Psychopathy and the Regulation of Interpersonal Distance

What is it about?

Previous studies have reported psychopathy to be associated with smaller preferred interpersonal distances. In the present manuscript, we extend these findings to effects of facial expression and understanding of social spatial norms. We immersed subjects in a virtual environment and presented a variety of virtual people with either happy, neutral, or angry facial expression. In the first experiment, subjects walked towards a virtual person until a comfortable distance was reached. In the second experiment, subjects estimated comfortable interpersonal distances between two virtual persons. Contrary to previous research, psychopathy did not affect the perception of appropriate interpersonal distance per se. Instead, psychopathy was associated with a diminished regulation of interpersonal distance with respect to social cues, and judgement of smaller preferred interpersonal distance in others. We discuss our findings in light of theories of psychopathy and proxemic theory.

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Why is it important?

In sum, our findings show that psychopathy is not asso- ciated with an altered perception of appropriate inter- personal distance per se. Instead, psychopathy is related to the regulation of IPD with respect to social cues.