Psychopathic traits and the reduction of emotion memory bias

Abstract

Recent research indicated that the criminal psychopaths have difficulty in processing emotional information, and did not show the normal memory bias for emotional over neutral material. The present study investigated that the hypothesis that non-criminals with high tendencies toward psychopathy show a similar memory bias to the criminal psychopaths. Forty-five undergraduate students assessed using the Primary and Secondary Psychopathy Scales were tested on the emotion memory tasks that examined the effects of the emotional words on memory. Consist with the previous research, high psychopathic individuals showed less memory bias than did low psychopathic controls. Particularly, this emotional memory impairment in the participants with high tendencies toward psychopathy was shown in positive emotions. These results supported with the hypothesis that high psychopathic non-institutionalized sample also have difficulty in processing emotional information, and suggest that psychopathy may have an effect especially on positive emotional memory.