A study conducted in a mixed reality environment found that individuals with more pronounced psychopathic traits tended to show less anxiety-related behaviors in an anxiety-inducing mixed-reality environment used in the study. Fearlessness and lack of empathy best predicted (the lack of) anxious behavior. The paper was published in Scientific Reports.
Psychopathic traits are a set of personality characteristics that make individuals prone to antisocial behaviors, lacking empathy, manipulativeness, and equipped with superficial charm. Individuals with these traits often exhibit impulsivity, irresponsibility, and a disregard for societal norms. They may also display shallow emotions and be unable to form genuine relationships.
Early research in psychopathy indicated that psychopathic individuals also tend to show a lack of fear or anxiety. These individuals tend to show very weak physiological reactions to aversive stimuli. Researchers hypothesized that psychopathic individuals tend to have lower anxiety than non-psychopathic individuals. This would make psychopathic individuals less inhibited by anxiety, allowing them to act in fearless and risk-taking ways. This hypothesis is known as the low-anxiety hypothesis of psychopathy.
However, testing the low-anxiety hypothesis in an experimental setting was almost impossible until recently. To test this hypothesis, researchers would need to subject participants to a treatment that induces high levels of anxiety or fear in non-psychopathic individuals. There used to be no credible ways to do this without exposing participants to real danger, which is not acceptable from the standpoint of scientific ethics. However, the development of virtual and augmented reality technology promises to change this.
Study author Alexander Voulgaris and his colleagues wanted to test the low-anxiety hypothesis by exposing participants to an anxiety-inducing environment using mixed reality. Mixed reality blends the physical and digital worlds by superimposing virtual objects onto the real environment, allowing for interactive experiences that integrate both real and virtual elements seamlessly.
The researchers combined virtual reality technology with a slightly elevated wooden platform to create a mixed-reality elevated plus-maze apparatus for humans. This type of apparatus is widely used in research on rodents and consists of an elevated cross-like structure with four paths extending from a central platform. The entire platform is at a high elevation. Two paths are enclosed with walls, while two are open with no walls.
In classic experiments on rodents, a rodent is placed on the central part of the platform, and researchers observe its movement, whether it ventures onto the open paths, how long it takes to start exploring, and how long it spends on each path. This helps assess anxiety-like behaviors in rodents.
In this study, researchers created a similar environment for humans. They expected individuals with more pronounced psychopathic traits to spend more time on the open paths of the maze (the ones without walls) and take less time to start exploring these paths.
The participants were 170 volunteers recruited through electronic and physical bulletin boards on the researchers’ university campus and other public spaces. Sixty-eight percent of participants were female, and their average age was 26 years. Eighty-seven percent were born in Germany.
The elevated plus-maze apparatus consisted of a wooden platform elevated 20 cm from the floor, placed in a 5.5-meter by 5.5-meter experimental room. Participants started the study standing in the center of the platform, using virtual reality gear to simulate standing in the center of a maze on a rocky cliff over the sea, facing one of the open paths. The study authors simulated wind using two fans. The two enclosed paths appeared to be on the cliff, while the open paths were suspended over a deep abyss. Participants had 300 seconds to explore the maze freely.
Participants also completed assessments of psychopathic traits (the Brief Questionnaire of Psychopathic Personality Traits), acrophobia (the Acrophobia Questionnaire, acrophobia is an intense fear of heights), and sensation seeking (the Zuckerman Sensation Seeking Scale).
Results showed that individuals with higher levels of psychopathic traits tended to spend more time exploring the open paths of the maze (the ones suspended over the abyss with no walls) and less time in the enclosed paths. They also began exploring these open paths sooner. In other words, they showed more approach and less avoidance behaviors in this anxiety-inducing situation. Overall, individuals with more pronounced psychopathic traits showed lower levels of all anxiety-related behaviors in this setting.
When researchers examined which aspects of psychopathy were most strongly associated with these behaviors, they found that lack of empathy and fearlessness were the key factors. Psychopathic traits were also associated with lower subjective levels of anxiety. Individuals with more pronounced psychopathic traits tended to report feeling less anxiety while in the mixed reality elevated maze.
“Our results demonstrate the influence of specific psychopathic personality traits on human behavior in a mixed reality environment. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to examine the interplay between psychopathic traits and anxiety, not only on a subjective level but also on a behavioral level,” the study authors concluded.
“As hypothesized, in our non-clinical sample, a higher sum score of psychopathy correlated with less anxiety-related behavior and lower subjective levels of anxiety. More specifically, our results show an association between the specific subscales of Fearlessness, Lack of Empathy, and Impulsivity as measured by the FPP [the assessment of psychopathy], and anxious behavior in the EPM [elevated plus-maze].”
The study sheds light on the links between fear and anxiety. However, although mixed reality environments can be quite immersive, human participants remain aware that what they are observing is a computer simulation and that there is no real danger. It is possible that results would differ if real danger were involved.
The paper “The impact of psychopathic traits on anxiety‑related behaviors in a mixed reality environment” was authored by Alexander Voulgaris, Sarah V. Biedermann, Daniel Biedermann, Susanne Bründl, Lateefah Roth, ChristianWiessner, Peer Briken, and Johannes Fuss.
