Chapter 11 - Psychopathic Offending Flashcards
historic context for psychopathy
psychopathy was a ‘wastebasket category’ used to define antisociality
madness w/o delusions (Pinel, 1801)
- ‘madness w/o delusions’ (Pinel, 1801); impulsive and violent acts
- ‘moral insanity’ (Prichard, 1883); know their illegal and immoral acts are wrong but don’t care, don’t respond to punishment
‘psychopathic inferiority’ (Koch, 1888)
a primarily biologically predetermined personality disorder.
Types of psychopathy (Kraeplin, 1907):
- born criminals w/o sense of morality or remorse
- morbid liars who enjoy lying and deceiving
- spendthrifts who use/rely on others for money
- vagabonds who live day-to-day w/ few plans and who take off on a whim
first DSM (1952) included sociopathy
“a chronically antisocial person who lacks loyalty to anything or anyone and is callous, lacking judgement, immature, often able to rationalize their antisocial behs”
DSM-III (1980) ASPD
focus on behavioural rather than personality symptoms
DSM-5 (2013) and current DSM-5-TR (2022): ASPD and psychopathy
ASPD: manipulativeness, deceitfulness, hostility, callousness (antagonism traits), and impulsivity, risk taking, and irresponsibility (disinhibition traits)
- must have had conduct disorder before age 15 w/ 3/7 adult symptoms
Psychopathy: the above traits, as well as low anxiousness, low withdrawal, high attention seeking, relatively low impulsivity
DSM diagnostic criteria for ASPD
a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since age 15, with 3+ of the following:
1) failure to conform to social norms w/ respect to lawful behs
2) deceitfulness, as shown by repeated lying, aliases, conning others for profit/pleasure
3) impulsivity/failure to plan ahead
4) irritability and aggressiveness
5) reckless disregard for safety of self or others
6) consistent irresponsibility, shown by failure to sustain consistent work beh or honor financial oblig.
7) lack of remorse, shown by indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, stealing from others
B) at least 18 years old
C) evidence of CD before age 15
D) occurrence of antisocial beh not exclusively during course of schizophrenia or BP
what is the PCL-R
hare psychopathy checklist-revised
- 20-item symptom measure using a 3-point scale
prevalence of psychopathy
71% of one UK sample had no psychopathic traits
1.2% of a US sample scored as ‘potentially psychopathic’
<1% in general community score high on psychopathy measures
- more likely to engage in violence
- more common among upper-level corporate managers (8 out of 203; 4.9% scored in diagnostic range, coworkers are more likely to be bullied, harassed, less career success, etc)
- 10-25% of incarcerated adult offenders classified as high on psychopathic traits
psychopathy: factors
Factor 1: interpersonal/affective
Factor 2: social deviance
what are the facets of factor 1 in psychopathy
Facet 1: interpersonal
- glibness/superficial charm, grandiose self-worth, pathological lying, conning/manipulative
Facet 2: affective
- lack of remorse/guilt, shallow affect, callous/lack of empathy, failure to accept responsibility for actions
what are the facets of factor 2 for psychopathy
Facet 3: lifestyle
- need for stimulation, prone to boredom, parasitic lifestyle, lack of realistic long term goals, impulsivity, irresponsibility
Facet 4: antisocial
- poor beh controls, early beh probs, juv. delinquency, revocation of condition, release, criminal versatility
psychopathy: impact on society
Kirkman (2005) interviewed 20 women who were dating 6+ months w/ man they described as psychopathic
- all reported sig health impacts
Forth et al. (2002) sample of 457 women (90%) and males (10%)
- ppts reported feeling depression, PTSD sympts, trust probs, physical health probs
Humeny et al. (2021) found that frequency, severity, and number of types of abuse was predicted by abusers’ psychopathic traits
psychopathy impact on society - what types of abuse experiences are most common?
emotional and deception most common
8 common themes identified by Kirkman (2005)
- talking victim into victimization
- lying
- economic abuse
- emotional abuse/psychological torture
- multiple infidelities
- isolation and coercion
- assault
- mistreatment of children
how do people w/ psychopathic traits identify people who have experienced violence?
