Abstract
There is a paucity of research on how psychopathy relates to decision-making. In this study, we assessed the relationship between affective decision-making and psychopathic personality. A sample of prisoners (n=49) was characterized in terms of psychopathic traits using the Psychopathic Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV). Decision-making was assessed using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). Higher levels of psychopathy related to more advantageous choices (p =.003). Also counter-intuitively, higher levels of antisocial traits (facet 4) predicted advantageous choices during the learning phase of the task (p =.004). Our findings suggest that some psychopathic facets may be more relevant to decisionmaking under risk, and highlight the importance of further investigations considering facet and trait-level relationships with decision-making
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 134-144 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Psychiatry, Psychology and Law |
Volume | 22 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2 Jan 2015 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Cognition
- Decision-making
- Executive function
- Learning
- Personality disorder/ antisocial personality disorder
- Prisoners