Examining the relationships between sub-clinical psychopathic traits with shame,guilt and externalisation response tendencies to everyday transgressions |
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Authors: | Catherine E. Prado Matt S. Treeby |
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Affiliation: | School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia |
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Abstract: | Although many theories of psychopathy include reference to some form of emotional deficit, surprisingly little research has examined the relationships between psychopathic traits and important self-conscious moral emotions such as shame and guilt. The present study sought to examine these relationships in a sub-clinical sample, taking into account the important theoretical differences between the two emotions. Participants (N = 739) completed a measure of psychopathic traits and a measure of self-conscious affect style. Both primary and secondary psychopathic traits were found to be inversely related to guilt-proneness; however, the effect size was greater for primary psychopathic traits. Primary psychopathic traits were unrelated to shame-proneness, while secondary psychopathic traits were positively related to shame-proneness. Both primary and secondary traits were positively related to externalisation; however the effect size was greater for primary over secondary traits. The findings provide support for affective differences between psychopathy variants. |
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Keywords: | Psychopathic traits guilt shame self-conscious emotions primary psychopathy secondary psychopathy |
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