Psychopathy is associated with profound emotional disturbances. Yet little is known about associations between psychopathic traits and what individuals want to feel (i.e., emotion goals). Associations between psychopathy and emotion goals were investigated in two studies with nonclinical samples (N = 148 undergraduate students; N = 520 community sample). Four emotions often studied in psychopathy research were targeted: anger, fear, sadness, and joy. Furthermore, perceived utility and perceived pleasantness of emotions were assessed to investigate whether potential associations between psychopathy and emotion goals could be partly explained by instrumental or hedonic considerations, respectively. Psychopathic traits were positively related to negative emotion goals (primarily anger). Although joy was the most wanted emotion on average, psychopathy was negatively but less robustly related to the emotion goal of joy. Mediation analyses suggested differential motivational (hedonic and/or instrumental) mechanisms for different emotion goals. These findings provide preliminary evidence for motivated emotion regulation in psychopathy.

中文翻译：

---

情绪目标：精神病和情绪调节研究中的缺失部分。

精神病与严重的情绪障碍有关。然而，人们对精神病特征与个人想要感受的东西（即情绪目标）之间的关联知之甚少。在两项具有非临床样本的研究（N = 148 名本科生；N = 520 社区样本）中调查了精神病和情绪目标之间的关联。精神病研究中经常研究的四种情绪是有针对性的：愤怒、恐惧、悲伤和喜悦。此外，还评估了情绪的感知效用和感知愉悦度，以研究精神病和情绪目标之间的潜在关联是否可以分别通过工具性或享乐性考虑部分解释。精神病特征与消极情绪目标（主要是愤怒）呈正相关。虽然平均而言，喜悦是最想要的情绪，精神病与喜悦的情绪目标呈负相关但不那么强烈。中介分析提出了不同情绪目标的不同动机（享乐和/或工具）机制。这些发现为精神病患者的动机性情绪调节提供了初步证据。