Symptoms of executive dysfunction are endemic to secondary psychopathy: an examination in criminal offenders and noninstitutionalized young adults

Psychopathy is a heterogeneous personality disorder exhibiting deficits in passive avoidance, emotional processing, and arousal. In a mixed-gender group (N = 293) of undergraduates and prisoners, we examined the relationship of multiple indices of primary and secondary psychopathy to components of executive dysfunction as measured by the Frontal Systems and Behavior Scale (FrSBe; Grace & Malloy, 2001). After controlling for demographic variables, we found strong associations between psychopathy and components of executive dysfunction (Rs = .55 to .70). Primary psychopathy was negatively, whereas secondary psychopathy was positively, predictive of symptoms indicative of executive dysfunction. When indices of primary and secondary psychopathy and indices of executive functioning were jointly included in a factor analysis, a two-factor solution was obtained. Secondary psychopathy and all subscales of the FrSBe loaded on a single factor, whereas indices of primary psychopathy loaded solely on a second factor. These findings underscore the role of prefrontal circuitry in psychopathy, and specifically implicate executive dysfunction in secondary psychopathy.     

Shifting Loyalties: Reconsidering Psychology’s Subject Matter

Schwarz (IPBS: Integrative Psychology & Behavioral Science 43:3, 2009) cogently demonstrates that in conjunction with scientific conventionalism psychology has developed a rather deficient view of their subject matter: the human being. Psychology based on an impoverished notion of empirical has rendered subjectivity or ‘the measuring apparatus man’ invisible. As his story implicitly demonstrates, psychologists supported by a positivistic view of science (in part to be empirical) and notion of ‘objectivity’ have learned to trust their ‘rigorous’ methods instead of their participants as capable of revealing important and interesting phenomena. If we are going to take subjectivity and experience seriously there should be a cultivation of a new attitude or orientation regarding psychology’s subject matter (i.e., the human being) and science. This commentary discusses Mark Freeman’s (2007) argument that the first requirement of science should be ‘fidelity to the phenomena’ and elaborates on the implications for psychology grounded in this view of science.     

Valuing the contribution of ultra-light buyers

Ultra-light buyers, those who, on average, buy a brand once a year or less, are important by number and their contribution to brand purchase occasions. The initial research, however, was limited in scope and did not measure the contribution of these buyers to sales volume or value. By examining over 850 brands in almost 60 categories, we identify that ultra-lights make up 62% of a brand's buyer base over 5 years and contribute 32% of purchase occasions and 31% of sales volume and value. In line with previous findings that brands with higher loyalty exhibit more repeat purchases and thus fewer ultra-light buyers and private label brands often exhibit higher than expected loyalty for their market share—we find the prevalence of ultra-light buyers is higher for national brands than private labels, likely reflecting the higher loyalty often observed for private labels. We also find no difference in ultra-light buyers' contribution between high and low-price brands, indicating that price is not a significant factor affecting the contribution of ultra-light buyers. Finally, we find that both growing and declining brands have fewer ultra-lights than stable brands. As growth occurs via increasing penetration and loyalty, for growing brands, new buyers may be more ‘light’ than ‘ultra-light’ in terms of their loyalty; while for declines, these findings imply that there are not enough ultra-light buyers to maintain brand sales. A failure to recruit ultra-light buyers may be very dangerous for brand health.     

KIERKEGAARD AND EVANS ON THE PROBLEM OF ABRAHAM

A significant challenge faces any ethic that endorses the view that divine commands are sufficient to impose moral obligations; in this paper, I focus on Kierkegaard's ethic, in particular. The challenge to be addressed is the “modernized” problem of Abraham, popularized especially by Fear and Trembling: the dilemma that an agent faces when a being claiming to be God issues a command to the agent that, by the agent's own lights, seems not to be the kind of command that a loving God would issue. Against a solution to this problem proposed by C. Stephen Evans in Kierkegaard's Ethic of Love, I argue that Kierkegaard regards this scenario as never actually resulting in a fully responsible agent's performance of some horrendous action on account of her non‐culpable misinterpretation of God's will and/or failure to discern correctly whether a perceived moral imperative truly is divine in origin.     

