Psychopathy and impulsivity: The relationship of psychopathy to different aspects of UPPS-P impulsivity

Impulsivity is thought to be a major component of psychopathy. However, impulsivity is a multi-faceted concept, and different facets may have differential relationships to psychopathy. We measured impulsivity via the UPPS-P in a sample of prisoners and in patients in a personality disorder service resident in secure psychiatric care. Psychopathy in the prison sample was measured via the clinician-rated Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version and in the patients via the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. We found that the Lifestyle/Antisocial factor (Factor 2) was associated with acting rashly when emotional (Negative Urgency and Positive Urgency). However, the Interpersonal/Affective factor (Factor 1) was associated with reduced impulsivity in the domains of premeditation and perseverance, and its unique variance was also associated with less rash behaviour. The Interpersonal facet (Facet 1) was particularly associated with reduced impulsivity. The results show that individuals with high Interpersonal traits of psychopathy can plan carefully and are persistent in their goals. This may underpin instrumental violence and criminal behaviour. Thus, a simple unitary understanding of the relationship between psychopathy and impulsivity may not be valid and may distort the multifaceted relationship between the two concepts that could assist in the assessment and management of psychopathic offenders

Psychopathy and impulsivity: The relationship of psychopathy to different aspects of UPPS-P impulsivity

Impulsivity is thought to be a major component of psychopathy. However, impulsivity is a multi-faceted concept, and different facets may have differential relationships to psychopathy. We measured impulsivity via the UPPS-P in a sample of prisoners and in patients in a personality disorder service resident in secure psychiatric care. Psychopathy in the prison sample was measured via the clinician-rated Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version and in the patients via the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. We found that the Lifestyle/Antisocial factor (Factor 2) was associated with acting rashly when emotional (Negative Urgency and Positive Urgency). However, the Interpersonal/Affective factor (Factor 1) was associated with reduced impulsivity in the domains of premeditation and perseverance, and its unique variance was also associated with less rash behaviour. The Interpersonal facet (Facet 1) was particularly associated with reduced impulsivity. The results show that individuals with high Interpersonal traits of psychopathy can plan carefully and are persistent in their goals. This may underpin instrumental violence and criminal behaviour. Thus, a simple unitary understanding of the relationship between psychopathy and impulsivity may not be valid and may distort the multifaceted relationship between the two concepts that could assist in the assessment and management of psychopathic offenders

Self-esteem, narcissism, and aggression: different types of self-esteem predict different types of aggression

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between self-esteem, narcissism, and measures of proactive and reactive aggression in two large community samples of young adults from two countries (the United Kingdom and Malaysia). Self-esteem and narcissism were measured through the Multidimensional Self-Esteem Inventory and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, whereas aggression was measured by the Reactive–Proactive Aggression Questionnaire in 501 young adults with approximately equal numbers of men and women. In both countries, low levels of self-esteem were associated with reactive aggression while high levels of narcissism were associated with proactive aggression. Although this pattern was similar for both genders, the associations between both types of self-evaluation and proactive aggression were greater for men. The results suggest that people with low self-esteem are prone to greater reactive aggression due to anger and hostility, whereas those with high levels of narcissism can act with deliberate, planned aggression to achieve a goal. These effects appear stable across gender and culture

Enhanced emotional response to both negative and positive images in post-traumatic stress disorder: Evidence from pupillometry

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterised by alterations in the function of the autonomic nervous system. However, it is unclear if this dysfunction is threat-related or related to arousing stimuli in general. Pupillometry offers a simple non-invasive measure of ANS activity that can separate parasympathetic and sympathetic arousal. Participants viewed images with emotional or neutral content: 20 met diagnostic criteria for PTSD, 28 were trauma-exposed (but with no PTSD), and 17 were controls. Initial pupil constriction (a marker of parasympathetic function) was reduced for the PTSD group, while dilation due to the emotional content of the image (a marker of sympathetic activity) was greater in the PTSD group. Individuals with PTSD demonstrated enhanced physiological arousal to both threat-related and positive images. The results suggest reduced parasympathetic arousal and increased sympathetic arousal in the autonomic nervous system, which has been linked to a range of adverse health outcomes in PTSD

Translational Control of Cyclin B1 mRNA during Meiotic Maturation: Coordinated Repression and Cytoplasmic Polyadenylation

AbstractTranslational control is prominent during meiotic maturation and early development. In this report, we investigate a mode of translational repression in Xenopus laevis oocytes, focusing on the mRNA encoding cyclin B1. Translation of cyclin B1 mRNA is relatively inactive in the oocyte and increases dramatically during meiotic maturation. We show, by injection of synthetic mRNAs, that the cis-acting sequences responsible for repression of cyclin B1 mRNA reside within its 3′UTR. Repression can be saturated by increasing the concentration of reporter mRNA injected, suggesting that the cyclin B1 3′UTR sequences provide a binding site for a trans-acting repressor. The sequences that direct repression overlap and include cytoplasmic polyadenylation elements (CPEs), sequences known to promote cytoplasmic polyadenylation. However, the presence of a CPE per se appears insufficient to cause repression, as other mRNAs that contain CPEs are not translationally repressed. We demonstrate that relief of repression and cytoplasmic polyadenylation are intimately linked. Repressing elements do not override the stimulatory effect of a long poly(A) tail, and polyadenylation of cyclin B1 mRNA is required for its translational recruitment. Our results suggest that translational recruitment of endogenous cyclin B1 mRNA is a collaborative effect of derepression and poly(A) addition. We discuss several molecular mechanisms that might underlie this collaboration

