5.3. Puntos que se tendrían que normar
5.3.7. Capitalización y Mejoras
In the last two decades substantial research has been conducted to explore the relationship between emotion and psychopathy. According to Muller et al. (2003, p ) psychopathy ‘is characterized by abnormal or deficient emotional responsiveness leading to disturbed social interactions and diminished ability to learn from punishment.’ Research suggests that individuals with psychopathy experience reduced startle responses to aversive stimuli (Patrick et al. 1993) diminished autonomic response to aversive stimuli, (Osumi et al. 2007), as well neurological dysfunction and emotional dysfunction when presented with aversive stimuli. (Muller et al. 2003) Further, individuals with psychopathic traits often exhibit cognitive deficits when presented with emotionally valenced stimuli including failures to identify fearful or
Page | 2-55 angry facial expressions in others (Blair et al. 2004), misinterpret social cues, (Doninger and Kosson, 2001) as well as experience difficulties in affective/semantic processing of language (Blair et al. 2006).
This research suggests that psychopathic individuals have attenuated, or absent emotional experiences and responses, particularly when presented with aversive stimuli. This coupled with failures to appreciate or interpret the emotional states of others leads to behaviour that ranges from socially inappropriate, to antisocial and/or criminal behaviour. This research suggests a link between psychopathy and emotion. As such, exploring specific emotions may improve understanding of the emotional dysfunction experienced by psychopaths.
Kolb and Whishaw’s (2010) neuropsychological definition of emotion; suggest that emotion is an ‘inferred behavioural state’, which they call affect. Affects result in ‘conscious, subjective feelings about stimuli’, and have many components. Panksepp (2003) likewise points out that there are many components to ‘emotional processes including motor-expressive, sensory-perceptual, autonomic-hormonal, cognitive- attentional, and affective-feeling’ which is echoed by Kolb and Whishaw (2010), For example, changes in facial expression, identifying such changes in others and responding, changes in heart rate, memories or ideas evoked by the stimuli, and expressing the feelings evoked are all part of the emotive process, which in turn may influence behaviour.
Disgust is a complex, dimensional emotion that has its roots in avoidance of food borne contaminates for survival purposes that has evolved to incorporate a wide variety of disgust inducing stimuli (Rozin et al. 2004). Disgust seems to be modified
Page | 2-56 and/moulded by a cultural (Olatunjui, et al. 2009), societal (Olatunjui and Sawchuck, 2005),and individual differences (Mataix-Cols, et al. 2008). There are several dimensions of disgust from animal reminder, through to moral transgressions that illicit a disgust reaction. A concise listing of the domains of disgust has been provided below (see Figure 2.4).
Figure 2.1 Domains of Disgust proposed by Moll, et al. (2005)
According to Moll, et al. (2005) these domains of disgust are a consequence of varied and diverse stimuli that may induce a disgust response in an individual. For example, they define distaste as a basic evolutionary response to stimuli which are perceived as bad tastes, core disgust may be induced by animals and their products and by products, this differs from animal nature disgust which acts as a reminder to higher order mammals, such as humans, of their more atavistic nature, as well as their mortality. Interpersonal disgust may be generated by those perceived as being different or lesser or contaminated in some way and in a not entirely dissimilar vein, moral disgust is elicited by contact with those that may corrupt the ‘spiritual entity; due to their ‘moral offenses’.
Distaste •Food related •Body waste products •Animal waste products Animal Reminder Disgust •Poor hygiene •Sex related •Violations of the body envelope (e.g., gore, surgery, deformity, accidental exposure of internal organs) •Death and organic
decay Interpersonal Disgust •Strangeness •Disease •Misfortune •Moral taint Moral Disgust •Homosexuals •Criminals •Cultural groups •Subcultures •Ethnic groups
Page | 2-57 As an emotion, disgust may be unique as it not only serves to protect from contamination that is a very real danger, such as spoilt meat or blood borne pathogens, but it also has an ephemeral quality where individuals will avoid situations, behaviours and others they feel may somehow spoil their soul or being(Mataix-Cols et al. 2008). While disgust is considered driven by evolution, it is also driven by culture and society (Borg et al. 2008). What may be considered amoral in a particular culture can result in the same emotion as a decaying corpse and while the physiological responses to the stimuli may vary, the psychological responses do not just prove fascinating; they may very well be responsible for which behaviours are engaged in and which are to be avoided (Moll et al. 2005).
Disgust is often an exaggerated response in some psychological disorders such as contamination fears associated with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (Olatunjui et al. 2007). Individuals who experience higher anxiety and fear, also typically respond with greater disgust sensitivity (Olatunji et al. 2007). Conversely, then, it might be expected that individuals who score higher on measures of psychopathy, where anxiety and fear are usually diminished, would similarly score lower on measures of disgust. At present, this area of research is lacking, not only in terms of how disgust may differ from other aversive forms of emotional stimuli but with regards to how sub-types of psychopaths may respond to such as well as whether or not disgust or a lack thereof might be responsible for atypical sexuality.
Early on in disgust research, Haidt et al. (1997) point out that there appeared to be a relationship between disgust and morality. This is not dissimilar to the assertion by Blair (2007) that disgust moderates ‘moral’ behaviour, in particular, sexual behaviour. Olatunji et al. (2008) theorises that disgust may also explain negative attitudes towards homosexuality, for example, due to a number of disgust related domain, including those who find homosexuality morally disgusting. Essentially, as individuals may
Page | 2-58 view the ‘other’, that is someone different from themselves as degraded, inferior and a potential source of pollution and contamination and therefore finds them offensive and disgusting. This type of response may be the basis for how individuals perceive sexuality and make judgments about what is acceptable and what is disgusting. However there is very little research into this phenomenon at present which is why further examination of the relationship between disgust and sexuality requires examination, particularly in those that may have an attenuated experience of disgust, such as individuals with a preponderance of psychopathic traits.