The Prosocial psychopath: Linking creativity and psychopathy through heart rate

• Main Authors: Dunuan, Edelweiss Nashelle P., Imperial, Kirsten Mireille P., Oentoro, Joshua Gabirel C., Ting, Ranier Randel A.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2014
• Subjects: Antisocial personality disorders; Psychopaths; Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/10756
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study aimed to establish the link between psychopathy and creativity- assessed using self-reports and divergent thinking tasks- through physiological responses to aversive and neutral stimuli. The Somatic Marker Hypothesis (SMH Damaso, 1994) was given emphasis as one possible explanation in investigating the link between the two constructs (Galang, 2010-2014). Accordingly, the SMH holds that creative people and psychopathic people are both less affected by norms and are therefore less likely to conform and to behave as society would expect. For this study, creativity was assessed through the Creativity Achievement Questionnaire (CAQ Carson, 2005), the Compound Remote Associates Task (CRAT Bowden & Jung-Beeman, 2003), and two divergent thinking tasks that required the participants to think unusual uses of spoon and to think of instances of objects that float. Psychopathy, on the other hand, was assessed through the Dark-Triad – Short (SD3) Psychopathy Subscale (Paulhus, 2013). The sample consisted of 89 college students. Multiple regression and correlational analyses affirmed that psychopathy and creativity were indeed related as found by Castelo et al. (2024), however, no other significant findings were in line with the study's hypotheses. Further recommendations were made on possible improvements to conduct better studies in future.