Dataset Information

Fairness norm violations in anti-social psychopathic offenders in a repeated trust game.

ABSTRACT: Psychopathic offenders have a high propensity to violate social norms, as indicated for instance by their widespread lying and cheating behaviour. The reasons for their norm violations are not well understood, though, as they are able to recognise norms in a given situation and also punish norm violators. In this study, we investigated whether psychopathic offenders would violate fairness norms during a repeated trust game because of increased profit-maximising concerns. We measured back-transfer decisions in the repeated trust game, and affective arousal by means of skin conductance responses (SCR) in violent offenders with varying degrees of psychopathy, and non-offenders with low-trait psychopathy. Psychopathy in offenders was measured with the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). In the task, a participant and an interaction partner entrusted each other money for multiple rounds with the goal to earn as much money as possible. Fairness norm violations were positively associated with Factor 2 scores (the lifestyle/anti-social psychopathy subscale) of the PCL-R, but this was not accompanied by clear profit-maximising behaviour. In addition, anticipatory arousal to self-advantageous decisions was higher in all offenders, independent of their degree of psychopathy, compared with non-offenders. The results of our study widen our understanding of social decision-making in psychopathy. They also suggest treatment possibilities in offenders scoring high on Factor 2, targeting empathic concern and related prosocial intentions to overcome norm-violating behaviour.

SUBMITTER: Rosenberger LA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6803633 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Fairness norm violations in anti-social psychopathic offenders in a repeated trust game.

Rosenberger Lisa A LA Pfabigan Daniela M DM Lehner Benjamin B Keckeis Katinka K Seidel Eva-Maria EM Eisenegger Christoph C Lamm Claus C

Translational psychiatry 20191021 1

Psychopathic offenders have a high propensity to violate social norms, as indicated for instance by their widespread lying and cheating behaviour. The reasons for their norm violations are not well understood, though, as they are able to recognise norms in a given situation and also punish norm violators. In this study, we investigated whether psychopathic offenders would violate fairness norms during a repeated trust game because of increased profit-maximising concerns. We measured back-transfe ...[more]

PMID: 31636249

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Project description:Social norms are important for human social interactions, and violations of these norms are evaluated partly on the intention of the actor. Here, we describe the revised Social Norm Processing Task (SNPT-R), a paradigm enabling the study of behavioral and neural responses to intended and unintended social norm violations among both adults and adolescents. We investigated how participants (adolescents and adults, n = 87) rate intentional and unintentional social norm violations with respect to inappropriateness and embarrassment, and we examined the brain activation patterns underlying the processing of these transgressions in an independent sample of 21 adults using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). We hypothesized to find activation within the medial prefrontal cortex, temporo-parietal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex in response to both intentional and unintentional social norm violations, with more pronounced activation for the intentional social norm violations in these regions and in the amygdala. Participants' ratings confirmed the hypothesis that the three types of stories are evaluated differently with respect to intentionality: intentional social norm violations were rated as the most inappropriate and most embarrassing. Furthermore, fMRI results showed that reading stories on intentional and unintentional social norm violations evoked activation within the frontal pole, the paracingulate gyrus and the superior frontal gyrus. In addition, processing unintentional social norm violations was associated with activation in, among others, the orbitofrontal cortex, middle frontal gyrus and superior parietal lobule, while reading intentional social norm violations was related to activation in the left amygdala. These regions have been previously implicated in thinking about one's self, thinking about others and moral reasoning. Together, these findings indicate that the SNPT-R could serve as a useful paradigm for examining social norm processing, both at the behavioral and the neural level.

Dataset Information

Fairness norm violations in anti-social psychopathic offenders in a repeated trust game.

Publications

Fairness norm violations in anti-social psychopathic offenders in a repeated trust game.

Similar Datasets

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