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Psychopathy and Physiological Responses to Threat of an Aversive Stimulus
Author(s) -
Hare Robert D.,
Frazelle Janice,
Cox David N.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.1978.tb01356.x
Subject(s) - psychopathy , psychology , stimulus (psychology) , anticipation (artificial intelligence) , aversive stimulus , developmental psychology , inter rater reliability , audiology , clinical psychology , rating scale , personality , social psychology , cognitive psychology , medicine , artificial intelligence , computer science
Physiological activity was monitored while 64 prison inmates awaited delivery of a 120dB tone during a 12‐sec “count‐down” procedure. The inmates were divided into four groups on the basis of global ratings of psychopathy (interrater reliability = .86) and scores on the Socialization ( So ) scale. Twelve inmates in the group considered to be most psychopathic (high ratings of psychopathy and low So scores) showed larger increases in heart rate and smaller increases in electrodermal activity in anticipation of the tone than did 20 inmates in the group considered to be least psychopathic (low ratings of psychopathy and high So scores). These findings were consistent with those of several previous studies, and were interpreted as a reflection of an association between psychopathy and the operation of efficient mechanisms for coping with threat.