Deficient fear conditioning and self‐reported psychopathy: The role of fearless dominance

Abstract

The role of the two dimensions of psychopathy -dispositional fearlessness (theorized to reflect variations in reactivity of the brain's defensive system) and externalizing proneness (presumed to reflect variations in function of anterior regulatory systems)-in fear learning was examined in a sample of undergraduates assessed using the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R) who participated in a differential aversive conditioning task. Only scores on selfreported 'fearless dominance' -irrespective of scores on 'impulsive antisociality'-were related to diminished acquisition of physiological fear. Consistent with dual-process accounts of psychopathy proposing divergent etiological pathways for the interpersonal/affective and the social deviance features of the disorder, our results lend support to the existence of a deficit in reactivity of the brain's defensive system underlying the fearlessness dimension of psychopathy.

A Pilot Study on the Effectiveness of a Heat-Pain Stimulus to Induce Pain, Anxiety, and Fear

“…Surprisingly, a few correlations were found between FD scores and higher levels of initial pain catastrophizing and fear-related variables, along with higher subjective painfulness. These results are inconsistent with the wellestablished notion of a lack of fear in FD (Fowles & Dindo, 2009;Hale, Goldstein, Abramowitz, Calamari, & Kosson, 2004;López, Poy, Patrick, & Moltó, 2013). It is possible that these results stem from the limited number of participants.…”

Using the HEXACO Model of Personality to Test the Validity of the Durand Adaptive Psychopathic Traits Questionnaire

“…Related to the Emotionality factor, Fearfulness, Anxiety, and Dependence facets were negatively correlated to the DAPTQ, but not sentimentality. Multiple studies identified a link between PPI-I and resilience to fear and anxiety, alongside low emotional reactivity (López, Poy, Patrick, & Moltó, 2013;Uzieblo et al, 2010). Considering the strong association between PPI-I and the DAPTQ, these results support the capacity of the DAPTQ to assess adaptive traits closely related to the psychopathic personality (Durand, in press).…”

Deficient aversive-potentiated startle and the triarchic model of psychopathy: The role of boldness

“…The dualor two-process conceptualization posits that separate neural mechanisms differentially contribute to the affective-interpersonal and impulsive-antisocial components of psychopathy, namely, trait fearlessness, which reflects a deficit or under-reactivity of s aversive/defensive motivational system, and externalizing vulnerability, which reflects impairments in the frontocortical systems that mediate anticipation, planning, and inhibitory control (for empirical evidence, see, for example, Carlson, Thái, & McLarnon, 2009;Heritage & Benning, 2013;López, Poy, Patrick, & Moltó, 2013;Patrick, Durbin, & Moser, 2012;Patrick & Lang, 1999;Venables, Hall, Yancey, & Patrick, 2015). Consistent with this perspective, studies examining the differential contribution of psychopathy components to reduced startle potentiation have demonstrated that this deficit is specifically related to the interpersonal and affective features of psychopathy, but not to its externalizing features.…”