An Examination of the Communication Styles Associated with Psychopathy and Their Influence on Observer Impressions

Publication Date

9-2017

Document Type

Article

Organizational Units

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology

Keywords

Psychopathy, Communication styles, Observer impressions

Abstract

Psychopathic individuals are characterized as “intra-species predators”—callous, impulsive, aggressive, and proficient at interpersonal manipulation. For example, despite their high risk for re-offending, psychopathic offenders often receive early release on parole. While reputed to be social chameleons, research suggests that even naive observers can accurately infer high levels of psychopathic traits in others with very brief exposures to behavior, but accuracy degrades with extended observation. We utilized a lens model approach to examine the communication styles (emotional facial expressions, body language, and verbal content) of offenders varying in levels of psychopathic traits using “thin slice” video clips of psychological assessment interviews and to reveal which cues observers use to inform their evaluations of psychopathy. Psychopathic traits were associated with more (a) Duchenne smiles, (b) negative (angry) emotional language, and (c) hand gestures (illustrators). Further, psychopathy was associated with a marked behavioral incongruence; when individuals scoring high in psychopathic traits engaged in Duchenne smiles they were also more likely to use angry language. Naïve observers relied on each of these valid behavioral signals to quickly and accurately detect psychopathic traits. These findings provide insight into psychopathic communication styles, opportunities for improving the detection of psychopathic personality traits, and may provide an avenue for understanding successful psychopathic manipulation.

Copyright Date

4-4-2017

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by Springer Science+Business Media. User is responsible for all copyright compliance. This article was originally published as:

ten Brinke, L., Porter, S., Korva, N., Fowler, K., Lilienfeld, S. O., & Patrick, C. J. (2017). An examination of the communication styles associated with psychopathy and their influence on observer impressions. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 41(3), 269-287. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-017-0252-5

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Rights Holder

Springer Science+Business Media

Provenance

Received from CHORUS

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

19 pgs

File Size

751 KB

Publication Title

Journal of Nonverbal Behavior

Volume

41

Issue

3

First Page

269

Last Page

287

ISSN

1573-3653

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