Executive functions in psychopathy: A meta-analysis of inhibition, planning, shifting, and working memory performance

Burghart, Matthias; Schmidt, Sergej; Mier, Daniela

doi:10.31234/osf.io/naxvg

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…This reinforces the notion that psychopathy should not be viewed as a unitary construct, but rather as a constellation of distinct dimensions (Lilienfeld et al, 2012(Lilienfeld et al, , 2015. Focusing on psychopathy total scores alone may diminish true effects and lead to conflicting research findings (Burghart, Schmidt, et al, 2023).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 66%

Understanding Empathy Deficits and Emotion Dysregulation in Psychopathy: The Mediating Role of Alexithymia

Burghart¹,

Sahm²,

Schmidt³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Psychopathy is a severe personality disorder marked by a wide range of emotional deficits, including a lack of empathy, emotion dysregulation, and alexithymia. Previous research has largely examined these emotional impairments in isolation, ignoring their influence on each other. Thus, we examined the concurrent interrelationship between emotional impairments in psychopathy, with a particular focus on the mediating role of alexithymia. Using path analyses with data from a community sample (N = 315) and a forensic sample (N = 50), our results yielded a statistically significant mediating effect of alexithymia on the relationship between psychopathy and empathy (community and forensic) and between psychopathy and emotion dysregulation (community). Moreover, replacing psychopathy with its three dimensions (i.e., meanness, disinhibition, and boldness) in the community sample revealed that boldness may function as an adaptive trait, with lower levels of alexithymia counteracting deficits in empathy and emotion dysregulation. Overall, our findings indicate that psychopathic individuals’ limited understanding of their own emotions contributes to their lack of empathy and emotion dysregulation. This underscores the potential benefits of improving emotional awareness in the treatment of individuals with psychopathy.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 66%

Understanding Empathy Deficits and Emotion Dysregulation in Psychopathy: The Mediating Role of Alexithymia

Burghart¹,

Sahm²,

Schmidt³

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This reinforces the notion that psychopathy should not be viewed as a unitary construct, but rather as a constellation of distinct dimensions [ 94 , 95 ]. Focusing on psychopathy total scores alone may diminish true effects and lead to conflicting research findings [ 96 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding empathy deficits and emotion dysregulation in psychopathy: The mediating role of alexithymia

Burghart,

Sahm,

Schmidt

et al. 2024

PLoS ONE

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Psychopathy is a severe personality disorder marked by a wide range of emotional deficits, including a lack of empathy, emotion dysregulation, and alexithymia. Previous research has largely examined these emotional impairments in isolation, ignoring their influence on each other. Thus, we examined the concurrent interrelationship between emotional impairments in psychopathy, with a particular focus on the mediating role of alexithymia. Using path analyses with cross-sectional data from a community sample (N = 315) and a forensic sample (N = 50), our results yielded a statistically significant mediating effect of alexithymia on the relationship between psychopathy and empathy (community and forensic) and between psychopathy and emotion dysregulation (community). Moreover, replacing psychopathy with its three dimensions (i.e., meanness, disinhibition, and boldness) in the community sample revealed that boldness may function as an adaptive trait, with lower levels of alexithymia counteracting deficits in empathy and emotion dysregulation. Overall, our findings indicate that psychopathic individuals’ limited understanding of their own emotions contributes to their lack of empathy and emotion dysregulation. This underscores the potential benefits of improving emotional awareness in the treatment of individuals with psychopathy.

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“…Opportunities to improve our understanding of EF impairments are highlighted by adult meta-analysis discrepancies. For example, one meta-analyses indicates broader psychopathy factors for affective deficits (broadly CU related) have moderate to small decrements in inhibition (Gillespie et al, 2022) whereas another indicates only the broader antisocial factor (broadly CP related) associate with EF deficits (Burghart et al, 2023). There is substantial heterogeneity across studies included in these meta-analyses that limit cross-study inferences because, as Morgan and Lilienfeld (2000) state in their meta-analysis of EF in psychopathy, the mean effect does not properly represent the data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Executive function and underlying brain network distinctions for callous-unemotional traits and conduct problems in adolescents

Winters,

Dugré,

Sakai

et al. 2023

Preprint

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The complexity of executive function (EF) impairments in youth antisocial phenotypes of callous-unemotional (CU) traits and conduct problems (CP) challenge identifying phenotypic specific EF deficits. We can redress these challenges by (1) accounting for EF measurement error and (2) testing distinct functional brain properties accounting for differences in EF. Thus, we employed a latent modeling approach for EFs (inhibition, shifting, fluency, common EF) and extracted connection density from matching contemporary EF brain models with a sample of 112 adolescents (ages 13-17, 42% female). Path analysis indicated CU traits associated with lower inhibition. Inhibition network density positively associated with inhibition, but this association was strengthened by CU and attenuated by CP. Common EF associated with three-way interactions between density*CP by CU for the inhibition and shifting networks. This suggests those higher in CU require their brain to work harder for lower inhibition, whereas those higher in CP have difficulty engaging inhibitory brain responses. Additionally, those with CP interacting with CU show distinct brain patterns for a more general EF capacity. Importantly, modeling cross-network connection density in contemporary EF models to test EF involvement in core impairments in CU and CP may accelerate our understanding of EF in these phenotypes.

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Executive functions in psychopathy: A meta-analysis of inhibition, planning, shifting, and working memory performance

Cited by 7 publications

References 55 publications

Understanding Empathy Deficits and Emotion Dysregulation in Psychopathy: The Mediating Role of Alexithymia

Understanding Empathy Deficits and Emotion Dysregulation in Psychopathy: The Mediating Role of Alexithymia

Understanding empathy deficits and emotion dysregulation in psychopathy: The mediating role of alexithymia

Executive function and underlying brain network distinctions for callous-unemotional traits and conduct problems in adolescents

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