Perspective taking as a Mediator in the Relationship between Psychopathic Tendencies and the Evaluation of Crying Others.

Abstract

This research investigated whether automatically taking perspective of someone else is a mediator in the relationship between psychopathic tendencies and the evaluation of crying others. In addition, the correlation between psychopathic tendencies and the evaluation of crying others and the correlation between automatically taking perspective of someone else and the evaluation of crying others were investigated. Participants had to complete a survey that consisted of multiple questionnaires. A total of 33 participants, with a mean age of 39.58, of which were 30.3 % male and 45.5% student, finished the questionnaire and were included in the research. To answer the research questions, the scores on the SRP-(SF), the scores on four evaluation dimensions (perceived helplessness, perceived friendliness, connectedness and willingness to help) and number of times yawned were used. The results show no significant mediation effect (p=0.7332, b=0.0064) of automatically taking perspective on the relationship between psychopathic tendencies and the evaluation of crying others. Also no significant main effects of psychopathic tendencies on the evaluation on crying others (p=0.4977, b= -0.0215) and the number of times yawned on the evaluation of others (p=0.09, b=0.2397) where found. When looked at the four evaluation dimensions separately, a main effect of automatically taking perspective of others on the evaluation of willingness to help (p=0.0252, b=0.3488) and perceived helplessness (p=0.0016, b=0.3766) were found. These results suggest that the tendency to automatically take perspective of someone else is not an underlying mechanism which people with psychopathic tendencies use different when evaluating crying others.