Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Relationship between Psychopathic Traits and Facial Emotion Recognition in a Naturalistic Photo Set

  • Published:
Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A body of research has examined how psychopathic personality traits may be related to the recognition of emotional facial expressions, and results have been mixed. The present study used a new set of naturalistic, non-posed photos of emotional facial expressions to examine the relationships between accuracy for facial emotion categorization and psychopathic traits in a sample of incarcerated men. In addition, intellectual functioning was measured and examined in relation to categorization accuracy. Results revealed that both psychopathic traits and intellectual functioning were predictive of accuracy for categorization of emotional expressions. After controlling for intellectual functioning, Factor 1 (interpersonal and affective psychopathic traits) were negatively related to the accurate recognition of confusion and fear as well as total accuracy, and Factor 2 psychopathic traits (lifestyle and antisocial traits) were positively related to the accurate recognition of anger, confusion, disgust, and fear, as well as total accuracy. Intellectual functioning was positively related to the accurate recognition of confusion, disgust, sadness, surprise, and fear, as well as total accuracy. Results suggest that the two commonly measured factors of psychopathy are differentially related to emotion recognition, and that intellectual functioning plays an important part in the recognition of facial expressions and should be considered in relation to psychopathic traits in future studies of emotion recognition.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Data Availability

Available upon request.

Code Availability

Not applicable.

References

  • Andric, S., Maric, N. P., Mihaljevic, M., Mirjanic, T., & van Os, J. (2016). Familial covariation of facial emotion recognition and IQ in schizophrenia. Psychiatry Research, 246, 52–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2016.09.022.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bartlett, M. S., Littlewort, G., Frank, M. G., Lainscsek, C., Fasel, I. R., & Movellan, J. R. (2006). Automatic recognition of facial actions in spontaneous expressions. Journal of Multimedia, 1(6), 22–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bell, C. J., Colhoun, H. C., Frampton, C. M., Douglas, K. M., McIntosh, V. V. W., Carter, F. A., & Porter, R. J. (2017). Earthquake brain: Altered Recognition and Misclassification of Facial expressions are related to Trauma exposure but not posttraumatic stress disorder. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 8(278). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00278.

  • Blair, R., Morris, J. S., Frith, C. D., Perrett, D. I., & Dolan, R. J. (1999). Dissociable neural responses to facial expressions of sadness and anger. Brain, 122(5), 883–893.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Blair, R., Mitchell, D., Peschardt, K., Colledge, E., Leonard, R., Shine, J., & Perrett, D. (2004). Reduced sensitivity to others’ fearful expressions in psychopathic individuals. Personality and Individual Differences, 37(6), 1111–1122.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boone, K., Lu, P., & Herzberg, D. (2002). The dot counting test. Western Psychological Services.

  • Boraston, Z. L., Corden, B., Miles, L. K., Skuse, D. H., & Blakemore, S. J. (2008). Brief report: Perception of genuine and posed smiles by individuals with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 38(3), 574–580.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Calvo, M. G., & Nummenmaa, L. (2016). Perceptual and affective mechanisms in facial expression recognition: An integrative review. Cognition and Emotion, 30(6), 1081–1106. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2015.1049124.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cigna, M. H.; G., JP, & Renaud, P. (2017). Psychopathic traits and their relation to facial affect recognition. Personality and Individual Differences, 117, 210–215.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cooke, D. J., Michie, C., Hart, S. D., & Hare, R. D. (1999). Evaluating the Screening Version of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist—revised (PCL: SV): An item response theory analysis. Psychological Assessment, 11(1), 3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Craig, K. D., Hyde, S. A., & Patrick, C. J. (1991). Genuine, suppressed and faked facial behavior during exacerbation of chronic low back pain. Pain, 46(2), 161–171.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dawel, A., O’Kearney, R., McKone, E., & Palermo, R. (2012). Not just fear and sadness: Meta-analytic evidence of pervasive emotion recognition deficits for facial and vocal expressions in psychopathy. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 36(10), 2288–2304.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • DeLisi, M., Vaughn, M. G., Beaver, K. M., & Wright, J. P. (2010). The Hannibal Lecter myth: Psychopathy and verbal intelligence in the MacArthur violence risk assessment study. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 32(2), 169–177.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1975). Pictures of facial affect: Consulting Psychologists.

  • Hager, J. C., & Ekman, P. (1985). The asymmetry of facial actions is inconsistent with models of hemispheric specialization. Psychophysiology, 22(3), 307–318.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hare, R. D. (1991). The Hare psychopathy checklist-revised: Manual. Multi-Health Systems.

  • Hare, R. D. (1996). Psychopathy a clinical construct whose time has come. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 23(1), 25–54.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Hare, R. D. (2003). Manual for the Hare psychopathy checklist. Revised 2nd ed. Toronto, ON: Multi-Health Systems.

  • Harpur, T. J., Hakstian, A. R., & Hare, R. D. (1988). Factor structure of the psychopathy checklist. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 56(5), 741.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hart, S. D., Cox, D. N., & Hare, R. D. (1995). The Hare psychopathy checklist: Screening version (PCL: SV). MSH-Multi-Health Systems.

