Abstract:
Background: Psychopathy is a personality disorder underpinned by three dominant dimensions including grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, and daring-impulsive traits. Although there is some evidence of a specific deficit in processing facial emotional cues (Blair, 1999), it is not known whether those with psychopathic traits have a deficit in searching for certain faces in a crowd (e.g., angry, happy). Moreover, it is unknown whether psychopathic individuals’ affective state may impact their ability to locate discrepant facial expressions. Method: Forty-four adolescents completed self-report measures of psychopathy and affect and completed a computer task that displayed a discrepant face-in-a-crowd. Results: Psychopathy and its underpinning factors did not exhibit a significant relationship with the ability to locate a discrepant facial affective expression. However, positive affect did moderate the relation between grandiose-manipulative traits and the processing of happy faces. Implications and limitations are discussed. Conclusion: Psychopathy and one’s current affective state do not appear to result in diminished capacity to efficiently locate a discrepant face in a crowd; however, positive affect may impact GM traits and the identification of happy faces. Keywords: psychopathy; facial affect; positive emotion; juvenile offenders
