Psychopathic Traits and Social Reward
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Psychopathic traits and social reward Lucy Foulkes Prepared under the supervision of Prof Essi Viding and Prof Eamon McCrory Division of Psychology and Language Sciences University College London Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2015 1 I, Lucy Foulkes, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 Abstract Psychopathy is a personality disorder defined by atypical affective and interpersonal functioning, and impulsive and antisocial behaviour. This thesis explored associations between psychopathic traits and social reward processing in adults, and callous-unemotional (CU) traits and social reward processing in adolescents. The goal was to investigate what could potentially explain the atypical social behaviour seen in these individuals. In this thesis, five research questions were proposed. Firstly, in Chapter 2: What types of social interactions and relationships are valued by individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits? Secondly, in Chapter 3: What is the structure of social reward? Thirdly, in Chapter 4: In what way are psychopathic traits in adults associated with self-report and experimental measures of social reward? Finally, in Chapter 5: What is socially rewarding for adolescents, and in what way is this associated with callous-unemotional traits? The principal findings were as follows. In Chapter 2, I found that individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits were not motivated to have affiliative, long-term relationships. In Chapter 3, I developed and validated the Social Reward Questionnaire, a measure of individual differences in social reward value. In Chapter 4, I found that adults with high levels of psychopathic traits showed a pattern of ‘inverted’ social reward, in which being cruel was enjoyable and being kind was not. Additionally, social approval may have reward value for individuals with high levels of interpersonal psychopathic traits. In Chapter 5, I validated the Social Reward Questionnaire – Adolescent Version for use with 11-16 year olds. Like adults with high levels of psychopathic traits, adolescents with high levels of CU traits displayed a pattern of ‘inverted’ social reward. Together, these studies are an important initial exploration of the role that atypical social reward processing may play in explaining the problematic social behaviour seen in psychopathy. 3 Acknowledgements My first and foremost acknowledgement goes, of course, to Essi. Thank you for being an exceptional supervisor. Your energy, enthusiasm and expertise know no bounds. Thank you for your consistent support and encouragement throughout the good and bad periods of the last four years. It has been invaluable. My second thank you goes to Eamon, as I have been spoiled by having not one, but two great supervisors. Eamon, thank you for all your feedback, and for your kind and reassuring guidance throughout the PhD (and for saying there was ‘no doubt’ I was a good scientist!). I have also received great support from many other experts, in particular Prof Jon Roiser, Dr Geoff Bird and Prof Craig Neumann. Thank you, Jon, for seeing potential in me when you awarded me a place on this program four years ago, and for subsequently sharing your expertise with me. Geoff, thank you for all your helpful input and for your unconventional take on the world of science. Finally to Craig – thank you so much for taking the time to unravel the complexities of Structural Equation Modelling for me, and for your consistent encouragement and support. Going back a few years, I owe a great deal to my RA and undergraduate project supervisor Prof Sotaro Kita, and my RA supervisor Prof Cathy Creswell. Kita, you were the first person to suggest I should pursue a career in research, and your advice back then is still remembered now. Cathy, thank you for giving up so much time to give me guidance and share your expertise, and for encouraging me to do a PhD. Thank you for all your help with the job applications – it paid off! I have been extremely lucky to complete my PhD in such a lovely lab. DRRU lab members past and present, thank you - I have so appreciated being surrounded by such bright, interesting and kind people. Thank you for all the Friday night drinks! I am especially grateful to Ana, for all the hours spent together in BUCNI and your support with the fMRI analysis; to Ruth and Liz, for helping out with the 4 adolescent data; and to Phil, for all the tea breaks and chats in our very small shared office space! I would like to give a special mention to Pat, for being the best PhD companion I could have asked for, and for providing so much intellectual and emotional support. This would have been an entirely different experience if I hadn’t done it alongside you. It is difficult to quantify how much I have appreciated your help or how much I have enjoyed doing this together. Thank you, also, for all our conference adventures! I am pained that we will no longer be in the same lab, but I have no doubt you are a rising star. Outside of work, I am extremely grateful to my parents, for always being interested in and impressed with what I do, and for providing so much support from the side lines. Mum – thank you for giving me my love of the English language (and my grammar obsession!), and for always caring so much. Dad – thank you for all your enthusiasm. Your work ethic and general life attitude are admirable, and something to which I aspire. Thank you also to my brother Will - from my GCSE results to completing this PhD, you have always been proud of me, and it means a lot. At home, I am so grateful to Mark, for listening to every minute detail of every stage of this work (even if you did ask, two years in, what a psychopath was…). Thank you for being proud of me - your love and support make everything easier. I would also like to thank twelve very special friends. Thank you for providing the daily entertainment, the weekend fun and for always making me laugh. You girls are the best. Lastly, I would like to thank all the participants who took part in my studies, and more generally, I acknowledge and appreciate the sheer vastness of the human mind and experience - it’s what makes this job so fascinating. 5 Contents Abstract…………….. ........................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................... 4 Contents……… .................................................................................................... 6 List of Tables…. ................................................................................................. 11 List of Figures... .................................................................................................. 13 Chapter 1: General Introduction ............................................................... 14 1.1. Psychopathic traits in adults ................................................................ 15 1.1.1. Psychopathy ............................................................................. 15 1.1.2. Psychopathic traits delineate a distinct subgroup of antisocial individuals ................................................................................ 15 1.1.3. Psychopathy as a dimensional construct .................................. 18 1.1.4. Psychopathy in the general population mimics forensic samples .................................................................................... 18 1.2. Development of psychopathy .............................................................. 20 1.2.1. CU traits delineate a distinct group of antisocial youth ........... 21 1.3. Psychopathy as a barrier to successful socialisation ........................... 23 1.3.1. Many psychopathic traits relate to atypical social interactions 23 1.3.2. One explanation for the increased presence of antisocial behaviour is that psychopathy interferes with socialisation .... 24 1.3.3. Additional deficits in reward and punishment processing ....... 26 1.4. A new focus on processing positive (social) information ................... 28 1.4.1. Existing explanations focus on negative social information ... 28 1.4.2. Social reward processing should be explored .......................... 28 1.5. Social reward ....................................................................................... 29 1.5.1. Classifications of social reward ............................................... 29 1.5.2. Experimental evidence assessing social reward ...................... 31 1.5.3. Antisocial reward ..................................................................... 36 1.5.4. Atypical social reward processing is associated with clinical disorder .................................................................................... 38 1.6. Psychopathic traits and social reward .................................................. 38 1.6.1. Happy faces ............................................................................. 39 6 1.6.2. Prosocial behaviour ................................................................. 40 1.6.3. Approval/being liked ............................................................... 41 1.6.4. Cooperation .............................................................................. 41 1.6.5. Affiliation ................................................................................ 42 1.6.6. Antisocial reward ....................................................................