The Impacts of Subclinical Psychopathy and the Other-Race Effect on Facial Affect Recognition

Abstract

Psychopathy has been linked to deficits in emotion recognition, particularly in processing facial affect. This study examined the relationships among subclinical psychopathic traits, race, and facial affect recognition in an undergraduate sample. Forty-three participants completed a facial affect recognition task involving sad, fearful, and neutral expressions, alongside measures of psychopathy and social desirability. It was hypothesized that higher levels of psychopathy would be associated with reduced accuracy and slower response times, especially for trials in which the race of the stimuli differed from that of the participant. Contrary to hypotheses, psychopathy was not significantly associated with overall accuracy or speed, regardless of the race match between participant and stimuli. However, a trend-level association emerged wherein individuals higher in psychopathy responded more quickly for matched-race trials, suggesting that the relationship between psychopathy and facial affect recognition may be more complex than previously theorized, particularly in non-clinical populations. This research adds to the growing literature on social cognition in subclinical psychopathy and highlights the need for more nuanced, context-sensitive approaches.