With the term psychopathy We refer to a personological picture characterized by self -centeredness, insensitivity, lack of remorse and empathy, impulsiveness and irresponsibility, predisposition towards manipulative or anti -social behaviors.
The association between psychopathy And antisocial behaviorsuch as physical violence, verbal aggression and sex coercion, has been widely demonstrated by several studies (for a review, see Jones, Miller and Lynam, 2011).
One of the most interesting explanatory hypotheses of this correlation consists in the deficitality of the “inhibitory mechanism of violence” present in psychopathic subjects.
In fact, the latter were lacking in the perception of the expressions of others – both verbal and non -verbal – of fear (Blair and colleagues, 2002, 2004) and this deficit would limit the possibility that the attacker inhibits his violent behavior following signals of submission by the victim (Blair, 1995).
In line with this theory other authors have shown that, in a sample of students, i Psychopathic traits They were associated with a lesser ability to recognize the expressions of pain of others who, as well as for facial expressions of fear, could make the implementation of aggressive antisocial behaviors more likely (Niel and colleagues, 2007; Reidy and colleagues, 2009).
Although the literature data confirm the presence of a lower responsiveness of the psychopaths To the pain and fear of others, there are still few research that examined the response of these subjects to their experience of physical pain.
In a very recent study, of Miller and collaborators (2014) have tested the hypothesis that the Psychopathic traits They are associated with greater tolerance of physical pain and that this feature explains, at least in part, the relationship between psychopathy and aggressive behaviors.
Ultimately, the study, conducted on a community sample consisting of 120 volunteers, found only a moderate – albeit positive – correlation between tolerance of physical pain And psychopathic traits.
These results confirm previous studies that had found, within the brain structures involved in the perception of the experience of physical pain (proper and others), the presence of circuits also involved in emotion connected to psychopathy (eg, Kiehl, 2006).
Furthermore, if – on the one hand – Miller’s study and collaborators has not shown that the tolerance of pain is the mediator variable between psychopathy and antisocial behaviorthe results instead suggested that the psychopathic traits to mediate the association between pain tolerance and violent behavior.
Ultimately, it would seem that a greater degree of tolerance to physical pain It can contribute to the development of psychopathic personological traits which, in turn, increase the probability of antisocial behavior.
This recent survey provides first support for the existence of an indirect effect of tolerance to physical pain on aggression, through the presence of Psychopathic traitssuch as insensitivity and self -centeredness.
However, these preliminary data need to be confirmed through longitudinal studies that can give certain proof that these associations are of a causal nature so as to be able to develop etiological models of certain behavioral problems of a violent nature that – today more than ever – affect not only our clinical but also legal and legal scope.
