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Sons of Barabbas or Sons of Descartes? An evolutionary game-theoretic view of psychopathy by Lloyd D. Balbuena A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Cognitive Science Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario ©2010, Lloyd D. Balbuena Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaONK1A0N4 OttawaONK1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-79631-3 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-79631-3 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1*1 Canada 11 Abstract Psychopathy is characterized by egoism, shallow emotions, impulsivity, and antiso cial behavior. Several functional deficits including low fear, a reward-seeking response style, passive avoidance, impaired somatic markers, and language anomalies are as sociated with psychopathy and an impaired amygdala is implicated as an underly ing mechanism. A minority view is that psychopathy is an evolutionarily adaptive life strategy existing at a small frequency in the population. This adaptive view is based on the association between psychopathic traits and reproductive success, and on higher winnings by psychopathic individuals in social games. The goal of this research was to investigate further the adaptive view by means of games played for money and game-theoretic modeling. Forty-eight students belonging to high and low quartiles of 448 males who completed the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale participated in the Prisoner Dilemma Task (PD), Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and the Cambridge Gamble Task (CGT). In the Prisoner Dilemma, rate of cooperation varied by Match Type (homogeneous vs mixed by Subject Type). High psychopathic subjects won more money than low psychopathic subjects in mixed but not in ho mogeneous matches. In the IGT, both Subject Types learned to refrain from the bad decks starting in the second period and picked more consistently from the good decks in the second half compared to the first. In the CGT, a linear mixed model revealed that high psychopathic individuals placed higher bets when the odds of winning were about even. Low psychopathic individuals were better at aligning their bets with the chance of winning, but winnings did not vary significantly between groups. As a model of dynamics in a mixed population, a computer simulation similar to Axel- rod's PD tournament was created and the results were consistent with those of human iii participants. Overall, the results suggest that psychopathic traits are rational and advantageous in society at large. Hence, psychopathy is likely to exist either as a fraction of the population or a fraction of each individual's behavior. IV Acknowledgements This thesis is dedicated to my mother and my late father (f) who kept our stomachs full and our minds hungry. Though this document might someday join the company of tomes in a dusty shelf, it is first a product of my six-year instruction at the hands of various mentors whose contribution I now acknowledge. I wish to thank Dr. Andrew Brook and Dr. John Logan for serving as my supervisors. The unfortunate reader endures the agony of reading but once, but those heroic two, went tirelessly through draft after (endless) draft to bring it to its present form. Together with Dr. Jo-anne Lefevre, incumbent head of the Institute of Cognitive Science, they agreed to a long-distance supervisory relationship, one that spans two time zones. I would never have fulfilled my roles as a graduate student and a son without that arrangement. I also wish to thank Dr. Robert West for sitting in my committee and sharing his knowledge of game theory and sociobiology. A special word of thanks to Dr. Adelle Forth, for carefully reviewing the prospectus, directing me towards important psychopathy literature, and wisely suggesting the use of Carleton's Mass Testing Program. Chris Motz and Nikolina Antonacopoulos graciously assisted me in the mass testing and SONA and Sean Leach administered the experiments. In my three years in Ottawa, I wish to thank David Leibovitz for many thoughtful discussions and for teaching me how to ice skate in my first winter. Lianne Dubreuil and Colleen Fulton looked out for me beyond the call of official duty. Rob Thom son, Matthew Rutledge-Taylor, and Aryn Pyke shared lots of academic wisdom over pitchers of beer at "Pike's Place." I am grateful to Dr. Maxwell Pak at Queens University, for teaching me game theory. In Saskatchewan, I thank Dr. Raymond Tempier and Dr. Mansfield Mela for V three productive summers working in the Psychiatry Department and the Regional Psychiatric Centre. I also thank Randy Duncan and Betty Rohr of SHORE and Koroush Larijani for helping me construct a meaningful narrative of the graduate student life. I thank my present employers, Dr. Alan Casson of the Department of Surgery and Dr. Carl D'Arcy of SKY-RDC for providing me with the wherewithal to bankroll the substantial expenses involved in the project. The statistical and data analytical nature of my jobs came especially handy in data analysis, and the office space was ideal for research. I thank Conrad and Isabel Aguilera, my foster parents and landlords in Saskatoon. Their late cat Smokey kept me company over countless microwaved meals. Being psy chopathic and antisocial in character, Smokey helped keep my focus on this project. Thank you to my friends —Lyman Moreno, Alvin Alvarado, Leila Dominguez, Charie Mosqueda, Ryan Prado, Jam Prado, Cristina Rivera, Roni Duran, VG Dato, Lalaine Mendoza, Ian Necesito, and their families. Many of them served as "guinea pigs" for experimental trials. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to people I have not personally met but whose bequest to the open source movement gave me very fine thinking tools. They are the authors of R, I^LEX, and their packages. Special thanks to Dr. Donald Craig at the Memorial University of Newfoundland whose thesis template served as the foundation for many hours of tinkering and customization. Their altruism is beyond Darwinian explanation. All of what I have written here comes from skills that I did not have before coming to Canada. I thank my previous academic mentors in Ateneo de Manila, the Jesuit priests Fr. Tom Green (t), Fr. Roque Ferriols, and Fr. Mario Francisco. They wasted many hours writing recommendation letters, until a single graduate program VI accepted me. The biggest lesson I learned from them is the willingness to always learn something new: the philosophical awareness that all I know is nothing compared with what else remains to be known. I wish to thank my sister May, my nephew Meshak, and my brother-in-law Mahesh for welcoming me in their house on my many trips from Saskatoon to Ottawa. The hours I spent playing with Meshak's toys remind me that being a student, no matter the age, is really a luxury that allows one to play with ideas. And finally, I thank my girlfriend Lahlah for believing in me and providing motivation to continue in the midst of difficulty. * Table of Contents vn Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv List of Tables xii List of Figures xiv 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Background 1 1.2 Research Questions and Hypotheses 4 1.3 Overview of the Chapters 5 2 Literature Review: The measurement and mechanisms of psychopa thy 8 2.1 Origin of the Concept 8 2.2 The Measurement of Psychopathy 11 2.3 Is Psychopathy a Taxon? 14 2.4 Physiological mechanisms underlying psychopathy 17 2.4.1 Poor passive avoidance learning due to low fear 17 2.4.2 The response modulation hypothesis 19 Table of Contents viii 2.4.3 The somatic marker hypothesis 20 2.4.4 Failure to Empathize due to Amygdala Dysfunction 22 2.4.5 Language Anomalies 23 2.4.6 Towards an Integrated View: Mirror Neurons and Psychopathy 25 2.4.7 Relation of MNS with other Theories 28 3 An Alternative View: Psychopathy