Psychopathic callousness and perspective taking in pain processing: an ERP study

Abstract

Psychopathy is a multifaceted personality disorder characterized by distinct affective/interpersonal traits, including callousness-unemotionality/meanness, which are often considered the hallmarks of empathic deficits. It has been posited that the processing of others’ pain could play an important role in empathy capabilities. This study aimed to investigate the influence of perspective taking on electrocortical responses during pain processing in relation to psychopathic callousness. The Late Positive Potential (LPP) —a well-established electrophysiological indicator of sustained attention to motivationally significant stimuli— was measured while 100 female undergraduates viewed images depicting bodily injuries while adopting an imagine-self or an imagine-other perspective. Callousness factor scores —computed as regression-based component scores from EFA on three relevant self-report measures of this dimension— predicted reduced LPP amplitudes to pain pictures under the imagine-other (but not imagine-self) perspective, even after controlling for other LPP conditions. This result suggests that high-callous individuals exhibit diminished brain responsiveness to others’ distress, potentially contributing to the empathic deficits observed in psychopathy. This finding highlights the usefulness of the LPP and perspective taking in studies on pain processing to refine our understanding of the low empathy characteristics of psychopathy in biobehavioral terms.