The Link Between Psychopathy and Empathy
Date
2-14-2024
Faculty Mentor
Heidi Dempsey, Psychology
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Submission Type
Conference Proceeding
Location
8:30-8:40am | Houston Cole Library, 11th Floor
Description
Empathy is defined as a construct that is a result from conjointly operating both cognitive and affective processes and being the center of social awareness. Affective empathy involves the ability to experience the emotions of another while cognitive empathy involves the understanding of another’s emotional state (Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006). A lack of empathy is considered a fundamental aspect of the Dark Triad traits (Jonason et al., 2013). While this may be true, the relationship appears to be mainly with the affective component of empathy rather than the cognitive component (Wai & Tilipoulos, 2012). When looking at psychopathy and Machiavellianism, research has found both were correlated with higher levels of difficulty identifying and describing feelings along with external-oriented thinking and low levels of affective empathy (Jonason & Krause, 2013). We hypothesize that individuals who score high in psychopathy will score high in cognitive empathy and low in affective empathy acknowledging that individuals with psychopathic tendencies understand and can recognize empathy but cannot feel empathy introspectively. Over 150 college students participated in an online survey where they completed the Dirty Dozen measure of psychopathy and the Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy (QCAE; Reniers et al., 2011). Results and discussion will focus on whether our findings match previous research.
Keywords
student research, psychology
Rights
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Disciplines
Psychology
Recommended Citation
Helms, Haley; Fields, Harley; Forehand, Kayleigh; Robles, Katherine; Powell, Rachel; and Sheffield, Richard, "The Link Between Psychopathy and Empathy" (2024). JSU Student Symposium 2024. 37.
https://digitalcommons.jsu.edu/ce_jsustudentsymp_2024/37