Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

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Open Access Thesis

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between psychopathy and emotion regulation as serially mediated by emotional motives and goals in an all-male sample. Six serial mediation models were proposed, three for each motive-type (i.e., hedonistic, instrumental), and two for each emotion (i.e., anger, fear, joy). Eight-hundred and seventy-eight participants were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Results indicate that male MTurk workers with greater levels of psychopathy have poorer emotion regulation, emotion goals for experiencing anger and fear, hedonistic and instrumental motives for experiencing anger and fear, emotion goals for not experiencing joy, and hedonistic and instrumental motives for not experiencing joy. Four of the six serial mediation models were significant. Specifically, the relation between psychopathy and emotion regulation was serially mediated by hedonistic motives for experiencing anger and fear and emotion goals for experiencing anger and fear, as well as instrumental motives for experiencing anger and fear and emotion goals for experiencing anger and fear. However, the relation between psychopathy and emotion regulation was not serially mediated by either hedonistic or instrumental motives for experiencing joy and emotion goals for experiencing joy. These findings support the Fear-Enjoyment Hypothesis, which suggests that people with psychopathic traits are more likely to interpret fear as enjoyable and thus seek out fear-eliciting stimulation.

Keywords: psychopathy, emotion regulation, emotion goals, hedonistic motives, instrumental motives

Year of Submission

2022

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Psychology

First Advisor

Nicholas Schwab, Chair

Date Original

12-2022

Object Description

1 PDF file (x, 128 pages)

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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