Response perseveration and triarchic psychopathy dimensions

What is it about?

This paper examines the contribution of triarchic dimensions of boldness, meanness and disinhibition in predicting performance on a card-playing task designed to measure the ability of participants to extinguish a rewarded response as the rate of punishments gradually outweighs the rate of rewards throughout the task.

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Why is it important?

This study shows for the first time that trait boldness —social dominance, immunity to stressful events, and venturesomeness— predict perseveration for reward despite increasingly punishment contingencies. Furthermore, this behavioral deficit linked to the boldness features of psychopathy is not mediated by how much participants pause and reflect following performance feedback, thus suggesting that it might reflect processes linked to an insensitivity to punishment cues and/or heightened risk taking rather than to an unreflective response style.