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ABSTRACT
Psychopathy is found to be associated with aggression. However, the role of “understanding the mental states of others” in this relation is not clearly understood yet. The current study aimed to increase our understanding of a specific ability of understanding the mental state of others, namely recognizing a faux pas, and understand the relation of this “social misstep” in self-reported aggressive behavior. The sample consisted of 105 individuals from the community (both males and females) who were tested with the Faux Pas test and several self-report questionnaires assessing triarchic psychopathic personality traits and aggression. We found a positive relationship between the triarchic constructs and self-reported proactive and reactive aggression. Additionally, although all psychopathy constructs were negatively related to self-reported empathy, only the boldness trait was negatively associated with faux pas recognition. No mediation effect of faux pas on the relation between psychopathy and aggression was found. Current findings underline the importance of differentiating different Theory of Mind and empathic abilities in relation to psychopathy and aggression, which is essential to develop effective interventions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).