people w/ psychopathic traits are better at identifying people who have experienced prior violence based on gait cues
- Wheeler et al. (2009) and Book et al. (2013) found viewers w/ high psychopathy and factor 1 scores were more accurate at identifying people who experienced sexual or violent crimes
affective deficits models
- general emotional deficit
- specific emotional deficit
define general emotional deficit theory
core deficit in psychopathy is likely poverty of emotions
define specific emotional deficit theory
- ex: lack of fear (in face of punishment, low-fear hypothesis)
- ex: integrated emotion systems theory: inability to recognize sadness or distress in others (and therefore to inhibit violence, etc)
attention model theory
response modulation deficit: can’t focus attention to modify initial responses
- ex: once they decide to retaliate, they don’t change their minds
developmental models: emotional capacity
ex: lack of emotional capacity for developing a conscience in response to discipline
- from as young as 30months, healthy children learn to inhibit behs that have neg consequences for others by having their own neg. emots in response to other’s distress
- children and adults w/ psychopathic traits show reduced autonomic responses to distress of others, and reduced recognition of sad/fearful expressions
developmental models: response to parental socialization
in comparison to children w/ other conduct probs, children w/ psychopathic traits are less responsive to parental socialization
- display less distress after hurting others
- have reduced overall emotional responses to emotional stimuli
- 2 developmental paths:
1) callous/unemotional (instrumental aggression vs.
2) impulse conduct problems (reactive aggression)
genetics of psychopathy
twin studies show strong genetic component
- moderate to strong genetic influence for all psychopathic traits
- interventions need to start early
neurology of psychopathy
- reduction in prefrontal grey matter (prob solving, self control)
- less grey matter in right superior temporal gyrus (perception of emotion, such as lacking moral judgement, hostile attribution)
- less hippocampal volume (response inhibition, learning/memory, lack of fear conditioning)
- less amygdala volume (storage of memory of emotional events, moral emotions)
- increase in callosal white matter, hyperconnectivity (intellect, reduced lateralization of functions, such as areas impt for emotional processing, remorse)
name major brain regions implicated in psychopathy
ventro-medial prefrontal cortex
corpus callosum
superior temporal gyrus
hippocampus
amygdala
anterior cingulate
function of ventro-medial prefrontal cortex
decision making
emotion regulation
empathy
moral judgement
outcome of ventro-medial prefrontal cortex in psychopathy
poor planning/impulsivity
poor anger control
callous disregard for others
antisocial behaviors
function of corpus callosum
connectivity b/t hemispheres
asymmetries of function
outcomes of corpus callosum in psychopathy
reduced lateralization of functions
superior temporal gyrus functions
social judgement
perspective-taking and moral judgement
outcomes of superior temporal gyrus in psychopathy
misattribution of others’ motives
antisocial behaviors
hippocampus function
fear conditioning
outcomes of hippocampus in psychopathy
failure to desist from punished behavior
amygdala functions
social-emotion judgements
moral emotions
outcomes of amygdala in psychopathy
misperception of others’ feelings
antisocial behaviors
function of anterior cingulate
inhibition
outcomes of anterior cingulate in psychopathy
failure to control behavior
what is psychopathy often comorbid with?
SUD
psychopathic traits are related to…?
psychopathic traits are strongly related to antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders, and moderately related to paranoid, borderline, and histrionic disorders
what is associated w/ psychopathic traits in youth
in youth, psychopathic traits have strong association w/ CD and moderate association w/ ADHD
psychopathy factor 1 is associated with what maladaptive outcomes?
factor 1 - interpersonal/affective:
narcissistic personality disorder
instrumental violence
low treatment response
treatment drop out
psychopathy factor 2 is linked with what maladaptive outcomes?
factor 2 - impulsive social deviant lifestyle:
ASPD
reactive violence
SUDs
institutional misconduct recidivism
types of violence, recidivism, and crime in psychopathy
- psychopaths often begin criminal careers early and persist in violence across lifespan
- engage in both proactive/reactive and predatory/instrumental violence
- psychopathy predicts all types of recidivism (small-moderate relationship w/ sexual recidivism and institutional violence)
why do psychopaths engage in crime?
- sensation-seeking and risk taking (prone to being in high risk situations)
- impulsive (fail to consider alternatives/ consequences of crime)
- unemotional (can’t appreciate emotional consequences of crime)
- suspicious (perceive hostile intent from others)
- selfish and arrogant (want to have power/ control over others)
