Social Values, Impression Management Strategies and Psychopathy (V1)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Social Values and Impression Management Strategies Associated with Psychopathic Traits
IRAS ID
225716
Contact name
Elinor Doris
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Royal Holloway, University of London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
This research aims to answer two principle questions. The first of these is: 'What are the impression management strategies associated with psychopathic traits and are these related to social values?' The second research question is: 'Is there a difference between primary compared to secondary psychopathic traits in terms of their relationships with impression management strategies and underlying social values?'
Impression management strategies enable individuals to present themselves in the way that they wish to be perceived by others. These behavioural tactics may be assertive, in that they are used to establish or develop one’s image, or defensive, in which case they are employed to rescue one’s image when he or she perceives it may be damaged. Such tactics may be applied in order to ascertain certain social values, including dominance, power or love.
Psychopathy refers to a personality type that is currently thought of as having ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ traits. Primary traits include a lack of empathy, whereas secondary traits include criminal behaviour.
Research has indicated that psychopathic traits are associated with assertive impression management strategies (Jones Bartoli et al., submitted) and social values including a focus on dominance and materialism (Lee et al., 2013).
It is important to understand more about psychopathic traits and the people who possess them given that they pose a risk to society and clinical interventions to date have been unsuccessful.
The present study would be unique in that it would be the first to investigate whether the impression management strategies of individuals with psychopathic traits are related to their underlying social values.
Adult participants will be recruited from a secure mental health setting. Impression management strategies, psychopathy and social values will be measured by self-report questionnaires; and the relationships between these factors will be explored statistically.
REC name
London - Westminster Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/LO/0988
Date of REC Opinion
10 Jul 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion