Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of psychopathic traits on punishment allocations and the motivations those higher in psychopathy use in their decisions to punish others. A previous study found that individuals higher in psychopathic traits were less retributive when punishing a murderer (Aharoni, Weintraub, & Fridlund, 2007). However, those higher in psychopathy have also been found to be more vengeful after a personal mistreatment (Book & Quinsey, 2004) and this emotional vengeance has been associated with more retributive punishments and increased support for capital punishment (McKee & Feather, 2008). Therefore it is unclear if those higher in psychopathy would punish more retributively than those lower in these traits. I examined the relationship between psychopathy and punishment allocations for a variety of crimes, and explored the influence of emotional vengeance on the relationship between psychopathic traits and punishment allocations. Participants provided prison-sentencing recommendations for a variety of criminal acts. Individuals scoring higher in psychopathy allocated less harsh punishments than those scoring lower in psychopathy but these effects were small. Individuals scoring higher in psychopathy also scored higher on vengeance, but vengeance did not moderate the relationship between psychopathic traits and punishments. Individuals higher in psychopathy reported being slightly less influenced by all types of motivations for punishment than those lower in psychopathy. Overall, more research is needed to examine what motivates those higher in psychopathy to punish others in criminal scenarios.
