Abstract
Both a lack of social support and psychopathy show a positive association with aggressive behavior. This study investigated whether a perceived lack of family support and psychopathy would facilitate “antisocial punishment behavior,” which was defined as punishment behavior to cooperators in a trust game. The participants were four groups of university students with low or high levels of psychopathy who had also reported low or high levels of family support (N = 48). In a trust game played on a computer, participants were given the chance to reduce the compensation as a punishment of their (simulated) partners based on whether they were cooperators or non-cooperators. We found that high-psychopathy participants with low family support gave cooperators significantly more punishment than did participants with low psychopathy and high family support. The study indicates that an interaction between a lack of family support and psychopathy contributes to aggressive behavior, such as antisocial punishment behavior.
Highlights
Social support is necessary because people are social animals and live in mutual interaction with other people
The goal of the present study was to examine whether a lack of family support and psychopathy would facilitate antisocial punishment behavior in college students
We recruited participants who had low and high levels of perceived family support with low and high psychopathy, and conducted an experiment using a series of trust games
Summary
Social support is necessary because people are social animals and live in mutual interaction with other people. A lack of parental support facilitates aggressive behavior This effect is possibly accentuated for people with high dispositional aggressiveness. Primary and secondary psychopathy in non-clinical adolescents showed significant positive associations with both direct and indirect aggression (Coyne & Thomas, 2008). An interaction between a lack of social support and psychopathy might be expected to facilitate aggressive behavior. We use family support as the principal social support because it has the highest expected influence in the contextual model of social support (Inaba, 1998), and low levels of parental support predict childhood aggression (Garbarino, 1999; Patterson et al, 1990). The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between a perceived lack of family support, psychopathy, and aggressive behavior in a non-clinical population. Earlier findings led to the following hypothesis: participants with high psychopathy who have less family support should give cooperators more punishment, as compared to participants with high family support or low psychopathy
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
