EMOTION ATTRIBUTIONS IN THE PSYCHOPATH

This study investigates the ability of psychopaths and non-psychopathi c, incarcerated controls to attribute emotions to others. Twenty-five psychopaths and 25 controls, identified using the Revised Psychopathy Checklist [PCL-R: Hare (The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, 1991)] , were presented with short vignettes of happiness, sadness, embarrass ment and guilt inducing contexts. They were asked to attribute emotion s to the story protagonist. The psychopaths and controls did not diffe r in their emotion attributions to protagonists in the happiness, sadn ess and embarrassment stories. However, the psychopaths and controls d id differ in their emotion attributions to the guilt stories. The domi nant attribution of the controls to the story protagonist was, as expe cted, guilt. In contrast, the dominant attribution of the psychopaths to the story protagonist was happiness or indifference. The results ar e interpreted within the Violence Inhibition Mechanism model of the de velopment of the psychopath (Blair, Cognition, in press).