Feeling but not caring: Empathic alteration in narcissistic men with high psychopathic traits
Abstract
Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by specific interpersonal-affective deficits and social deviance often marked by reduced empathy and decreased affective response to the suffering of others. However, recent findings in community samples suggest that the somatosensory resonance to other's pain measured with electroencephalography (EEG) is increased by psychopathic traits. This study aimed at comparing both the response to physical pain and the observation of pain being inflicted to another person in individuals with clinically significant psychopathic traits, namely patients with severe narcissistic personality disorder (NPD, n=11), and community controls (CC, n=13). The gating of somatosensory responses to a tactile steady-state stimulation (25 Hz) during the observation of pain-evoking and non-painful visual stimuli of hands was measured using EEG. Pain thresholds were assessed with a quantitative sensory testing (QST) battery. NPD compared with CC subjects showed similar thermal pain thresholds, but significantly higher pain pressure thresholds (PPT). Significantly greater somatosensory gating (SG) during the anticipation and the observation of pain in others was observed in NPD compared with CC subjects, but this difference was not associated with differences in self-pain perception. SG to pain observation was positively correlated with the Impulsivity-Egocentricity (IE) dimension of psychopathy. These findings demonstrated a stronger somatosensory resonance in the high psychopathic trait NPD group that suggests an increased somatic representation of observed pain despite lower dispositional empathy.
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Emotional intolerance can coexist with reactivity to negative events and anticipation of humiliation, and with issues in processing emotions, especially fear and shame, with reactive strategies of avoidance and defensive revengeful anger to regain control.
“Such intolerance can coexist with reactivity to negative events and anticipation of humiliation (47) can coexist with emotional intolerance and issues in processing emotions, especially fear and shame, with reactive strategies of avoidance as well as defensive revengeful anger to regain control.”
From The dark side of empathy in narcissistic personality disorder (2023) · cites this paper as [47]
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“It reflects a capacity to share the feelings of individuals with whom we interact (Decety and Jackson, 2004; Lamm et al., 2011 for a review).”
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“It reflects a capacity to share the feelings of individuals with whom we interact (Decety and Jackson, 2004; Lamm et al., 2011 for a review).”
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Bilotta, E., Carcione, A., Fera, T., Moroni, F., Nicolò, G., Pedone, R., Pellecchia, G., Semerari, A., & Colle, L. (2018) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0201216 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
- Authors
- Marcoux, L.-A., Michon, P.-E., Lemelin, S., Voisin, J. A., Vachon-Presseau, E., & Jackson, P. L.
- Affiliations
- Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Québec (CA)
- Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche en réadaptation et intégration sociale (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Jackson, Philip L.
- Venue
- Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-12
- Volume
- 224
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 341-348
- ISSN
- 0925-4927 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1976323839
- Cited by
- 31
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 3.15
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychiatry Research Neuroimaging (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Corpus Université Laval (Université Laval) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MSH-87688)
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN 341631 - 2007)
- Canada Foundation for Innovation (15572)
- Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Santé (8149)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Keywords
- narcissistic personality disorder, psychopathic traits, empathy, pain anticipation, pressure pain threshold, thermal pain threshold
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Affect, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Electroencephalography, Empathy, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Narcissism, Somatosensory Cortex, Young Adult, Pain Perception
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