1. The Influence of Psychopathy on Third Party Assignment of Blame
Jamie T. Byas, B.A., & Twila Wingrove, Ph.D.
Appalachian State University
Note about size: When I opened the file, it was set to a weird size (18x19), which is incorrect. It should be 36 x 48. I fixed it, but we should double-check this before we send it to Carol.
Note about colors: The color choices are fine, but overall the poster is going to use way too much ink. It’ll come off the printer with the paper wet, which means the colors are likely to run or strip and the paper will dry weird. We need to cut way back on color.
Note about logos: Did you use the logos found on the communications website? The one on the left looks distorted, which is less likely to happen if you use the official files because they are set up to adjust better. Also, I don’t even see it as an option for the official logos. The one on the right doesn’t look as distorted but you can get from the communications website with a transparent background, so then it doesn’t look so blocky.
Made minor changes to background; no changes to abstract
Methods:
I did more stuff here.
Do I need to double-check the numbers for participants?
The scales for blame, responsibility need to be outlined better; the scale for all the items on the correlation table should be clear
Do you know if we ever ran Cronback alphas for these scales? If you don’t, I’ll assume no. I can run them and add them in, just remind me with the next draft.
Do higher scores on Levenson indicate higher/lower traits? Scale information?
Abstract
Results and Discussion
This study sought to explore the influence of primary and secondary psychopathic traits on third party blame attribution. Participants were given an ambiguous sexual assault scenario in which they were asked to assign blame and responsibility to either the woman, man, or both. The results indicated a significant relationship between primary psychopathy and blame and responsibility assignment, while no relationship was found for secondary psychopathy. Future research should further explore these relationships using less ambiguous scenarios in various settings, rather than just sexual assault. It is important to facilitate understanding of how psychopathic traits may influence culpability decisions in legal settings.
In line with our hypothesis, individuals high in primary psychopathic traits assigned greater responsibility to the woman when they were forced to use a sliding case. However, primary psychopathy was not related to blaming the woman or man when they rated each person independently. Because perspective taking involves empathy, individuals high in psychopathic traits may not be able to consider the woman or “victim’s” role in the scenario. On the other hand, perhaps they are taking the perspective of the man, who was the potential offender in the situation. Interestingly, secondary psychopathy was not related to culpability decisions or RMA. Contrary to previous literature, RMA was not related to primary or secondary psychopathic traits.
Methods
Participants: 350 MTurk respondents (Mage = 37, 59% female) paid $0.50
Procedure: Participants were asked to evaluate a sexual assault allegation and blame and responsibility for both the man and women described in each scenario.
Measures:
Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP): 26-item 1(strongly disagree) - 5(strongly agree) Likert scale. There are two subscales, primary and secondary. Three scores can be derived including the primary subscale, secondary subscale, and total scale scores, with higher scores indicating higher psychopathology.
Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale (IRMA): 22-item 1(strongly agree) - 5(strongly disagree) Likert scale. The total scale score was used here, with higher scores indicating greater rejection of rape myths.
Blame: Participants measured blame independently for both parties on 7-point scale, with higher scores indicating higher blame.
Responsibility: Participants assigned a percentage of responsibility to each party that added up to a total of 100%.
Background
Table 1: Correlations between Psychopathic Traits and Assignment of Blame/Responsibility, and Rape Myth Attitudes
Primary Psychopathic Traits: manipulativeness, lack of empathy, good intelligence, lack of remorse, genetic etiology
Secondary Psychopathic Traits: inadequately motivated anti- social behavior, impulsivity, lack of long-term goals, environmental etiology (Cleckley, 1941; Hare 2003).
Psychopathy and Empathy
In line with the idea that psychopathy entails a lack of empathy, some researchers have observed an inverse relationship between perspective taking and primary and secondary psychopathy (Glenn, Iyer, Graham, & Haidt, 2009).
Relevant to the current study, a positive relationship has been found between external attribution of blame and psychopathic traits.
A positive relationship between Rape Myth Attitudes (RMA) and psychopathic traits has also been identified in college samples (Watts, Bowes, Latzmanb, & Lilienfeld).
Primary Psychopathy
Secondary Psychopathy
Total Psychopathy M SD
Assignment of Responsibility to Erin
.31*
.10
.13*
45.13
18.93
Assignment of Responsibility to Jake
-.12*
-.07
-.11
53.40
19.33
Assignment of Blame to Erin
-.106
.01
-.06
4.00
1.79
Assignment of Blame to Jake
.08
.09
.11
4.14
Rape Myth Attitudes
-.02
81.13
18.08
33.76
22.08
55.05
9.29
6.41
14.22
Data Analysis
Future Directions
We ran correlational analyses of primary psychopathy, secondary psychopathy, evaluations of responsibility of the man and woman, evaluations of blame towards the man and woman, and rape myth attitudes.
The intentional ambiguous scenarios included in our study may have affected the perception of guilt, thus influencing individuals’ attribution of blame to the man and woman. Additionally, prior studies using various measures of psychopathy have found a positive relationship between RMA and psychopathic traits, indicating that there may be differences in how psychopathy is measured depending on the scale being used. Because mixed findings have been found regarding psychopathic traits and rape myth attitudes, further studies are needed to clarify this relationship. Future research should focus on the relationship between psychopathy and third party blame attribution, specifically on how these personality traits may influence culpability decisions in legal settings.
Hypotheses
Because primary psychopaths are more strongly characterized by an empathy deficit, we expected to find that their scores would be related to blaming, whereas we had no specific hypothesis about secondary psychopathy.
We expected total psychopathy scores to be positively and significantly related to Rape Myth Attitudes.