral choices copied from fellow group members, which do not necessarily result in long-term learning, but at the time represent adaptive responses to environmental cues (public information use). In the current study, we developed a novel system for the study of public information use under fully automated conditions. We modified a classic single-subject laboratory paradigm—matching-to-sample (MTS)—and examined chimpanzees’ ability to interpret and utilize cues provided by the behavior of a conspecific to solve the task. In Experiment 1, two subjects took turns on an identity MTS task, with one subject (the model) performing the first half of the trial and the other subject (the observer) completing the trial using the model’s actions as discriminative cues. Both subjects performed above chance from the first session onwards. In Experiment 2, the subjects were tested on a symbolic version of the same MTS task, with one subject showing spontaneous transfer. Our study establishes a novel method for examining public information use within a highly controlled and automated setting.     

Left-hemisphere activation and deficient response modulation in psychopaths

Psychopathic offenders have difficulty processing contextual or secondary cues once they have initiated goal-directed behavior or allocated attention to a primary task. To test the hypothesis that this deficit in response modulation is specific to conditions in which psychopaths' left-hemisphere resources are engaged, we administered a serial recall task to 21 incarcerated psychopaths and 21 control subjects. Subjects were instructed to memorize eight words that were presented one at a time, each in one of the four corners of the visual display. Subjects' primary task was to recall the words in serial order. Then, without forewarning, they were asked to recall the words' locations. As predicted, psychopaths performed as well as control subjects in recalling words from the left and right spatial fields, but recalled significantly fewer locations from the right spatial field. Thus, psychopaths' deficient response modulation was specific to conditions in which their left-hemisphere resources were actively engaged.     

Frontal brain asymmetry and reward responsiveness: a source-localization study

The influence of approach and avoidance tendencies on affect, reasoning, and behavior has attracted substantial interest from researchers across various areas of psychology. Currently, frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) asymmetry in favor of left prefrontal regions is assumed to reflect the propensity to respond with approach-related tendencies. To test this hypothesis, we recorded resting EEG in 18 subjects, who separately performed a verbal memory task under three incentive conditions (neutral, reward, and punishment). Using a source-localization technique, we found that higher task-independent alpha2 (10.5-12 Hz) activity within left dorsolateral prefrontal and medial orbitofrontal regions was associated with stronger bias to respond to reward-related cues. Left prefrontal resting activity accounted for 54.8% of the variance in reward bias. These findings not only confirm that frontal EEG asymmetry modulates the propensity to engage in appetitively motivated behavior, but also provide anatomical details about the underlying brain systems.     

Power,approach, and inhibition

This article examines how power influences behavior. Elevated power is associated with increased rewards and freedom and thereby activates approach-related tendencies. Reduced power is associated with increased threat, punishment, and social constraint and thereby activates inhibition-related tendencies. The authors derive predictions from recent theorizing about approach and inhibition and review relevant evidence. Specifically, power is associated with (a) positive affect, (b) attention to rewards, (c) automatic information processing, and (d) disinhibited behavior. In contrast, reduced power is associated with (a) negative affect; (b) attention to threat, punishment, others' interests, and those features of the self that are relevant to others' goals; (c) controlled information processing; and (d) inhibited social behavior. The potential moderators and consequences of these power-related behavioral patterns are discussed.     

Incidental learning of secondary attentional cueing

Subjects instructed to detect targets following moderately valid location cues started being presented at some point in the course of the experiment, without having been informed about it, with a color secondary cue on all invalidly cued trials. In Experiment 1 most subjects quickly learned to use the secondary cue, ending in latency cost being eliminated or even turned negative. The effect failed to manifest only when the secondary cue appeared outside the object serving as imperative cue. Experiment 2 showed that performance with a secondary cue differed significantly from the performance in two control conditions in which colors were not correlated with validity or were not presented at all. On the other hand, it resembled performance of subjects informed beforehand about the secondary cue. Awareness of the contingency as well as of its effect on behavior was probed by a post-test questionnaire. An effect of learning without awareness was not observed in Experiment 1, but was found in Experiment 3, where awareness was probed more shortly after the emergence of incidental learning. Conceivably, subjects first learn to use the contingencies implicitly, and only later do they become aware of the outcome of that learning. Apparently, the attentional system might incidentally learn contingencies detected while being engaged in another task and use them for orienting despite a partial conflict with the following as instructed endogenous cues.     