Secondary school students’ perception of the online teaching experience during COVID-19: The impact on mental wellbeing and specific learning difficulties

Background Student engagement and concentration is critical for successful learning. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of online learning which may affect engagement and concentration, particularly for those students with specific learning difficulties. Aims Students would show lower scores on all the measures of student experience when judging these during online learning versus learning within the classroom. This negative impact of online learning on concentration, engagement, perceived learning, and self-worth compared to classroom education would be more significant for those with specific learning difficulties. The drop in student experience scores due to online learning would be associated with poorer mental well-being. Sample Four hundred seven pupils aged 11–18 years at a secondary education school in Wales. Methods A retrospective online survey comparing pupils’ normal classroom experience to learning online during the first national lockdown in the United Kingdom (March–July 2020). Results Pupils’ learning experiences (concentration, engagement, ability to learn, and self-worth from learning) were significantly lower for online learning compared to the classroom learning. These differences were more marked in students with specific learning difficulties. Perceived ability to learn and engage during classroom and online learning were also associated with mental well-being. Conclusions The move to online learning appears to have affected students’ ability to concentrate and engage in their schoolwork and appears to have reduced their ability to learn and get self-worth from their work. These decreases are associated with a decrease in mental well-being. The effects appear to be exacerbated in some students with specific learning difficulties

Risk taking and the triarchic model of psychopathy

Introduction: High risk behaviors, such as aggression, criminality, sexual promiscuity, drug use, and gambling, are often associated with psychopathic traits. Such behaviors might arise due to a lack of fear of the consequences (boldness) or due to impulsive actions (disinhibition). We examined risk taking behavior in the laboratory setting using the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), where an individual can inflate a balloon to earn a reward, but will lose this accumulated reward if the balloon bursts. The task reflects the willingness to take risks under conditions where the risk-taking behavior is understood and is made clear to the individual. Method: BART performance was measured in a mixed community and offender sample, and psychopathy was characterized via the triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy, which proposes that psychopathy is a combination of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition. Results: Total psychopathy score was correlated with greater risk taking on the BART, and this effect was mainly due to the Boldness scale rather than the Meanness or Disinhibition scales. These relationships were not moderated by the nature of the sample (offender vs. community) or by gender. Conclusions: Individuals with high psychopathy scores appear more willing to take risks on this simple laboratory task, and this behavior appears due to boldness rather than being related to an impulsive disposition

Using the Aesop's fable paradigm to investigate causal understanding of water displacement by New Caledonian crows.

Understanding causal regularities in the world is a key feature of human cognition. However, the extent to which non-human animals are capable of causal understanding is not well understood. Here, we used the Aesop's fable paradigm--in which subjects drop stones into water to raise the water level and obtain an out of reach reward--to assess New Caledonian crows' causal understanding of water displacement. We found that crows preferentially dropped stones into a water-filled tube instead of a sand-filled tube; they dropped sinking objects rather than floating objects; solid objects rather than hollow objects, and they dropped objects into a tube with a high water level rather than a low one. However, they failed two more challenging tasks which required them to attend to the width of the tube, and to counter-intuitive causal cues in a U-shaped apparatus. Our results indicate that New Caledonian crows possess a sophisticated, but incomplete, understanding of the causal properties of displacement, rivalling that of 5-7 year old children

The Cardiff self‐injury inventory (English version): convergent validity and psychometric properties

Background and Aims: The Cardiff Self‐Injury Inventory (CSII) is a short (1 min), relatively nonintrusive, measure of previous self‐injury behaviors written in English. It measures self‐injury with suicidal intent and without such intent, covers actions versus thoughts, and has two time periods (lifetime vs recent [defined as the last 3 months]). The study aimed to examine its psychometric properties and its relationship to more well‐established measures. Methods: A UK community sample of 184 participants completed the CSII and two other measures of self‐harming (Deliberate Self‐Harm Inventory [DSHI] and Suicidal Behaviors Questionnaire–Revised [SBQ‐R]) in March 2020–May 2020. Fifty participants also repeated these measurements 1–2 weeks later. Results: The CSII showed strong psychometric properties with internal reliability of 0.87 and a test–retest of 0.82. The subscales also showed strong psychometric properties. The CSII showed strong concurrent validity to the other measures of self‐injury (SBQ‐R, r = 0.70; DSHI, r = 0.81). A factor analysis supported the idea that there are two distinct components to the overall CSII score arising due to the distinction between suicidal and nonsuicidal behaviors. Conclusion: The CSII has good psychometric properties in this population and can be used as a fast, nonintrusive, measure of different self‐injurious behaviors for clinical or research purposes

A reduction in the pupil’s response to affective sounds in psychopathy and related personality traits

The pupil of the eye dilates in response to affective information, even if that information is not visual. We used this affective modulation of the pupil to examine the hypothesis that individuals with high traits of psychopathy have an insensitivity to emotional stimuli. We also examined general personality traits related to psychopathy. A sample of 120 healthy young men had their pupils monitored while they listened to sound clips that conveyed either neutral emotion (e.g., rain), negative emotion (e.g., a person screaming) or positive emotion (e.g., people laughing). Psychopathy and general personality traits were measured via self-report questionnaire. As expected, both the positive and negative emotional sounds produced greater dilation in the pupil size than neutral sounds. This affective modulation of the pupil was found to be reduced for the negative sounds for people high on the “callous/affective” components of psychopathy (the Affective facet of the SRP-4 and the Meanness scale of the TriPM) and the general personality traits of Reward Dependence and Cooperativeness. The results indicate that these callous traits of psychopathy and general personality may be underpinned by a reduction in the ability to effectively process or monitor emotional stimuli