Looking After Number One: Associations Between Psychopathic Traits and Measures of Social Motivation and Functioning in a Community Sample of Males Lucy Foulkes & Ana Seara-Cardoso & Craig S. Neumann & John S. C. Rogers & Essi Viding Published online: 11 September 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract Individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits do not typically form enduring bonds with others. However, few studies have documented the associations between psy- chopathic traits and social functioning. This study systemati- cally explored associations between psychopathic traits and a number of measures characterising social/material goals, so- cial beliefs and the need for belonging, providing a compre- hensive assessment of aspects of social functioning associated with psychopathic personality traits. Additionally, a novel experimental vignettes task assessed the extent to which par- ticipants identified dominance in themselves and admired this trait in others. Community males with high levels of psycho- pathic traits appeared not to be motivated by meaningful, long-term relationships. Instead, they seemed to be motivated by goals relating to their own image and financial success. Additionally, these individuals admired dominance in others, but did not clearly identify this trait in themselves. Thus, this study is one of the first to empirically explore multiple areas of social functioning in relation to psychopathic traits, with a view to understanding the social motivations of individuals with high levels of these traits. The findings provide empirical evidence that individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits seem motivated to look after themselves, but not others. Keywords Psychopathic traits . Social motivation . Aspirations . Friendship . Need to belong . Dominance Introduction Individuals with psychopathy are selfish, lack empathy and guilt, and aspire to dominate and manipulate other people for their own gains (Hare 1999). Unsurprisingly, their friendships and romantic relationships tend to be short-lived (Baird 2002; Jonason et al. 2009, 2012). The absence of long-term relation- ships seen in these individuals is in contrast to the well- established need for closeness and belonging seen in typical people (Baumeister and Leary 1995). That is, most people are motivated to form and maintain meaningful, enduring bonds with others (Baumeister and Leary 1995) and find these bonds rewarding (Bartels and Zeki 2004). Psychopathy is typically conceptualised as a two-factor construct. 1 Factor 1 consists of dysfunctional affective/ interpersonal (AI) traits such as a lack of empathy, whereas Factor 2 consists of problematic lifestyle/antisocial (LA) be- haviours such as impulsivity and sensation seeking. The AI traits of Factor 1 are considered to distinguish individuals who are psychopathic from those who are antisocial but not psy- chopathic (Blair et al. 2005). The unique variance of these two dimensions of psychopathy, AI and LA, present distinct asso- ciations with various measures of personality, emotionality and behaviour (Hicks and Patrick 2006; Seara-Cardoso et al. 1 The more recent four-factor model of psychopathy can easily be viewed in terms of the traditional two-factor model (e.g. Hare and Neumann 2008). The latter model was chosen for the current study as it allows the study to be integrated with the wealth of literature using the Psychopathic Checklist-Revised (Hare 2003) and its two- factor conception of psychopathy. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10862-013-9381-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. L. Foulkes (*) : A. Seara-Cardoso : J. S. C. Rogers : E. Viding Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AP, UK e-mail: l.foulkes.11@ucl.ac.uk C. S. Neumann Department of Psychology, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle # 311280, Denton, TX 76203, USA J Psychopathol Behav Assess (2014) 36:22–29 DOI 10.1007/s10862-013-9381-2