Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Psychopathy, Empathy, And Prosocial Helping: Can You Increase Altruistic Helping For Individuals High In Psychopathy?, Courtney Beussink

GS4 Georgia Southern Student Scholars Symposium

Psychopathy is a disorder encompassing a distinct set of interpersonal, affective, and behavioral traits including lack of empathy and remorse, manipulativeness, callousness, selfishness, antisocial lifestyle, impulsivity, aggressiveness, and social deviance. It is estimated that approximately 15-25% of incarcerated individuals and 0.6-1% of individuals within the community are high in psychopathy (Coid, Yang, Ullrich, Roberts, & Hare, 2009; Hare, 2003). Since psychopathic traits are linked with deviant behavioral outcomes and the prevalence rates are relatively high within forensic and community populations, interventions designed to target the core personality deficits and reduce psychopathic tendencies are needed. The current study seeks to induce …