Introduction/background

           Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterised by a high frequency of manipulation and untruthfulness.   Shao and Lee (2017), reported that psychopaths often exhibit emotional detachment and disruption of normal behaviour. Similar to many psychiatric disorders, psychopaths have a moderately strong genetic influence which combined with environmental factors to exhibit psychopathic traits. One of the clinically relevant examples of dishonesty observed amongst psychopaths is that they frequently involve in the deception and lying for enjoyment.      While lying is a ubiquitous social phenomenon highly common in daily harmony, it is fundamental to identify the underlying thrill of lying amongst psychopaths so that a constant pattern of the psychopaths can be identified.  Anderson and Kiehl(2014),  reported that the common issues with the identification of psychopaths are the ability to lie without an appropriate pattern.   Another theoretical issue highlighted for identification of the psychopath is that in current psychiatric classification, psychopathy is not a distinct diagnosis rather it is a   subtype of anti-social personality. Therefore, the anti-social behaviour of the psychopaths puts a strain on the criminal justice system to determine the appropriate punishment for psychopaths.  While anti-social personality is often characterised by persistent, violent offending history, lack of emotions or empathy towards others and absence of shame or guilt, it is difficult to distinguish the anti-social non-psychopaths person and psychopathy (Thomson et al., 2020).  Therefore, psychopaths are more likely to involve in criminal activity and have no sense of guilt after involving in the offensive. No sense of moral dilemma and different cognitive function made it difficult to punish them. In the United Kingdom, approximately 1% of the general male population is psychopaths whereas 15%-20% of the incarcerated male population are psychopaths. It is less likely to be common among women (Boduszek et al., 2016). These theoretical issues intensified the need for a comprehensive assessment procedure that can identify psychopaths and provide them with the opportunity to live a purposeful life. However, the recent neurobiological researches shed a light into the cognitive functioning of psychopaths that can allow professionals to identify dishonesty of the psychopaths. Several neuroimaging studies that have investigated neural function that enhance deception amongst psychopaths and highlighted a phenomenon called duping delight. Curtis,  Richards and Jones(2020), reported that one of the hallmark characteristics of psychopaths is duping delight which is a micro-expression exhibited by individuals when they take pleasure of deception for providing a sense of inferiority and power to others. They tend to have dopamine rich neural system which allows them to take pleasure in lying.

Likewise, another group of researchers highlighted that Morphological defects of the amygdala, as well as orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), are present in violent offenders with psychopathic traits where Monoamine oxidase-A activity increase the aggressive behaviours (Kolla et al., 2017).   However, dishonesty and violence amongst psychopaths are detrimental combinations that increase the tendency of deception.  A school of thought proposed that anterior cingulate cortex play a fundamental role in identifying dishonesty amongst psychopaths.  Abe, Greene and Kiehl (2018), in their research, highlighted that diminished cognitive conflicts and reduced anterior cingulate cortex engagement are the underlying reason behind deception and dishonesty tendency of psychopaths.  Abe, Greene and Kiehl (2018), in their literature reviews, mentioned that psychopaths have different reward mechanism compared to a non-psychopathic general mechanism which explains why psychopaths tend to have a low reaction time of lying and no moral dilemma for deception.  Psychopathic traits wired brain to seek reward from any other objects while reducing engagement with anterior cingulate cortex which might be a novel strategy to identify the consistent pattern of dishonesty and criminal behaviour amongst psychopaths (Thomson et al., 2020).   The neurobiological aspects of Abe, Greene and Kiehl (2018) would be discussed critically in the following paragraphs.

Rationale:

        Abe, Greene and Kiehl (2018) shed light into the neurobiology of psychopaths by hypothesising that psychopathic individuals demonstrate reduced activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and reduced cognitive conflicts when confronted with a situation that provides an opportunity to exhibit dishonesty.  Snyder (2019), reported that the literature review is highlighted as an effective way to represent profound knowledge on the topic area, especially gaps in the current research and open questions left from other research.  Therefore, Abe, Greene and Kiehl (2018) focused on the profound knowledge of neurobiology, especially neural and cognitive mechanism of the brain behind increasing dishonesty behaviour and cheating tendency.   Abe, Greene and Kiehl (2018) present a compelling argument for why this research is needed. Abe, Greene and Kiehl (2018) argued that reduced activity in the anterior cingulate cortex is the underlying reason for lying and it explains why psychopaths are manipulative.

