Facial emotion recognition, empathy & psychopathic traits: Understanding differential effects of measures

Empathy, encompassing affective and cognitive components, is considered fundamental to understanding psychopathic traits and its relationship with facial emotion recognition. Nonetheless, existing evidence is inconsistent, reflecting variability in measurement approaches and limited use of ecologically valid tasks. We examined associations between empathy, psychopathic traits, and facial emotion recognition in 227 participants. Empathy was assessed using both self-report (Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy; QCAE) and performance-based measures (Multifaceted Empathy Test; MET). Psychopathic traits were measured with the Psychopathic Personality Traits Scale–Revised (PPTS-R). Facial emotion recognition was tested using dynamic stimuli across ten emotions. Affective empathy was negatively associated with psychopathic traits across both QCAE and MET. Cognitive empathy showed divergent patterns: self-reported cognitive empathy correlated negatively with psychopathic traits, whereas performance-based cognitive empathy did not. Facial emotion recognition was positively associated only with performance-based cognitive empathy, particularly for embarrassment. No significant associations emerged between psychopathic traits and facial emotion recognition. These findings demonstrate the importance of incorporating diverse assessment tools to investigate empathy, alongside self-report measures. The study further contributes to the existing literature on the relationships among empathy, psychopathic traits, and facial emotion recognition.