Testing helping behavior and its relationship to antisocial personality and psychopathic traits

Abstract

When presented with decisions that require simultaneously weighing self-benefit and other harm, adolescents with callous-unemotional traits compared with controls engage in less Costly Helping (i.e., giving up a benefit to protect a beneficent other). Young adults completed questionnaires, played an online-administered game of Costly Helping, and viewed an Elevation stimulus video (when witnessing another's act of virtue, individuals may experience a positive or elevating response). Subjects were assigned to one of four study arms, which varied the order of presentation. Higher levels of Factor 1 (callousness) psychopathic trait scale scores (assessed using the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale) were associated with significantly less Costly Helping. Elevation associated positively with Costly Helping behaviors and negatively with psychopathic traits. Introducing Elevation as an independent variable in regression analyses attenuated the relationship between psychopathic traits and Costly Helping, suggesting mediation. Those viewing the Elevation stimulus video prior to playing the game, as opposed to after, trended toward more Costly Helping by taking less money for themselves ($3.28vs. $3.72). Results support that this simple game provides meaningful behavioral data associated with psychopathic traits. Differences in Elevation may, in part, explain the observed differences in prosocial behavior in those with high psychopathic traits.