Problems of Forensic Sciences 2014 Vol. 99 (XCIX ) 202-217
PSYCHOPATHY AND IDENTIFICATION OF FACIAL EMOTIONAL EXPRESSIONS AMONG CRIMINALS
Łukasz BARWIŃSKI1, 2
1Faculty of Psychology and Humanities, Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Kraków University, Kraków, Poland
2Institute of Forensic Research, Kraków, Poland
Streszczenie
This study aimed at a closer look at the links between psychopathy and the direction and quality of emotional processes in people with impaired personality structure. The issue which was examined was the perception of emotion in criminal psychopaths. Although the original problem of malfunction in the emotional life of psychopaths raises no major doubts, attempting a more detailed analysis and explanation of the form of emotional processes in psychopaths is neither consistent nor conclusive. This study is intended to fill the gap in this research area in the Polish population. The analyses focused on the accuracy of recognition of the facial emotional expressions of fear, happiness, anger, and sadness. The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) was used to assess the intensity of psychopathic traits. In order to determine the level of basic perception of emotional stimuli the modified version of the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (DANVA2) was used. The procedure comprised a computer task for determining the level and accuracy of recognition of emotions. The results of the study display a negative relationship between psychopathy and recognition of emotions – as the intensity of psychopathic traits increases the perception of emotions becomes less accurate; however, this relationship did not occur for expressions of anger.
Słowa kluczowe
Psychopathy; Emotion recognition; Facial emotional expressions.