Implicit affective associations to violence in psychopathic murderers

Abstract

Social cognition about violence was assessed using both implicit and explicit measurements in a group of offenders who had committed murder and in a control group of offenders who had committed other crimes. On an implicit test of social cognition murderers with high psychopathy scores showed a reduced negative association to violence, whilst murderers with low psychopathy scores had an increased negative association to violence compared to the non-murderers (irrespective of their psychopathy score). No differences were found using explicit measurements. We suggest implicit measurements of social cognitions may prove a useful addition to explicit measurement in forensic situations, and shows potential as a future risk assessment tool.