Of malevolence and morality: Psychopathy dimensions are conducive to helping in highly-distressing moral dilemmas due to greater focus on helping execution vs. consequences

Of malevolence and morality: Psychopathy dimensions are conducive to helping in highly-distressing moral dilemmas. Gregory K.Tortoriello, William Hart, Christopher J. Breeden. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 155, March 1 2020, 109759. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109759

Highlights
•    Psychopathy predicted greater self-reported helping in distressing moral dilemmas.
•    Greater focus on helping execution vs. consequences partially explained relations.
•    Psychopathy also predicted inducing greater distress in an ostensible partner.
•    This relation did not depend on whether distress was framed as helpful or harmful.
•    Meanness dimension of psychopathy generally produced the strongest effects.

Abstract: We proposed a context-dependent account of psychopathy and morality which argues that any psychopathy dimension―including those typically theorized to be maladaptive―can be conducive to helping others under appropriate contexts. In Study 1, a college sample (N = 331; Mage = 18.68) completed two-factor and Triarchic psychopathy measures and reported helping behavior, psychological distress, and task prioritization (i.e., greater attentional focus on helping execution vs. helping consequences) after simulating highly-distressing moral dilemmas. In Study 2, a college sample (N = 256; Mage = 18.55) completed the same psychopathy measures and selected one of five intervention tasks—incrementally ranging from slightly to extremely distress-inducing—for an ostensible phobic to perform under conditions in which more distressing tasks were framed as either helpful or harmful. In Study 1, psychopathy dimensions were related to greater helping, which was generally explained best by greater task prioritization. In Study 2, psychopathy dimensions generally related to selecting more distressing tasks for the phobic, even when more distressing tasks were framed as helpful. Thus, psychopathy dimensions appeared conducive to helping in highly-distressing moral dilemmas. Findings contribute preliminary empirical support for a context-dependent account and the possibility of moral manifestations within psychopathy.


7.3. General discussion

A context-dependent account of psychopathy and morality argues
that behavioral manifestations of psychopathy (e.g., causing others
harms) can either be helpful or harmful to others depending on the
context. Across two studies, we obtained correlational (Study 1) and
experimental (Study 2) support for this account in the context of
helping others in various highly-distressing moral dilemmas. In Study 1,
Triarchic and two-factor dimensions of psychopathy were moderatelyto-
strongly related to greater self-reported helping across simulated,
highly-distressing moral dilemmas. In Study 2, participants scoring
higher in psychopathy dimensions generally selected more distressing
intervention tasks for an ostensible partner believed to be diagnosed
with a phobic disorder; however, we observed no strong or compelling
evidence that these effects depended on whether the distress was
framed as more or less effective for treating the partner's phobia. This
supports a context-dependence assumption which predicts that psychopathic
people cause others greater distress irrespective of when it is
framed as helpful or harmful for others, meaning that the context determines
the morality of this psychopathic expression. This assumption
is theoretically consistent with psychophysiological accounts which
posit that psychopathic people are less sensitive to processing distress
cues (Blair, 2007b; Glenn et al., 2009). Our account and findings,
however, offer a novel perspective by suggesting that reduced distress
sensitivity in psychopathy can sometimes confer prosocial benefits.

7.4. Explanations for a context-dependent account: evidence and theory

Study 1 illuminated some possible explanations for the relations
between psychopathy dimensions and greater helping that are theoretically
anticipated from a context-dependent account. Psychopathy dimensions
were related to reduced psychological distress and greater
task prioritization across highly-distressing moral dilemmas. The
former relations, however, were weaker for disinhibition and secondary
psychopathy relative to other dimensions, which is consistent with research
indicating that disinhibition and secondary psychopathy are less
immune to cognitive-affective expressions of distress compared to other
dimensions (e.g., Almeida et al., 2015; Lishner, Hong, Jiang, Vitacco &
Neumann, 2015). Of these two theoretically-inspired explanations,
greater task prioritization broadly fit the data better, such that it more
strongly mediated the relations between psychopathy dimensions and
greater helping. Indeed, reduced psychological distress either mediated
effects extremely weakly or not at all (i.e., secondary psychopathy). Our
data are congruous with a response-modulation hypothesis (Gorenstein
& Newman, 1980) which argues that psychopathic people have a
dominant response set impervious to peripheral cues. In the case of
highly-distressing moral dilemmas, psychopathic people may be better
equipped at focusing on helping task execution relative to adverse
helping consequences, which should promote greater helping.
In Study 2, evidence supporting a context-dependence assumption is
inconsistent with a harm-intent explanation. Indeed, the drive to harm
others has been an explanation for egregious and violent psychopathic
behavior (Porter & Woodworth, 2006), but we did not observe evidence
supporting a harm-intent hypothesis for effects in Study 2. In fact, although
the interaction coefficients between most psychopathy dimensions
and task effectiveness generally approached zero, the direction of
the interactions for secondary psychopathy (and less so for disinhibition)
suggested a possible contradiction of a harm-intent hypothesis
(i.e., more distressing tasks are selected when distress is framed as
helpful vs. harmful). This contradiction is consistent with research
suggesting that some socially-aversive behavior associated with psychopathy
manifests from lesser, not greater, harmful intent (Tortoriello,
Hart & Richardson, 2019).