Predicting premeditation: future behavior is seen as more intentional than past behavior

People's intuitions about the underlying causes of past and future actions might not be the same. In 3 studies, we demonstrate that people judge the same behavior as more intentional when it will be performed in the future than when it has been performed in the past. We found this temporal asymmetry in perceptions of both the strength of an individual's intention and the overall prevalence of intentional behavior in a population. Because of its heightened intentionality, people thought the same transgression deserved more severe punishment when it would occur in the future than when it did occur in the past. The difference in judgments of both intentionality and punishment was partly explained by the stronger emotional reactions that were elicited in response to future actions than in response to past actions. We consider the implications of this temporal asymmetry for legal decision making and theories of attribution more generally.     

Subjectivity uncertainty theory of objectification: Compensating for uncertainty about how to positively relate to others by downplaying their subjective attributes

Why do people sometimes view others as objects rather than complete persons? We propose that when people desire successful interactions with others, yet feel uncertain about their ability to navigate others' subjectivity, they downplay others' subjective attributes, focusing instead on their concrete attributes. This account suggests that objectification represents a response to uncertainty about one's ability to successfully interact with others distinct from: instrumentalizing others in response to power; dehumanizing others in response to threat; and simplifying others in response to general uncertainty. Supporting this account: When uncertainty about navigating women's subjectivity was salient, men showed increased sexual objectification to the extent that they desired successful interactions with women (Study 1) and were primed to view such interactions as self-esteem relevant (Study 2). In a workplace scenario, participants made uncertain about their managerial ability felt less confident about their ability to navigate employees' subjectivity and, consequently, role-objectified employees (Study 3).     

Competitive victimhood as a response to accusations of ingroup harm doing

Accusations of unjust harm doing by the ingroup threaten the group's moral identity. One strategy for restoring ingroup moral identity after such a threat is competitive victimhood: claiming the ingroup has suffered compared with the harmed outgroup. Men accused of harming women were more likely to claim that men are discriminated against compared with women (Study 1), and women showed the same effect when accused of discriminating against men (Study 3). Undergraduates engaged in competitive victimhood with university staff after their group was accused of harming staff (Study 2). Study 4 showed that the effect of accusations on competitive victimhood among high-status group members is mediated by perceived stigma reversal: the expectation that one should feel guilty for being in a high-status group. Exposure to a competitive victimhood claim on behalf of one's ingroup reduced stigma reversal and collective guilt after an accusation of ingroup harm doing (Study 5).     

The curious case of the refrigerator-TV: similarity and hybridization

This article examines the role of similarity in the hybridization of concepts, focusing on hybrid products as an applied test case. Hybrid concepts found in natural language, such as singer songwriter, typically combine similar concepts, whereas dissimilar concepts rarely form hybrids. The hybridization of dissimilar concepts in products such as jogging shoe mp3 player and refrigerator TV thus poses a challenge for understanding the process of conceptual combination. It is proposed that models of conceptual combination can throw light on the judged future success and desirability of hybrid products in general. The composite prototype model proposes two stages of conceptual combination. In the first stage, the concepts are aggregated into an additive hybrid, simply by forming the union of the two sets of attributes. In the second stage, any conflicting attributes are identified and resolved, often with the introduction of emergent attributes, resulting in an integrative hybrid. Across four studies that varied the similarity and type of hybrid products, similar and integrative hybrids were valued more than dissimilar and additive hybrids. Critically, though, dissimilar hybrids were also highly valued if they were integrative. Results supported the two stages proposed by the composite prototype model, and implications for other models of hybrid formation are discussed.     

Integrative and semantic relations equally alleviate age-related associative memory deficits

Two experiments compared effects of integrative and semantic relations between pairs of words on lexical and memory processes in old age. Integrative relations occur when two dissimilar and unassociated words are linked together to form a coherent phrase (e.g., horse-doctor). In Experiment 1, older adults completed a lexical-decision task where prime and target words were related either integratively or semantically. The two types of relation both facilitated responses compared to a baseline condition, demonstrating that priming can occur in older adults with minimal preexisting associations between primes and targets. In Experiment 2, young and older adults completed a cued recall task with integrative, semantic, and unrelated word pairs. Both integrative and semantic pairs showed significantly smaller age differences in associative memory compared to unrelated pairs. Integrative relations facilitated older adults' memory to a similar extent as semantic relations despite having few preexisting associations in memory. Integratability of stimuli is therefore a new factor that reduces associative deficits in older adults, most likely by supporting encoding and retrieval mechanisms.