Behavioral Inhibition System Functioning in Anxious, Impulsive and Psychopathic Individuals

Summar)-Behavioral inhibition system (BIS) functioning (Gray, The Psychology of Fear and Stress. Cambridge University Press, 1987) was assessed by measuring whether approach responses were emitted more slowly when a cue for punishment was present. Experiment 1 compared highand low-anxious as well as highand low-impulsive university students. As predicted by Gray’s model (Gray, The neuropsychology oj anxiety. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), high-anxious subjects responded more slowly than low-anxious subjects on cue-present vs cue-absent displays. Experiment 2 compared incarcerated psychopaths and nonpsychopaths subdivided into highand low-anxious groups. Consistent with weak BIS models of psychopathy (Fowles, Psychophysiology, 17, 87-104, 1980; Gray, The psychology qffear and stress, Cambridge University Press, 1987), psychopaths displayed less inhibition than controls on cuepresent trials, but this effect was limited to comparisons involving high-anxious psychopaths and controls. 8 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd