Social decision-making in highly psychopathic offenders – A systematic literature review

TY - JOUR

T1 - Social decision-making in highly psychopathic offenders – A systematic literature review

AU - Hauser, Nicole

AU - Hollerbach, Pia

AU - Habermeyer, Elmar

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Despite their decisions to frequently manipulate or even callously harm others in real life, highly psychopathic individuals often exhibit judgments comparable to individuals low in psychopathy when examined experimentally. This conundrum has generated a rich body of studies exploring social decision-making in psychopathy, but no systematic review to date has identified decision-making as measured in real-world or simulated social interactions in criminal offender samples assessed for psychopathic traits. Out of 807 studies provided by database searching in August 2022, 16 studies were included in this review and revealed behavioral economic games and paradigms for the assessment of aggressive behavior as the two main approaches to dissect social decision-making in offender samples regarding psychopathy. The specific paradigms exposed the multidimensional structure of both, the psychopathy construct and social decision-making. On one side, the distinct affordances of the social tasks, such as trust, power, or reactions to unfairness and provocation shed light on the inconsistent relations of decisions in experimental situations and psychopathy. On the other side, studies analyzing decision outcomes with respect to the distinct psychopathy subcomponents revealed nuanced interference effects with the social decision tasks. The review encourages a differentiated perspective to the psychopathy construct and social decision-making processes alike.

AB - Despite their decisions to frequently manipulate or even callously harm others in real life, highly psychopathic individuals often exhibit judgments comparable to individuals low in psychopathy when examined experimentally. This conundrum has generated a rich body of studies exploring social decision-making in psychopathy, but no systematic review to date has identified decision-making as measured in real-world or simulated social interactions in criminal offender samples assessed for psychopathic traits. Out of 807 studies provided by database searching in August 2022, 16 studies were included in this review and revealed behavioral economic games and paradigms for the assessment of aggressive behavior as the two main approaches to dissect social decision-making in offender samples regarding psychopathy. The specific paradigms exposed the multidimensional structure of both, the psychopathy construct and social decision-making. On one side, the distinct affordances of the social tasks, such as trust, power, or reactions to unfairness and provocation shed light on the inconsistent relations of decisions in experimental situations and psychopathy. On the other side, studies analyzing decision outcomes with respect to the distinct psychopathy subcomponents revealed nuanced interference effects with the social decision tasks. The review encourages a differentiated perspective to the psychopathy construct and social decision-making processes alike.

U2 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2022.101797

DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2022.101797

M3 - SCORING: Review article

VL - 68

JO - AGGRESS VIOLENT BEH

JF - AGGRESS VIOLENT BEH

SN - 1359-1789

M1 - 101797

ER -