@article{ref1,
title="Dimensional assessment of psychopathy and its relationship with physiological responses to empathic images in juvenile offenders",
journal="Frontiers in psychiatry",
year="2013",
author="de Barros, Daniel Martins and Dias, Alvaro Machado and Serafim, Antonio de Padua and Castellana, Gustavo Bonini and Achá, Maria Fernanda Faria and Busatto, Geraldo F.",
volume="4",
number="",
pages="147-147",
abstract="OBJECTIVE: Many psychophysiological studies investigate whether psychopaths present low levels of electrodermal activity (EDA). However, despite evidence that varying degrees of psychopathy are normally distributed in the population, there is a paucity of EDA studies evaluating dimensionally. Moreover, although lack of empathy is a cornerstone of psychopathy, there has been a lack of studies using pictures of empathic emotional content to assess psychophysiological responses.   METHOD: We studied a population of young male delinquents (n = 30) from a detention center, using the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R) to determine if higher levels of psychopathy were related to lesser degrees of EDA in response to emotion-eliciting pictures of empathic content.   RESULTS: There were significant correlations (p < 0.05) between latency and peak of EDA responses to unpleasant pictures and factor 1 scores, as well as between lability of EDA responses and factor 2 scores.   CONCLUSION: These results extend previous findings indicating direct relationship between EDA and psychopathy, and suggest that separate investigations of the two PCL-R factors have the potential to unravel more complex relationships between EDA and psychopathy. Also, by demonstrating such associations using emotion-provoking stimuli with empathic content, our results provide a link between levels of psychopathy and biological indices of empathic detachment.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1664-0640",
doi="10.3389/fpsyt.2013.00147",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2013.00147"
}