To eat or not to eat: implications of the attentional myopia model for restrained eaters

The attentional myopia model of behavioral control was tested in a study of food consumption by chronic dieters. According to the model, when individuals' attentional capacity is limited, their behavior will be disproportionately influenced by highly salient internal and external cues to the exclusion of more distal stimuli. In situations that normally feature conflicting behavioral pressures, such a state of narrowed attention is likely to result in abnormally disinhibited behavior when cues promoting action are more salient and to result in abnormally restrained behavior when inhibiting cues are more salient. In addition to supporting the predictions of the model, this study provided the first evidence for enhanced behavioral control under conditions of limited attention. Participants' responses to a thought-reporting measure also provided evidence for the role played by attentional myopia in the control of eating. Implications for a broad array of regulatory successes and failures are discussed.     

Relationships of criminality and psychopathy with eight other apparent behavioral manifestations of sub-optimal arousal

The application of arousal theory to the study of criminality and psychopathy leads one to hypothesize that any behavior reflecting sub-optimal arousal should be more common among criminals and psychopaths than among their counterparts. In the present literature review, consistent support was found for this hypothesis by indicating the existence of substantial associations between criminality/psychopathy and the following eight behavior patterns: (1) resistance to punishment, (2) poor academic performance,or performance below intellectual potential, (3) impulsiveness, or minimal persistence at task assigned and coordinated by others, (4) childhood hyperactivity, (5) risk taking and sensation seeking, (6) recreation drug use, (7) preference for active social interactions, and (8) preference for broad-ranging sexual experiences and unstable pair bonding tendencies. Also consistent with arousal theory were numerous studies indicating that these eight behavior patterns were intercorrelated with one another. The conclusion suggested by this review was that criminality and psychopathy exists as part of a multi-variable cluster of behavior patterns which is a manifestation of sub-optimal arousal.     

Introversion-extraversion,tempo, and guided imagery

This research tested the hypotheses that (a) introverts would produce more vivid imagery than would extraverts, and (b) introverts would produce better mental imagery if the background auditory tempo was slow, and extraverts would produce better mental imagery of the background auditory tempo was fast. Participants (N=240) were classified as introverts or extraverts and were randomly assigned one of three tempo conditions: slow, fast, or none. They were instructed to form mental images while listening individually to one of two stories. Clicks (slow or fast) sounded in the background during the stories. All participants then completed detailed questionnaires about the vividness of their mental imagery. Analysis showed that introverts reported significantly more vividness in their imagery than did extraverts. The hypothesized interaction between personality and tempo was not found. Implications were drawn for therapeutic applications of mental imagery.     

Visual slow brain potentials in children with attention deficit disorder

Using a two-stimulus reaction time paradigm, with two separate reward conditions (contingent and noncontingent), we compared slow wave brain potentials (ERPs) in 144 children with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and 30 normal control children. This article reviews the findings during the 900 msec visual warning stimulus. As we had expected, based on ERP work of Forth and Hare (1989) and Raine, Venables and Williams (1990), and on previous work from our own laboratory, the group differences were found in the negative slow wave portions of the ERP complex during the contingent reward condition but not during the noncontingent condition. Aggressive hyperactive subjects with attention deficit disorder (ADDHA) were discriminated from nonaggressive subjects (including control subjects) during the contingent reward condition in the following ways: (1) greater fronto-central negativity (640–900 msec slow wave) and (2) greater right parietal than left parietal negativity (430–750 msec slow wave). All ADD subgroups, when compared to control (CONTR) subjects, showed greater slow wave negativity (700–900 msec) at the midline occipital electrode site during the contingent reward condition. This could be explained in part as an IQ effect on ERPs reflecting the IQ difference between the ADD subgroups and the controls. These slow wave findings seem to relate to attentional problems of these children. They are discussed in terms of a psychobiological model of inhibition/disinhibition and appetitive activation.