Data from: The strategy of psychopathy: primary psychopathic traits predict defection on low-value relationships

Recent evidence suggests that psychopathy is a trait continuum. This has
unappreciated implications for understanding the selective advantage of
psychopathic traits. Whereas clinical psychopathy is typically construed
as a strategy of unconditional defection, subclinical psychopathy may
promote strategic conditional defection, broadening the adaptive niche of
psychopathy within human societies. To test this, we focus on a ubiquitous
real-life source of conditional behaviour: the expected relational value
of social partners, both in terms of their quality and the likely quantity
of future interactions with them. We allow for conversational interaction
among participants prior to their playing an unannounced, one-shot
prisoner’s dilemma game, which fosters naturalistic interpersonal
evaluation and conditional behavior, while controlling punishment and
reputation effects. Individuals scoring higher on Factor 1 (callous
affect, interpersonal manipulation) of the Levenson Self-Report
Psychopathy Scale show two forms of conditional defection: one after being
interrupted more frequently during the conversation, the other after
failing to discover cues to future meetings with an interlocutor. Both
interaction effects support the hypothesis that primary subclinical
psychopathy potentiates defection on those with low expected relational
value. These data clarify the function and form of psychopathic traits,
while highlighting adaptive variation in human social strategies.