Journal
JOURNAL OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 120, Issue 1, Pages 71-78Publisher
AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC
DOI: 10.1037/a0021225
Keywords
African American offenders; psychopathy; fear deficit
Funding
- NIMH NIH HHS [5R01MH078980, T32MH018931, T32 MH018931, R01 MH078980] Funding Source: Medline
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Laboratory studies of psychopathy have yielded an impressive array of etiologically relevant findings. To date, however, attempts to demonstrate the generalizability of these findings to African American psychopathic offenders have been largely unsuccessful. The fear deficit has long been regarded as the hallmark of psychopathy, yet the generalizability of this association to African American offenders has not been systematically evaluated. In this study, we used an instructed fear paradigm and fear-potentiated startle to assess this deficit and the factors that moderate its expression in African American offenders. Furthermore, we conceptualized psychopathy using both a unitary and a two-factor model, and we assessed the constructs with both interview-based and self-report measures. Regardless of assessment strategy, results provided no evidence that psychopathy relates to fear deficits in African American offenders. Further research is needed to clarify whether the emotion deficits associated with psychopathy in European American offenders are applicable to African American offenders.
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