7.5. Re-conceptualizing morality in psychopathy: a case for meanness

Investigations into the potential morality in psychopathy have been
constrained by assumptions of “successful psychopathy” models such as
dual-process (Hall & Benning, 2006) and differential-configuration accounts
(Lilienfeld et al., 2015). Essentially, these accounts assume that
certain dimensions of psychopathy are generally adaptive (e.g., boldness)
and other dimensions are generally maladaptive (e.g., meanness
and disinhibition). This assumption has inspired theses that the most
adaptive dimension(s) of psychopathy should be conducive to helping
others, whereas other, more maladaptive dimensions should inhibit
helping (e.g., Patton et al., 2018). While we generally agree that
boldness might have the most “generalizable” moral manifestations (at
least in Western cultures), we also maintain that the potential moral
behavior (e.g., helping) associated other psychopathy dimensions
should not be neglected.
Evidence across our studies corroborated this perspective. In addition
to boldness, primary psychopathy and meanness also revealed
evidence of greater helping across studies. In particular, and perhaps
even counterintuitively, one could argue that meanness―a dimension
that blends lack of concern for others and violence/aggression―could
be the best psychopathic candidate for helping others in highly-distressing
moral dilemmas. Although boldness and meanness were each
similarly related to greater helping across dilemmas in Study 1, evidence
suggests that meanness, relative to boldness, may have been
more strongly related to greater task prioritization―which predicted
helping―across dilemmas. In Study 2, the bcs regressing task selection
on meanness was nearly twice as large as that on boldness. In sum, in
highly-distressing moral dilemmas, meanness may rival boldness for its
prosocial consequences. Still, more broadly, the dimensions most emblematic
of interpersonal and affective features (boldness and primary
psychopathy) received moderate-to-strong overall support for a context-
dependent account, while dimensions most emblematic of lifestyle
and antisocial features (disinhibition and secondary psychopathy) received
relatively weaker support.
The novelty of a context-dependent account for understanding
moral manifestations of psychopathy should be considered in light of
other accounts of successful psychopathy. Our perspective has commonalities
with a moderated-expression account (e.g., Hall & Benning,
2006; Lilienfeld et al., 2015), which argues that successful expressions
of psychopathy are determined by moderating factors. However, one
criticism of this account is its focus on dispositional moderating factors
(Steinert, Lishner, Vitacco, & Hong, 2017), such as executive functioning
or conscientiousness. Interactions between psychopathy dimensions
and dispositional variables which theoretically oppose a
psychopathic constitution are less appealing for understanding moral
manifestations of psychopathy because they are fundamentally different
than theorized psychopathy. For example, psychopathy is
marked by low conscientiousness, so the combination of high conscientiousness
and high psychopathy no longer represents psychopathy
per se. A context-dependent account is robust to these issues because it
changes the implications of psychopathy, not its conceptual composition.
Indeed, an elaborated moderated-expression account (Steinert,
Lishner, Vitacco, & Hong, 2017) accommodates the possibility of situational
context as a moderator for determining moral manifestations
of psychopathy. Our research suggests that this perspective has promise.

7.6. Limitations and future directions

Self-report. Study 1 relied on a self-report methodology which is
susceptible to bias and erroneous responding. Also, Study 1 used simulations
of highly-distressing moral dilemmas, so the degree to which
psychopathic people could accurately simulate their internal psychological
states and, therefore, accurately report on their likely behavior
remains unknown. Although Study 2 partially addressed these limitations
by including a behavioral indicator of helping and devising a realworld
moral dilemma, an informant-reports study should be considered
because it addresses self-report bias, common method variance, and
limited ecological validity. An informant-reports methodology further
bestows the advantage of assessing helping effectiveness. Our evidence
only suggests that psychopathy dimensions are more conducive to
helping decision-making in highly-distressing moral dilemmas, not necessarily
that they are more conducive to better helping outcomes for
others. Nevertheless, we would not be surprised if the latter is also
supported, which would further augment a context-dependent account.
Restricted range of psychopathy scores. Data were derived from
college samples. As one consequence, “relatively high” scores on each
psychopathy dimension (i.e., one standard deviation above the mean)
failed to exceed the respective scale's midpoint, meaning that relatively
high scorers were not “absolutely” high scorers. This issue of restricted
ranges can result in the attenuation of observed effects, suggesting that
samples representing a more expansive range of scores on psychopathy
dimensions might yield stronger effects on helping outcomes. However,
how the observed effects actually manifest in clinical samples, wherein
scores on psychopathy dimensions are absolutely high, remains unknown.
Thus, we encourage future research to explore these issues.
Alternative explanations. We entertain the possibility that other
state-based explanations beyond greater task prioritization (and to a
lesser degree, reduced psychological distress) might exist. Indeed, relations
observed across studies between psychopathy dimensions and
greater helping could be explained by activated thrill-seeking motives
(Porter & Woodworth, 2006). This explanation is compatible with a
context-dependent account. Future research should consider testing
various theoretically-anticipated explanations using rigorous experimental
methodologies that are more receptive to drawing causal inferences
(e.g., manipulating a theorized mechanism). In this vein, future
research should also consider isolating the specific personality and
individual-difference constituents within psychopathy dimensions (e.g.,
lack of concern, tolerance for uncertainty) that might be driving the
observed relations.