Citation

Blakey R, Askelund AD, Boccanera M, Immonen J, Plohl N, Popham C, Sorger C, Stuhlreyer J. Front. Psychol. 2018; 9: e1317.

Affiliation

Center for Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Frontiers Research Foundation)

DOI

10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01317

PMID

30108538

PMCID

PMC6079205

Abstract

Research in neurocriminology has explored the link between neural functions and structures and the psychopathic disposition. This online experiment aimed to assess the effect of communicating the neuroscience of psychopathy on the degree to which lay people exhibited attitudes characteristic of psychopathy in particular in terms of moral behavior. If psychopathy is blamed on the brain, people may feel less morally responsible for their own psychopathic tendencies. In the study, participants read false feedback about their own psychopathic traits supposedly inferred from their Facebook likes, described either in neurobiological or cognitive terms. Participants were randomly allocated to read that they either had above-average or below-average psychopathic traits. We found no support for the hypothesis that the neuroscientific explanation of psychopathy influences moral behavior. This casts doubt on the fear that communicating the neuroscience of psychopathy will promote psychopathic attitudes.

Language: en

Keywords

attitude change; belief in free will; neurocriminology; psychopathy; science communication