Aggressive and psychopathic traits are linked to the acquisition of stable but imprecise hostile expectations

Sex as a moderator in the associations between psychopathy facets and aggressiveness

Introduction

Psychopathy reliably predicts aggression, making it valuable for violence prevention. However, research on sex differences within the 4-facet model, which includes affective, interpersonal, lifestyle, and antisocial facets of psychopathy, is limited, especially among high-risk community samples.

Methods

This study examined sex differences in the psychopathy facets associated with anger, hostility, and aggression among 419 (Mage = 32.6, 72% male) violently injured adults. Studying high-risk, non-institutionalized individuals offers unique insights into the link between psychopathy and aggression, particularly in real-word context where institutional influences are absent. Participants completed the Self-Report Psychopathy and Aggression Questionnaire.

Results

Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that all four facets predicted physical and proactive aggression; affective, lifestyle, and antisocial facets were related to reactive aggression; and affective and lifestyle facets were related to anger, hostility, and verbal aggression. Sex moderated relations between psychopathy facets and anger and hostility. Specifically, the affective facet was associated with anger and hostility for males but not for females. The lifestyle facet was associated with anger and hostility for males and females, but the effect was stronger for females.

Discussion

The findings indicate that the four-facet model relates to aggressive emotions and cognition differently for males and females, while demonstrating consistency in physical and verbal aggression. Recognizing that psychopathic anger and hostility are sex-specific can improve violence interventions tailored to males and females.

Exploring when to exploit: the cognitive underpinnings of foraging-type decisions in relation to psychopathy

Impairments in reinforcement learning (RL) might underlie the tendency of individuals with elevated psychopathic traits to behave exploitatively, as they fail to learn from their mistakes. Most studies on the topic have focused on binary choices, while everyday functioning requires us to learn the value of multiple options. In this study, we evaluated the cognitive correlates of naturalistic foraging-type decision-making and their electrophysiological signatures in a community sample (n = 108) with varying degrees of psychopathic traits. Reinforcers with different salience were included in a foraging-type decision-making task. Recruitment of various cognitive processes was estimated with a computational model and electrophysiology, and the relationships to psychopathic traits were assessed. Higher Antisocial traits were associated with a bias towards expecting more volatility in the environment when high-salience reinforcers were used. Additionally, higher levels of Interpersonal traits were associated with reduced learning from personalized rewards, as evidenced by reductions in the prediction errors (PEs) about rate of change. Higher Affective traits were associated with lower PEs and aberrant learning from painful punishments. Lastly, the PEs about rate of change were reflected in the trial-wise trajectories of Feedback-Related Negativity event-related potentials. Together, our results point to the importance of volatility processing in understanding aberrant decision-making in relation to psychopathy, demonstrate the relationships between psychopathic traits and learning through reward and punishment, and emphasise the potentially more beneficial effect of personalized rewards and punishment for improving reinforcement-based decision-making in individuals with elevated psychopathic traits.

Neural correlates of aggression outcome expectation and their association with aggression: A voxel-based morphometry study

BACKGROUND

Aggression outcome expectation is an important cognitive factor of aggression. Discovering the neural mechanism of aggression outcome expectation is conducive to developing aggression research. However, the neural correlates underlying aggression outcome expectation and its effect remain elusive.

METHODS

We utilized voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to unravel the neural architecture of aggression outcome expectation measured by the Social Emotional Information Processing Assessment for Adults and its relationship with aggression measured by the Buss Perry Aggression Questionnaire in a sample of 185 university students (114 female; mean age = 19.94 ± 1.62 years; age range: 17-32 years).

RESULTS

We found a significantly positive correlation between aggression outcome expectation and the regional gray matter volume (GMV) in the right middle temporal gyrus (MTG) (x = 55.5, y = -58.5, z = 1.5; t = 3.35; cluster sizes = 352, p < 0.05, GRF corrected). Moreover, aggression outcome expectation acted as a mediator underlying the association between the right MTG volume and aggression.

CONCLUSIONS

These results revealed the neural correlates of aggression outcome expectation and its effect on aggression for the first time, which may contribute to our understanding of the cognitive neural mechanism of aggression and potentially identifying neurobiological markers for aggression.