  • Hastings, M. E., Tangney, J. P., & Stuewig, J. (2008). Psychopathy and identification of facial expressions of emotion. Personality and Individual Differences, 44(7), 1474–1483.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Horning, S. M., Cornwell, R. E., & Davis, H. P. (2012). The recognition of facial expressions: An investigation of the influence of age and cognition. Aging Neuropsychology and Cognition, 19(6), 657–676. https://doi.org/10.1080/13825585.2011.645011.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Igoumenou, A., Harmer, C. J., Yang, M., Coid, J. W., & Rogers, R. D. (2017). Faces and facets: The variability of emotion recognition in psychopathy reflects its affective and antisocial features. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 126(8), 1066–1076. https://doi.org/10.1037/abn0000293.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kosson, D. S., Suchy, Y., Mayer, A. R., & Libby, J. (2002). Facial affect recognition in criminal psychopaths. Emotion, 2(4), 398.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Marsh, A. A., & Blair, R. J. R. (2008). Deficits in facial affect recognition among antisocial populations: A meta-analysis. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 32(3), 454–465.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Palermo, R., Jeffery, L., Lewandowsky, J., Fiorentini, C., Irons, J. L., Dawel, A., & Rhodes, G. (2018). Adaptive face coding contributes to individual differences in facial expression recognition independently of affective factors. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 44(4), 503–517. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000463.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Patrick, C. (2010). Triarchic psychopathy measure (TriPM). PhenX Toolkit Online assessment catalog.

  • Prado, C. E., Treeby, M. S., & Crowe, S. F. (2015). Examining relationships between facial emotion recognition, self-control, and psychopathic traits in a non-clinical sample. Personality and Individual Differences, 80, 22–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richter, D., Dietzel, C., & Kunzmann, U. (2011). Age differences in emotion recognition: The task matters. Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 66(1), 48–55. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbq068

  • Strand, P. S., Downs, A., & Barbosa-Leiker, C. (2016). Does facial expression recognition provide a toehold for the development of emotion understanding? Developmental Psychology, 52(8), 1182.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tottenham, N., Tanaka, J. W., Leon, A. C., McCarry, T., Nurse, M., Hare, T. A., & Nelson, C. (2009). The NimStim set of facial expressions: Judgments from untrained research participants. Psychiatry Research, 168(3), 242–249.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Veal, R., Critchley, C., Luebbers, S., Cossar, R., & Ogloff, J. R. P. (2021). Factor structure of the psychopathy checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV): A systematic review using narrative synthesis. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 43, 565–582. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-021-09877-0.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vitacco, M. J., Neumann, C. S., & Jackson, R. L. (2005). Testing a four-factor model of psychopathy and its association with ethnicity, gender, intelligence, and violence. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73(3), 466.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Vitacco, M. J., Neumann, C. S., & Wodushek, T. (2008). Differential relationships between the dimensions of psychopathy and intelligence: Replication with adult jail inmates. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 35(1), 48–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vitale, J., Kosson, D. S., Resch, Z., & Newman, J. P. (2018). Speed-accuracy tradeoffs on an affective lexical decision task: Implications for the affect regulation theory of psychopathy. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 40(3), 412–418. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-018-9652-z.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walters, G. D., Gray, N. S., Jackson, R. L., Sewell, K. W., Rogers, R., Taylor, J., & Snowden, R. J. (2007). A taxometric analysis of the psychopathy checklist: Screening Version (PCL: SV): Further evidence of dimensionality. Psychological Assessment, 19(3), 330.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wechsler, D., & Hsiao-pin, C. (2011). WASI-II: Wechsler abbreviated scale of intelligence: Pearson.

  • Wilson, K., Juodis, M., & Porter, S. (2011). Fear and loathing in psychopaths: A meta-analytic investigation of the facial affect recognition deficit. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 38(7), 659–668.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu, T., & Barnes, J. (2013). Two dopamine receptor genes (DRD2 and DRD4) predict psychopathic personality traits in a sample of American adults. Journal of Criminal Justice, 41(3), 188–195.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

None.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

    Rheanna J. Remmel, Andrea L. Glenn & Rachel L. Attya

  2. Center for Youth Development and Intervention, Department of Psychology, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

    Andrea L. Glenn

Authors
  1. Rheanna J. Remmel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Andrea L. Glenn
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Rachel L. Attya
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Rheanna J. Remmel, Andrea L. Glenn or Rachel L. Attya.

Ethics declarations

Ethics Approval

The study was approved by the university IRB where the study was conducted.

Competing Interests

We report no competing interests.

Consent to Participate

Informed consent was obtained from all participants.

Consent for Publication

All authors provide consent for publication.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary Material 1

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Remmel, R., Glenn, A. & Attya, R. The Relationship between Psychopathic Traits and Facial Emotion Recognition in a Naturalistic Photo Set. J Psychopathol Behav Assess (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-024-10129-0

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-024-10129-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation