Abstract
The incapacity of individuals to experience empathy has long been linked to heightened risks of antisocial acts being perpetrated without remorse. Psychologists frequently consider deficits in empathy in the context of risk assessments and other clinical appraisals, such as the amenability to treatment. When evaluated, offenders—especially those with substantial psychopathic traits—may be motivated to mask their empathic deficits to avoid being characterized as callous and cold-blooded toward the victims of their crimes. The current study is the first known investigation with an offender population to simulate empathy via positive impression management (PIM). Using a mixed between- and within-subjects design, 81 male detainees were categorized into a Low, Moderate, or High Psychopathy group, based on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). For the within-subjects component, all offenders answered empathy questionnaires under genuine and PIM conditions. In the genuine condition, results indicate that offenders—irrespective of psychopathy—possessed cognitive empathy, but not affective empathy. In the PIM condition, offenders easily simulated high levels of empathy. Potential approaches to the assessment of simulated empathy in offender populations are explored, including a possible indicator for simulated affective empathy.
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Notes
As subsequently noted, the IM scale of the PDS was used as a partial manipulation check for PIM response pattern in the genuine condition.
The researchers were clinical doctoral students who had received at minimum 10 hours of specialized PCL-R administration and scoring training.
At times, the researcher administering the PCL-R was not the same researcher administering the other measures to a single participant. However, there were no differences based on PCL-R administrator and reliability among the three PCL-R administrators was high (ICC = 0.89).
The Moderate group is identical to Hare’s (2003). Low combines his Low and Very Low groups; High combines his High and Very High groups.
It is interesting to note that QCAE retains four IRI PT items; however, all appear on the QCAE OS and none on the QCAE PT scales.
Specific d’s for each of the cognitive and affective subscales are available from the authors upon request.
It is very concerning, for example, that all self-report measures of psychopathy—with the sole exception of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005)—make not effort whatsoever to evaluate PIM.
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Conflict of Interest
Emily V. Robinson, Richard Rogers and their institution do not believe they have any conflicts of interest to declare concerning any financial, academic, personal, political, employment, or funding that could have influenced this work.
Experiment Participants
All of the current study’s protocols, materials, and procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of North Texas. In accordance with the UNT IRB, all experiment participants received informed consent prior to the administration of any measures.
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Robinson, E.V., Rogers, R. Empathy Faking in Psychopathic Offenders: The Vulnerability of Empathy Measures. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 37, 545–552 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-015-9479-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-015-9479-9