The effects of psychopathic traits on fear of pain, anxiety, and stress

•The role of pain, stress, and anxiety in psychopathy is highly mitigated.•We investigated the relationship between the PPI-SF and fear of pain-related variables.•FD is negatively correlated with fear and catastrophization of pain, stress, and anxiety.•IA is positively correlated with stress, and anxiety.•IA is only positively correlated with pain catastrophization in males.

The relationship between psychopathy and internalizing behaviours, such as fear of pain, anxiety, and stress, is highly debated due to conflicting results found across a wide array of studies. We hypothesized a negative relationship between higher display of Fearless Dominance and fear of pain, anxiety, and stress as well as a positive relationship between higher display of Impulsive Antisociality and the aforementioned variables. Using community participants (N = 529), we found weak to moderate negative correlations between Fearless Dominance and all measures of fear of pain, anxiety, and stress in both genders.While a correlation between Impulsive Antisociality and pain catastrophization was only observed in males, weak to moderate positive relationships were found when correlated with measures of anxiety and stress in both genders. Overall, these results highlight the importance of taking psychopathy subtypes and genders into account when conducting statistical analyses for psychopathy-related research. The implications of these findings are discussed.