Summary prepared by Dr. Beth Visser
What is the Cheater-Hawk explanation of psychopathy?
Grounded in evolutionary theory, this research used a Sims video game to explore the Cheater-Hawk hypothesis of psychopathy (Visser et al., 2020). The Cheater-Hawk hypothesis (Book & Quinsey, 2004) proposes that psychopaths have evolved to be both deceitful (cheaters) and aggressive (hawks). People who exploit, “trick,” and physically harm others might be unpleasant and maybe even frightening, but their tactics could be successful in helping people with psychopathic features to survive long enough to pass on their genes. The Cheater-Hawk hypothesis also suggests that psychopathic individuals would likely victimize people who are cooperative and/or submissive as opposed to people who are, like the psychopath, aggressive and exploitive.
To test the Cheater-Hawk hypothesis in an ethical fashion (that is, without harming anyone), the authors used the Sims 3 video game. The Sims 3 features “real life” game play, where characters interact with each other. For the purposes of this study, the researchers created a Sims “house” that consisted of a fearful, anxious character (the dove), a friendly, helpful character (the cooperator), a charismatic, “schmoozer” character (the cheater), and a mean-spirited hot-headed character (the hawk).
Who participated in the study and what did they do?
The participants in this study were 205 undergraduate students. There is considerable evidence that psychopathy exists on a spectrum, with individuals with many psychopathic features at the very high end. Using a sample of students means it is highly unlikely that there are any people very high in psychopathy in the sample, but research has shown that there is sufficient variance in psychopathic traits (e.g., callousness, manipulativeness, irresponsibility, antisocial behavior) in non-offender samples to predict important outcomes (for example, academic misconduct, risky sexual behaviors). Participants in this study completed the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (Fourth Edition) and then created their own Sims character with personality traits that they believed to be reflective of their own personalities. Next, participants were recorded as they played the Sims game for 20 minutes.
All of the participants’ game play videos were reviewed and coded by the researchers. There was no subjectivity in the coding, as players chose from unambiguous game options such as “compliment appearance” or “fight” or “tell joke.” The authors hypothesized that people with higher levels of psychopathic traits would engage in both cheater (friendly, funny, complimenting) and hawk (mean and actions and fighting) behaviors to a greater extent than other participants. The authors also expected that participants with psychopathic traits would display mean and aggressive behavior with all of the characters except the hawk.
What were the findings?
Overall, the main hypothesis was supported, in that participants who reported higher levels of psychopathic traits used more hawk-like behaviors. That is, they were more apt to engage in mean and aggressive behaviors, both provoked and unprovoked. Contrary to the hypothesis, though, people with higher levels of psychopathic traits were less, not more, likely to use friendly interactions than other players.
With regard to the specific predictions regarding the kinds of social interactions participants’ characters had with the other characters in the house, there were mixed findings:
Cheater: The authors had hypothesized that participants with psychopathic traits would be mean and aggressive toward this character. There were some findings consistent with this hypothesis, in that psychopathic traits were associated with more unprovoked meanness/aggression toward the cheater but not with more meanness/aggression in response to a provocation.
Hawk: The authors hypothesized that participants with psychopathic traits would use cheater behaviors toward the hawk – that is, behave in a manner that appears charming, friendly, and complimentary. The authors thought that participants with psychopathic traits would not be aggressive toward the hawk, since hawks are likely to retaliate. In keeping with the hypotheses, participants with psychopathic traits were not mean to the hawk character. However, psychopathy was associated with using fewer friendly interactions (recall that psychopathic traits were associated with being less friendly in general). Closer analysis, however, revealed that participants with psychopathic traits did behave in a friendly way with the hawk. In fact, their characters complimented the hawk’s appearance to a greater extent than they complimented the other characters.
Dove: As expected, the characters created by participants with psychopathic traits were mean and aggressive toward the dove character. Psychopathy was also associated with fewer friendly interactions with the dove, again, presumably due to the overall tendency of people with psychopathic traits to behave in a less friendly manner throughout the game.
Cooperator: The authors had hypothesized that participants with psychopathic traits would use cheater behaviors (behaviors described as funny, friendly, complimenting) toward the cooperator. Such behaviors were not observed, again, perhaps because the participants with psychopathic traits displayed generally less friendly behavior to everyone compared with participants without psychopathic traits.
What are the strengths and limitations of this study?
A strength and a weakness of this study was its use of the Sims video game to study psychopathy. A benefit of this method was that instead of just asking people about their aggressive behavior, the researchers could observe it in a video game context. A drawback of this methodology occurred around the “cheater” behaviors. The authors had expected that participants with psychopathic traits would behave in a charming, friendly behavior toward characters they wanted to cheat. However, other players might have used charming, friendly behavior in a sincere fashion, so that overall, the players with psychopathic traits were using fewer of these behaviors. Finally, although there has been some evidence that people create avatars and play video games in a way that is consistent with their personalities, there is also a popular culture trend of inflicting extreme violence on Sims characters. However, in this study, the authors reported a fairly low level of aggression (in keeping with rather low levels of real-life aggression), suggesting that participants were not engaging in these extreme behaviors.
What are the implications of this study?
Overall, the study provided mixed findings related to the Cheater-Hawk hypothesis of psychopathy, in that participants with psychopathic traits were more aggressive, although they showed little evidence of using charm and flattery. Strikingly, however, individuals who reported higher levels of psychopathy used charm to a greater extent with the hawk character than with the other characters.
The authors noted that although this study provided evidence that psychopathic individuals aggress against others selectively, it does not offer any information about how psychopathic individuals detect vulnerability. The authors suggested that one explanation for the findings is that psychopathic individuals perceive people who aren’t aggressive as weak and thus, available for exploitation. Visser et al. suggested that more research is needed to determine whether this hypothesis predicts behavior in real-life situations.
Reference:
Visser, B., Batinic, M., Worth, N., Book, A., & Toll, E. (2020). Psychopathic Sims: Testing the cheater-hawk hypothesis in a video game. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 6, 229-240. doi:10.1007/s40806-020-00231-3
