Center for Psychosocial Medicine, Institute for Sex Research, Sexual Medicine, and Forensic Psychiatry, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistr. 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany.
Social and Emotional Neuroscience Group, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Center of Psychosocial Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2024 May 23;14(1):11832. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-62438-9.
There is an ongoing debate about anxiety deficits in psychopathy and their possible impact on individual behavior. Data on actual anxiety- and threat-related behavior associated with psychopathy is still limited. We performed a mixed reality study using the elevated plus-maze (EPM) in a non-clinical sample (N = 160) to test anxiety-related behavior in relation to psychopathic personality traits measured through the Brief Questionnaire of Psychopathic Personality Traits (FPP). The psychopathy sum score correlated significantly with all measures of anxiety-related behavior on the EPM. Sensation seeking, but not general levels of acrophobia was moreover associated with psychopathic traits. Multivariate analyses revealed that the subscales Fearlessness and Lack of Empathy of the FPP predicted anxious behavior. Our findings are the first to demonstrate the relationship between psychopathic traits and actual behavior in an anxiety-inducing environment. This supports the low-anxiety hypothesis in psychopathy research. Implications for potentially harmful or risky behavior are discussed.
关于精神病态中的焦虑缺陷及其对个体行为可能产生的影响，一直存在争议。与精神病态相关的实际焦虑和威胁相关行为的数据仍然有限。我们在非临床样本（N=160）中使用高架十字迷宫（EPM）进行了混合现实研究，以测试与通过Brief Questionnaire of Psychopathic Personality Traits（FPP）测量的精神病态人格特质相关的焦虑相关行为。精神病态总分与 EPM 上所有焦虑相关行为的测量值显著相关。此外，感觉寻求而不是一般性的恐高症与精神病态特征有关。多元分析表明，FPP 的无畏和缺乏同理心两个分量表可以预测焦虑行为。我们的研究结果首次证明了在引起焦虑的环境中，精神病态特征与实际行为之间的关系。这支持了精神病态研究中的低焦虑假说。讨论了潜在的有害或危险行为的影响。
