University of New Mexico and Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87106, USA.
Psychol Sci. 2010 Oct;21(10):1399-405. doi: 10.1177/0956797610384148. Epub 2010 Sep 20.
Psychopaths show a profound lack of morality and behavioral controls in the presence of intact general intellectual functioning. Two hallmarks of psychopathy are the persistent violation of social contracts (i.e., cheating) and chronic, impulsive risky behavior. These behaviors present a puzzle: Can psychopaths understand and reason about what counts as cheating or risky behavior in a particular situation? We tested incarcerated psychopaths' and incarcerated nonpsychopaths' reasoning about social contract rules, precautionary rules, and descriptive rules using the Wason selection task. Results were consistent with our hypotheses: Psychopaths (compared with matched nonpsychopaths) showed significant impairment on social contract rules and precautionary rules, but not on descriptive rules. These results cannot be accounted for by differences in intelligence, motivation, or general antisocial tendency. These findings suggest that examination of evolutionarily identified reasoning processes can be a fruitful research approach for identifying which specific mechanisms are impaired in psychopathy.
精神病患者在智力正常的情况下表现出严重的道德缺失和行为控制能力不足。精神病的两个特点是持续违反社会契约（即欺骗）和慢性、冲动的冒险行为。这些行为提出了一个难题：精神病患者能否理解和推理在特定情况下什么算作欺骗或冒险行为？我们使用瓦森选择任务测试了被监禁的精神病患者和非精神病患者对社会契约规则、预防规则和描述性规则的推理。结果与我们的假设一致：精神病患者（与匹配的非精神病患者相比）在社会契约规则和预防规则上表现出明显的障碍，但在描述性规则上没有。这些结果不能用智力、动机或一般反社会倾向的差异来解释。这些发现表明，对进化确定的推理过程的研究可以成为一种富有成效的研究方法，以确定精神病中哪些特定机制受到损害。
