Summary written by Dr. Josanne van Dongen
In this study by Garofalo, Neumann, and Velotti (2020), the authors describe the potential role of emotion dysregulation in accounting for part of the well-established associations between psychopathy and aggression. Employing Hare’s (2003) conceptualization of psychopathy and Gratz and Roemer’s (2004) conceptualization of emotion dysregulation, the authors examined indirect effects of psychopathy through emotion dysregulation on different components of trait aggressiveness (i.e. anger, hostility, physical and verbal aggression), as well as on different forms of aggressive behavior (i.e. reactive and proactive aggression).
The authors describe psychopathy as a personality disorder characterized by callous affect, interpersonal exploitative behavior, an impulsive and irresponsible lifestyle, as well as a pattern of early, chronic, and versatile antisocial tendencies. They first briefly describe different models of aggression and their relations to psychopathy. They state that the study of aggression has a long-standing tradition in psychological research, and they highlight one model that has been highly influential in personality research on aggression, namely the one developed by Buss and Perry (1992). In that model, aggression is considered a relatively stable trait-like disposition underpinned by physical aggression, verbal aggression, anger, and hostility. Research investigating links between psychopathy and trait aggression has revealed strong positive associations between psychopathic traits and physical aggression, moderate positive associations between psychopathic traits and anger, and small-to-moderate positive associations between psychopathic traits and both verbal aggression and hostility.
The authors also describe another widely used model of aggression, one that distinguishes two different forms of aggression based on distinct motivational factors, namely premeditated (or proactive), and impulsive (or reactive) forms of aggression. They review the research findings on the relation between psychopathy and aggression and clarify that psychopathy is a strong predictor of both forms of aggression, as well as of their co-occurrence. Most of the empirical evidence suggests that overall levels of psychopathy have moderate-to-strong associations with both reactive and proactive aggression, although a few studies have suggested that psychopathy might have a stronger association with proactive rather than reactive aggression.
The aim of this study was to elucidate the relation between psychopathy and aggression, by investigating the mediating role of emotion regulation. Recent studies have reported consistent and uniform associations between impairments in the emotion regulation domains and different components of aggression (for example, anger, hostility) and forms of aggression (for example, , reactive, proactive) in community and offender samples. However, they were aware of only two studies that have examined the potential (correlational) mediating role of emotion dysregulation in the association between psychopathy and impulsive (or reactive) and proactive (or premeditated) aggression. Thus, they concluded that more research is required that employs samples with higher levels of psychopathic traits and aggression (such as offender samples), as well studies involving different methods of operationalization of psychopathy and aggression, to evaluate the robustness and generalizability of the findings.
As a result, the study that the authors present in their article includes multiple samples and multiple measures to allow them to examine the robustness of their findings. They included an offender sample comprised of 268 incarcerated men serving sentences in one of seven prisons in two Northern Italian regions (Mage = 37.36, SD = 11.82). They also included a community sample consisting of a total of 521 community-dwelling individuals (209 males, 40.1%) who were recruited from the general Dutch population, with an average age of 35.27 (SD = 15.99) years.
In both samples, psychopathic traits were assessed using the Self-Report Psychopathy–Short Form (SRP-SF), a 29-item self-report instrument rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale. Also, in both samples, emotion dysregulation was assessed using the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). To assess aggression, in Sample 1, the Italian version of the AQ was employed to assess individual differences in trait aggression, while, in Sample 2, aggression was also measured using the Dutch translation of the Reactive– Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ).
The authors found that emotion dysregulation significantly accounted for (i.e., mediated) part
of the association between psychopathic traits and aggression. Notably, these findings generalized to
associations between psychopathy and hostility, as well as associations between psychopathy and proactive aggression, providing evidence that emotion dysregulation can play a role in the associations across the different components and forms of aggression. However, the authors found that the effect sizes were generally small, although still statistically significant and clinically meaningful. Furthermore, as one would expect, the effect size for the indirect effect of difficulties regulating emotion on reactive aggression was more than twice as strong as the indirect effect on proactive aggression. The authors concluded that these results indicate that emotion dysregulation plays an important, yet not exclusive, role in explaining links between psychopathy and aggression. This means that emotion dysregulation is important but it only seems to account for part of the relationship between psychopathy and aggression.
In addition, the results showed that, in line with previous studies, verbal aggression was the only exception: although psychopathic traits were associated with increased levels of verbal aggression in the offender sample, this association could not be explained by emotion dysregulation, suggesting that other mechanisms may play a role in this association.
As the authors point out, the reported findings may have relevant implications for prevention and treatment programs aimed at reducing aggression in offenders and in the general community. Contrary to common thinking that psychopathic individuals are generally devoid of emotions, it appears that targeting the different aspects of emotion dysregulation may prove effective in tackling several different components and forms of aggression, including among individuals with psychopathic traits. Specifically, interventions aimed at improving emotional awareness, clarity about one’ s emotions, and acceptance of emotional experiences, as well as behavioral control under negative emotional arousal, and emotion regulation strategies may be relevant for people with psychopathic traits (including callous affect) as well as for people who have problems with a wide array of aggression components (including hostility) and with several forms of aggression (including proactive aggression).
Garofalo, C., Neumann, C. S., & Velotti, P. (2020). Psychopathy and aggression: The role of emotion dysregulation. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 0886260519900946.