  Abe, Greene and Kiehl (2018) represented the need for conducting such neurobiological research by highlighting that even though many researchers proposed relationship between deception and psychopathy, the major limitation of these researches is that study participant lied for the purposes of the study. Hence, the majority of the researchers conducted studies based on the deception that neither morally questionable nor due to temptation.   Involving study participants who are incarcerated psychopaths in the research justified the need for conducting this particular research (Thomson,  Towl & Centifanti, 2016).  The accomplishment of the research allows future researchers and other allied professionals to identify the cognitive activity of psychopaths when they involve in act of lying in temptation or morally questionable situation.

 However, Abe, Greene and Kiehl (2018) unable to consider the genetic factors and trauma in the childhood that shapes the cognitive activity and neural function of the brain. Craparo, Schimmenti and Caretti (2013), investigated childhood relationship trauma in group of violent offenders from Italy aged 22 years to 60 years.  The reported that early traumatic exposure is one of the fundamental reason which influenced the criminal behaviours and psychopathic traits amongst older adults.  Researchers reported that early abuse from the parents, unavailability of primary caregiver and negligence from primary caregiver often subject an infant to the distress and reduce empathy (Thomson,  Towl & Centifanti, 2016). Therefore, early negligence significantly influence neural function and reduced engagement of anterior cingulate cortex responsible for empathy, impulse control, emotion, and decision-making (Fede et al., 2016). Therefore, they become desensitised to moral values of right and wrong, empathy and moral decision making in adulthood.  Similarly, parenting play a crucial role in shaping cognition and neural activity (Basile et al., 2020).   The psychopathic adults remembered being exposed to higher levels of parenting by lying in childhood tend to have a different cognitive function and reduced engagement anterior cingulate cortex (Setoh et al., 2020). Hence, they tend to exhibit a high level of deception without anxiety, low moral judgement for decision making and manipulative pattern. Therefore, consideration of early childhood experience is an important factor for identifying unique anterior cingulate cortex active for the psychopaths. It will allow the criminal system and psychotherapists to focus on psychosocial functioning of psychopaths, empathy and development of pro-social behaviours rather than punishments like hanging and incarceration.

 Method and Design:

Abe, Greene and Kiehl (2018) conducted an experimental study, especially functional magnetic resonance imaging to gain an understanding of anterior cingulate cortex. Sheikholeslami et al. (2017), reported that experimental research usually determines a relationship between two variables. Experimental research also conducted for proving the hypothesis.  Therefore, Abe, Greene and Kiehl (2018) conducted an experimental study for proving the hypothesis that reduced activity in the anterior cingulate cortex is the underlying reason for lying and it explains why psychopaths are manipulative in nature.  On the other hand, neural imaging helps patients to assess the structures of the brain during any cognitive task. Hence, the research method is appropriate for this research.  The researchers incorporated 67 adult males incarcerated in a medium-security North American correctional facility.  All participants underwent an interview and assessment for obtaining a history of current alcohol or drug use.  Sim et al. (2017), reported that a specific sample different from the population in general and other studies increases the reliability and importance of the study. Therefore, in this context, while many researchers incorporated study participants who lied for the purposes of the study, the authors in this study incorporated incarcerated male who involved in act of lying in temptation or morally questionable situation.  Therefore, study participants allow researchers to identify specific deception and lying pattern under temptation and no sense of moral dilemma (Abe, Greene & Kiehl, 2018).   The researchers into three groups to isolate the degree of psychopaths. The researchers conducted a coin-flip prediction task in which participants had opportunities to gain money dishonestly by lying about the accuracy of their predictions and they had been financially incentivized. Whole-brain imaging was performed for assessing cognitive activity in the presence of visual stimuli of deception. The statistical analysis was done for the assessing data (analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pearson correlation test) to identify the cognitive function.  Taherdoost (2017), highlighted statistical analysis is an effective way to obtain the relationship between data as it has a numeric significance which allows researchers to prove the hypothesized. The obtained result is generalised to the psychopaths who had a tendency of deception lying and involved in the criminal offences (Abe, Greene & Kiehl, 2018).  Therefore, it is not applicable for the population who are non-psychopaths or criminal offender or individuals with anti-social behaviours as they do not meet the criteria for a moral dilemma.

