Psychopathic tendencies reduce the effects of sexual arousal on temporal commitment

A study recently published in the journal Psychological research has shed light on how sexual arousal and psychopathic traits can affect our sense of agency, the feeling of control over our actions and their consequences. The researchers found that while sexual arousal tends to reduce the sense of agency, individuals with psychopathic traits have a smaller effect of high arousal on their sense of agency.

Psychopathic traits are a set of personality characteristics that include diminished emotional responses, lack of empathy, manipulation, deceitfulness, and a tendency toward antisocial behavior. Individuals with high levels of these traits tend to have superficial emotional lives and show little remorse or guilt for their actions. On a physiological level, psychopathy is associated with abnormalities in brain areas responsible for emotional regulation and reward processing, such as the amygdala and ventral striatum.

Psychopathy is significant not only because of its impact on individual behavior, but also because it is associated with a disproportionate amount of crime and violence. Understanding how psychopathic traits affect various cognitive and emotional processes can provide insight into the behavior of individuals with these traits and develop strategies for managing their behavior in social and legal contexts.

The researchers conducted their new study to examine how positive affective states affect the sense of agency in individuals with varying degrees of psychopathic traits. The sense of agency is the feeling of being in control of one’s actions and their consequences. Previous research has shown that negative affective states can reduce the sense of agency, but less is known about the effects of positive states of high arousal.

“My mother worked in mental health at the German Ministry of Justice, which inspired me to study psychology and criminology,” said study author Anna Render, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Passau in Germany.

“Today, my husband and my best friend both work in forensic clinics with people who have committed crimes but who have not been held fully accountable for their crimes because of addiction. I guess I am often reminded that agency evaluations drive people’s lives in this field and there is little research on the agency of people who exhibit psychopathic traits, a very common personality trait in people who have committed crimes.”

The researchers conducted an experiment with 59 participants between the ages of 18 and 35, recruited through flyers and social media platforms. Participants were divided into three groups: sexual arousal, quiet pleasure, and neutral control. Each group watched a specific movie clip designed to elicit different levels of arousal and valence. The sexual arousal group watched a sexually explicit scene, the quiet pleasure group watched pleasant, romantic scenes, and the neutral control group watched a pedestrian scene on the street.

To measure participants’ physiological responses during the film clips, researchers recorded pupil dilation, skin conductance, and heart rate. These measurements provided objective data on participants’ arousal levels. Additionally, participants self-reported their feelings of arousal and valence using the affective grid, a tool that measures emotional experiences in two dimensions: valence (positive or negative) and arousal (high or low).

Sense of agency was assessed using the Libet Clock Task, a well-established method for measuring temporal binding. In this task, participants pressed a button and then estimated the timing of their action and its outcome (a tone). Temporal binding refers to the perceived compression of time between the action and its outcome, indicating a stronger sense of agency.

The researchers found that sexual arousal reduced temporal commitment, indicating a reduced sense of agency. Participants who watched the sexually explicit movie clip perceived a greater disconnect between their actions and outcomes, suggesting that positive states of high arousal may reduce feelings of control over one’s actions.

In contrast, the calm, pleasurable group showed no significant changes in temporal binding. While the pleasant film clip increased subjective arousal and valence, it did not affect participants’ sense of action in the same way as the sexually arousing film clip. This result suggests that arousal level, and not just valence, plays a crucial role in influencing sense of action.

Interestingly, individuals with higher levels of psychopathic traits showed a different pattern. While their physiological responses to arousal were similar to those of the other participants, their sense of agency was less affected by the arousal state induced by the sexual film clip. This suggests that psychopathic traits may moderate the effects of high arousal on the sense of agency, allowing individuals with these traits to maintain a stronger sense of control over their actions even in emotionally charged situations.

“A person’s personality, particularly psychopathic tendencies, appears to play a role in adaptation to highly arousing emotional states,” Render told PsyPost. “Our emotional response influences our sense of action. On average, people tend to engage in less engaging actions when they are sexually aroused. However, people with high levels of psychopathy appear to be less susceptible to these effects.”

“I was surprised that the effects – psychopathic traits reduce the effects of sexual arousal on temporal binding – were measurable in a laboratory context and at such a basic level of implicit processing (subjectively compressed time interval between key presses and tones). It would not be surprising if differences emerged in more relevant contexts, but that these changes can be observed at all with this setup says a lot, in my opinion.”

The researchers also examined the role of physiological arousal and striatal dopamine levels (indicated by eye blink frequency) in modulating the sense of action. They found that greater pupil dilation was generally associated with reduced action engagement, except in the sexually aroused group, where the effect was not significant. Higher blink rates, indicating higher dopaminergic activity, were associated with increased action engagement, suggesting that dopamine may enhance the sense of action.

The study provides new insights into how sexual arousal and personality traits interact to influence the sense of action. However, as with any research, there are some limitations to consider. The sample size was relatively small, which limits the generalizability of the results. Larger studies, particularly those that include more individuals with more pronounced psychopathic traits, would help confirm and extend these findings.

“Sense of agency is also a complex construct and we only measured one facet of it, which is temporal binding. So we can’t generalize the effects to the whole sense of agency at this stage,” Render said. “It would be great to find a reliable but more comprehensive way to measure sense of agency and to connect the cognitive and forensic domains a little more broadly.”

Authors of the study “Arousal, interindividual differences and temporal binding – a psychophysiological study” are Anna Render, Hedwig Eisenbarth, Matt Oxner and Petra Jansen.