Distress Tolerance and Psychopathy: The Role of Emotional Endurance in a Seemingly “Emotionless” Personality

The purposes of this project was to assess how distress tolerance and psychopathy traits were related. We hypothesized that people with more psychopathy traits would have lower empathy for others and would be better at tolerating negative emotions. Additionally, we hypothesized that distress tolerance would moderate the relationship between psychopathy and criminal behavior, such that people with more psychopathy traits would engage in criminal behavior only when they were unable to manage negative emotional states well. Study 1 was administered entirely online, while study 2 was administered in person. Both datasets contain college participant responses to the Basic Empathy Scale for Adults (subscales include Affective Empathy and Cognitive Empathy; Carre et al., 2013), a modified version of the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale-III (SRP-III; Callous Affect, Erratic Lifestyle, and Interpersonal Manipulation; a fourth subscale [Criminal Tendencies] was treated as it's own unique scale, not included in total SRP-III scores; Mahmut et al., 2011), and Distress Tolerance Scale (Absorption, Appraisal, Regulation, and Tolerance; Simons & Gaher, 2005). Measure items were formatted in a 5-point Likert scale, with higher scores in each measure representing more empathy, better distress tolerance, and more psychopathy traits. Study 2 replicated the design from study one, and includes responses from the Emotional Images Tolerance task (EIT; Veillieux et al., 2019), a computer task measuring behavioral patterns of distress tolerance. In the EIT, participants view a variety of positive, negative, and neutral emotion-evoking images on a screen. They are instructed to press one key to indicate when they first start experiencing feelings of distress or discomfort and another key to indicate if that distress becomes so overwhelming that they no longer want to view the image (i.e., "escaping" an image). Two types of variables were calculated for this measure: count variables (the total number of images that participants pressed one or both keys for) and reaction time variables (calculating the average time between when the image was first presented and when the participant pressed a key, as well as the time between pressing the first and second key, if applicable). Results indicated that empathy was negatively correlated with psychopathy, as predicted. Self-reported distress tolerance was not meaningfully correlated with psychopathy in either study. However, in the behavioral distress tolerance measure in study 2, people with more psychopathy traits indicated they were distressed less often, but were able to tolerate distress for longer when it did occur. The hypothesized moderation model was not supported. However, in an exploratory analysis, we found that the relationship between psychopathy and distress tolerance was moderated by criminal behavior, suggesting that the more people engaged in criminal activity, the better they were at enduring negative emotions.本研究旨在探究痛苦耐受性（distress tolerance）与精神病态特质之间的关联。我们提出如下假设：精神病态特质水平更高的个体，对他人的共情程度更低，且更善于耐受负性情绪。此外，我们假设痛苦耐受性会在精神病态特质与犯罪行为之间发挥调节作用：即精神病态特质水平更高的个体，仅在无法有效调控负性情绪状态时，才会实施犯罪行为。 研究1全程采用线上施测方式，研究2则采用线下施测方式。两个数据集均收录了大学生被试对以下量表的作答结果：成人基本共情量表（Basic Empathy Scale for Adults，BESA；分维度包含情感共情（Affective Empathy）与认知共情（Cognitive Empathy）；Carre等人，2013）、经修订的自评精神病态量表第三版（Self-Report Psychopathy Scale-III，SRP-III；包含冷酷情感（Callous Affect）、紊乱生活方式（Erratic Lifestyle）与人际操纵（Interpersonal Manipulation）三个维度；第四维度[犯罪倾向（Criminal Tendencies）被作为独立量表处理，未纳入SRP-III总分计算；Mahmut等人，2011），以及痛苦耐受性量表（Distress Tolerance Scale，DTS；包含吸收（Absorption）、评估（Appraisal）、调控（Regulation）与耐受性（Tolerance）四个维度；Simons与Gaher，2005）。所有量表条目均采用5点李克特（Likert）计分，各量表得分越高，分别代表共情水平越高、痛苦耐受性越强、精神病态特质越显著。 研究2重复了研究1的实验设计，新增收录了情绪图像耐受性任务（Emotional Images Tolerance task，EIT；Veillieux等人，2019）的作答数据，该任务为一项用于测量痛苦耐受性行为模式的计算机化任务。在EIT任务中，被试将在屏幕上观看一系列正性、负性与中性情绪唤起图片。实验要求被试在首次感受到痛苦或不适时按下某一按键，当痛苦感过于强烈以至于无法继续观看图片时（即“逃离”图片），按下另一按键。针对该任务，我们计算了两类变量：计数变量（被试按下任一或两个按键的图片总数）与反应时变量（计算图片首次呈现至被试按下按键的平均时长，以及首次按键与第二次按键之间的平均时长，若适用）。 研究结果显示，共情水平与精神病态特质呈负相关，与假设一致。两项研究中，自评痛苦耐受性均未与精神病态特质呈现显著相关。但在研究2的行为层面痛苦耐受性任务中，精神病态特质水平更高的个体报告的痛苦触发频率更低，且在痛苦出现时能够耐受更长时间。本研究提出的调节模型未得到支持。不过在探索性分析中，我们发现犯罪行为会对精神病态特质与痛苦耐受性之间的关系起到调节作用，提示个体参与犯罪活动的程度越高，其耐受负性情绪的能力越强。