 Findings

The main findings are consistent with the results section. The researchers aimed to identify aimed at testing the hypothesis that individuals are better able to predict the future when their predictions are incentivised.  In this context, the research findings suggested that psychopathy was characterised by reduced ACC activity during deceitful moral decision-making. The researchers suggested that psychopathic individuals are the impulsive decision-maker and their innate response are observed when there is an opportunity to dishonest gain (Abe, Greene & Kiehl, 2018). However, no innate response of deception observed when there is no opportunity to dishonest gain.  While honest behaviour requires no active self-control, both dishonest and honest behaviours both require addiction controlled processing. Therefore, the anticipated reward is the significant determinant of dishonest behaviours of 67 adult males incarcerated in a medium-security (Abe, Greene & Kiehl, 2018).  The heightened reward-related activity and reward pathway activation in the low conflict situation explains why some are a pathological liar and some are psychopaths. While conducting research with adult incarcerated males with the psychopathic trait,   researchers discovered that degree of psychopathy is a moderating factor in determining whether dishonest behaviour is more controlled or ‘wilful’.  The researcher’s connectivity between the left ACC and left DLPFC while taking dishonest moral decision-making is the underlying factor behind lying pattern (Abe, Greene & Kiehl, 2018).  The alternative explanation for the result obtained from the research is that ACC is associated with attentional modulation. Therefore, poor attention is highlighted as the centre of the psychopathic trait. It is appropriately aligned with other researchers conducted by various neurobiologist (Abe, Greene & Kiehl, 2018).  Many researchers suggested that socio-emotional discrepancies in psychopathy are because of situation-specific abnormalities in attention because psychopaths usually have difficulties in processing certain effective information which reduced their reaction time. Likewise, many researchers suggested that psychopaths tend to lie because to exhibit honest behaviours, they require to involve in moral conflicts and resolve moral conflict.  In other words, psychopathic individuals exhibit dishonest behaviours with relatively low levels of response conflict (Abe, Greene & Kiehl, 2018). Hence, the research result is aligned with other contemporary researchers. Waller et al. (2017), reported that reduced sensitivity of the ACC to opportunities for dishonest gain is associated with reduced input from the amygdala.  The underlying reason is that dysfunctional network between ACC and amygdala is what made individuals to be desensitised to the patients. Amygdala is thought to be fundamental for retaining emotional memories and anterior cingulate cortex responsible for empathy, impulse control, emotion, and decision-making. Therefore, desensitisation observed when individuals have the memories have no meaning which resulted in low morale engagement for decision making.   Moreover, while other researchers involved low moral engagement for the purpose of the research which might have low ethical credibility, this research result has no harmful impact.  Abe, Greene and Kiehl (2018) used a coin-flip prediction task which no significant harmful impact.  However, while the majority of the researchers focused on the reward pathway and pleasure taking tendency behind dishonest behaviour and the tendency for cheating.

Discussion and conclusion:

   The theoretical implication of the study is that the obtained result of the study will allow future researchers and other allied professionals to identify the cognitive activity of psychopaths when they lie due to temptation or due to morally questionable situation.  On the other hand, considering the practical implication of the study, it can be said that recognising individuals who are a psychopath and distinguishing them from the anti-social personality disorder is critical when estimating the likelihood of reoffending. In this context, the obtained result of the study will allow researchers to focus on the attention deficit, empathy and development of pro-social behaviours to reduce the tendency of dishonest decision making or cheating.   

  However, research has a various limitation.  The first limitation is that marginally significant findings.  For example, researcher highlighted the converse correlation between psychopathic traits and reaction time for dishonest moral decision-making only marginally significant. Hence, this converse correlation requires extensive future study. The second limitation of the study is that task design had no opportunity for identifying individual lies. While some of the opportunity win trials involved decisions to lie, other opportunity win trials were won honestly.  Therefore, the false-negative are observed simultaneously with a false-positive result. Guillera‐Arroita et al. (2020), reported that false negative or false-positive reduced internal validity of the research because it indicates research bias and study design limitation. The reliability of the research relied on the consideration of confounding that influences the obtained result of the study.  In this context, there are certain limitations that have not been mentioned in the article and it was mentioned above.  Abe, Greene and Kiehl (2018) unable to consider the genetic factors and trauma in the childhood that shapes the cognitive activity and neural function of the brain. The second limitation is that limited consideration of the reward pathway that influence the prefrontal cortex function.  As discussed above the heightened reward-related activity and reward pathway activation in the low conflict situation explains why psychopaths have a pleasure taking behaviours (Abe, Greene & Kiehl, 2018). They tend to have dopamine rich neural system which allows them to take pleasure in lying and control the emotions of others.  Another alternative interpretation that the author failed to consider is the relationship between ADHD and psychopaths.  As discussed above ACC is associated with attentional modulation. Poor attention is highlighted as the centre of the psychopathic trait.  This explains why individuals with ADHD usually have attention deficit poor ACC engagement and under the moral dilemma, they exhibit a tendency of lying (Machado et al., 2017). In this context, as researchers did not consider genetic factors and trauma in the childhood for attention deficit, cognitive activity and ACC engagement, it is recommended that   future research must be focused on genetic factors and trauma in the childhood that shapes ACC engagement and the tendency of a psychopath to lie or cheat.

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