Abstract
The present study (N=212; 150 females) examined the relationships between the Dark Triad, empathy, and emotion recognition in a cross-cultural sample. The Dark Triad, especially psychopathy, impeded cognitive empathy, which highlights their indifference towards others’ emotional states. Further, the Dark Triad and primary psychopathy, but not secondary psychopathy, hampered emotion recognition, which was measured using multi-modal stimuli. We discuss how measures of psychopathy assess the construct differently, as well as how the relationship between psychopathy and emotion recognition is complicated. Finally, we found that those high on the Dark Triad spectrum were worse at recognizing the emotions of female actors on the Geneva Emotion Recognition Test.
Arathy Puthillam
Graduate Student
My research interests include social, moral, and political psychology.