2008 Volume 17 Issue 1 Pages 50-59
Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is characterized by inability to adopt accepted social norms and is associated with deceitfulness, irresponsibility, impulsivity, and lack of remorse. This study investigated whether individuals high on ASPD traits were more impulsive than those low using two behavioral choice tasks. Sixteen undergraduates high on ASPD traits and 19 age- and education-matched controls performed both temporal and probability discounting tasks. In the temporal discounting task, participants chose either small but immediate or large but delayed rewards. Impulsivity was defined as relative preference for small but immediate rewards. In the probability task, participants chose either small but certain or large but uncertain rewards. Impulsivity was defined as relative preference for large but uncertain rewards. In the temporal task, individuals high on ASPD traits discounted delayed rewards significantly more steeply than the low, whereas there was no difference in probability discounting between the two. Temporal discounting had significantly correlations with repeated antisocial acts and transitory liaison of ASPD traits. These results suggested that disregard of long-term consequences underlay some of ASPD symptoms.
