Psychopathy

While there is an inherent appeal in studying the dark side of humanity, our approach to the study of psychopathy bridges the continuum of dysfunctional (i.e., criminal) to functional behaviours.

how we study psychopathy in our lab

Within the PERPLab, our approach frequently involves studying how the presence of psychopathic traits influences various emotional and behavioural tasks, such as emotion production and recognition, decision-making, memory, risk-taking, and coercion.

feature studies

Reach out to us for more information on any of these areas of research!

Use & Interpretation of Sexual Coercion

Patterns & strategies of sexual coercion
Trait differences in forms of coercion
Differences in interpretation of coercion
Levels and type of coercion and how they are viewed by high trait groups

Risk Taking Behaviours & Gender

Types of risk taking behaviours (domains)
High/low psychopathic trait differences
Binary gender + psychopathic trait levels specific to certain domains of risk
Risky behaviours in undergraduates

Emotional Expressions & Recognition

Differences in expressions of emotion
Evaluation of emotion recognition
Use of Facial Action Coding System (FACS)
Emotional influences on court judgments

Empathy, Morality & Decision-Making

Moral decision making problems
Application of cognitive/affective empathy
Psychopathic trait levels & a 'mask of morality' in judgments

Memory Processes & Attention

Misinformation effect paradigms
Memory for emotionally valenced scenes
Evaluation of attentional narrowing
Memory for gory scenes & details

Prosocial Behaviours

Heroic versus everyday & costly helping
Priming of prosocial behaviour
Psychopathic trait associations
Self versus other-oriented strategies
Comparison of word v action responses

The PERPLab also participates in opportunities to educate people about psychopathy, and the different ways it has been viewed over the years. Check out our poster on Historical and Modern Conceptualizations of Psychopathy from Deviant to Functional that was presented at Cheiron in June 2019!

06142019 Unscrupulous (Cheiron) V4.pptx

future research directions

We have a number of continuing / forthcoming studies and areas of interest in relation to psychopathy, as indicated below. Please contact us if you are interested in working with us in one of these areas.

Emotional versus Cognitive Empathy

Altruism & Prosocial Behaviour

Perceptions and Judgments by Psychopaths

Victim Selection & Vulnerability

stay tuned for these & other research developments!

Report abuse