Assessment of emotional detachment in psychopathy via self-report and an emotion detection task [Elektronische Ressource] / vorgelegt von Hedwig Eisenbarth

Hedwig Eisenbarth

Sujets

• Gesundheit

Informations

• Publié par: julius-maximilians-universitat_wurzburg
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 8
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Assessment of emotional detachment in psychopathy via
self-report and an emotion detection task



Inaugural-Dissertation
zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der
Philosophischen Fakultät II
der
Bayerischen Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg

Vorgelegt von
Hedwig Eisenbarth
aus Passau




Würzburg
Juni 2008

















Erstgutachter:
Professor Dr. Paul Pauli, Universtät Würzburg, Deutschland

Zweitgutachter:
Professor Dr. Alessandro Angrilli, Università degli Studi di Padova, Italia


Datum des Kolloquiums: __05.Juni 2008____

Acknowledgements
First of all I would like to thank my supervisors Prof. Dr. Paul Pauli, who en-
abled me to realize this research at his department at the University of Wuerzburg
and who constantly supported me in theoretical and methodological questions, Prof.
Dr. Allessandro Angrilli, who gave me the opportunity to conduct the study in the
second empirical part of this thesis and significantly contributed to the development
of the study as well as to the writing of the thesis, and especially PD Dr. Georg W.
Alpers, who initially promoted my research interest, supported me throughout all of
the studies as well as constantly inspired and encouraged me in conducting the stud-
ies comprising this thesis. I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Dr. Heinz
Schuler, Dalia Segrè and Annette Conzelmann who contributed to data collection, as
well as all patients, students and control group persons for their very kind participa-
tion. Furthermore, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to be supported by the
Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung for my PhD project. This gave me the opportunity to focus
on research and to travel to Italy for data collection. I would like to thank Dr. Andreas
Redel who supported my work throughout the whole period and also contributed to
correction of the thesis. I also appreciate the psychic and professional support by my
office colleagues Antje Gerdes, Matthias Wieser and Markus Winkler. Last but not
least I thank my parents and my family who gave me the opportunity to study psy-
chology, to do the doctorate and who supported me throughout this education.



“Der moralisch Anästhetische kennt ganz gut die Moralgesetze, er sieht
sie, aber er fühlt sie nicht, und deshalb handelt er auch nicht danach.”
F. Scholz (in Schneider, 1928)
















“The immoral anesthetic knows well the moral laws, he is aware of them,
but he does not feel them, that’s why he does not act according to them.”
F. Scholz (in Schneider, 1928)
5

Zusammenfassung
Das Persönlichkeitskonstrukt Psychopathie rückt in der wissenschaftlichen Li-
teratur zunehmend in den Vordergrund, jedoch liegen bisher nur wenige Daten zur
Ausprägung von Psychopathie in nicht-straffälligen und weiblichen Populationen vor.
In dieser Arbeit wird die Emotionale Distanziertheit als ein Symptom von Psychopa-
thie in der Normalbevölkerung sowie in Patienten- und Straffälligenpopulationen un-
tersucht.
Nach der Überprüfung der Validität des Psychopathy Personality Inventory
Revised (PPI-R) bezüglich der Messung von emotionaler Distanziertheit wurde die
Sensitivität des Fragebogens hinsichtlich emotionaler Distanziertheit nachgewiesen.
Zudem konnte gezeigt werden, dass anhand von Emotionaler Distanziertheit Auf-
merksamkeitsdefizits- und Hyperaktivitätssymptome von psychopathischen Eigen-
schaften unterschieden werden können. Diese Ergebnisse bestätigen darüber hinaus
das Merkmal Emotionale Distanziertheit als ein Kernsymptom von Psychopathie.
Weiterhin wurden in einer Stichprobe forensisch-psychiatrischer Patientinnen
zwei Emotionserkennungsaufgaben durchgeführt. Im Vergleich zu gering psychopa-
thischen Patientinnen kategorisierten die hoch psychopathischen Patientinnen nur
gerade supraliminal präsentierte traurige Gesichtsausdrücke weniger korrekt, bewer-
teten aber die emotionalen Gesichtsausdrücke hinsichtlich Arousal als weniger emo-
tional bewegend.
Diese Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Emotionale Distanziertheit ein Kernsymptom
von Psychopathie ist, und auch in nicht-straffälligen und weiblichen straffälligen Po-
pulationen spezifisch ist. Das Merkmal kann sowohl anhand des PPI-R als auch an-
hand von Aufgaben zur Emotionserkennung gemessen werden.
6

Abstract
The personality construct of psychopathy is subject of growing research, but
data on psychopathy in female incarcerated and in non-institutionalized samples are
rare. In this thesis emotional detachment as one factor of psychopathy is investigated
in general population, in patients and in incarcerated samples.
After verifying the validity of the Psychopathy Personality Inventory Revised
(PPI-R) measuring emotional detachment, the sensitivity of the questionnaire con-
cerning emotional detachment has been proven. Additionally it has been shown that
symptoms of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder can be distinguished from
psychopathic traits by emotional detachment. In addition, these results confirm the
core role of the feature emotional detachment for psychopathy.
Furthermore, two emotion recognition tasks have been conducted in a criminal
female inpatients sample. Compared to the low psychopathic patients, the high
psychopathic patients showed deficits in categorization only in shortly presented sad
facial expressions, but rated emotional facial expressions as less arousing.
These results point to emotional detachment as a core characteristic of psy-
chopathy, and is specific even in non-incarcerated and female incarcerated samples.
It can be measured with the PPI-R as well as with emotion detection tasks.
CONTENTS 7

Contents
1 Introduction.......................................................................................11
2 Theoretical background...................................................................13
2.1 Psychopathy: a construct characterization.................13
2.1.1 Structure and epidemiology .......................................................................18
2.1.2 Etiology and behavioral correlates............................20
2.2 Measuring Psychopathy ................................................................................21
2.2.1 External rating of psychopathy ..................................................................21
2.2.2 Self report measures...................................................................................23
2.2.2.1 Psychopathy Personality Inventory.............................24
2.2.2.2 Other Self-Report Measures.......................................................................26
2.3 Psychopathy in women..................28
2.4 Correlates of emotion processing in psychopathy .....................................29
2.4.1 Psychophysiological correlates.................................30
2.4.2 Cortical structure and activation................................31
2.4.3 Decoding emotional facial expressions ....................................................33
3 Empirical part I: Emotional detachment in the PPI-R...................35
3.1 Study 1.............................................................................................................40
CONTENTS 8

3.1.1 Hypotheses ..................................................................................................40
3.1.2 Method..........40
3.1.2.1 Samples......................................................................................................40
3.1.2.2 Measures....42
3.1.2.2.1 German version of the Psychopathy Personality Inventory..................................42
3.1.2.2.2 Multiple-choice Vocabulary Test ........................................43
3.1.2.2.3 Kieler Psychopathie Inventar...............................................43
3.1.2.2.4 Saarbrücker Persönlichkeitsfragebogen...............................................................44
3.1.2.3 Procedure...................................................................44
3.1.2.4 Statistical analyses .....................................................................................45
3.1.3 Results..........................................................................................................45
3.1.3.1 Convergent validity in the KPI-R.45
3.1.3.2 Convergent validity in the SPF ...................................................................47
3.2 Study 2.............................................50
3.2.1 Hypotheses ..................................................................................................50
3.2.2 Method..........50
3.2.2.1 Samples......................................................................................................50
3.2.2.2 Measures....52
3.2.2.3 Procedure.......................................................................