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Forensics > Chapter 7 > Flashcards

Chapter 7 Flashcards

1
Q

Psychopath

  • term
  • deficits (3)
  • also lack
  • not (3)
A 
−Term used to describe a person who has cluster of psych, interpersonal and neurophysio features that distinguish them from gen pop; exists on continuum 
-Deficits or deviance in several areas: 
1– Interpersonal relationships
2– Emotion
3– Self-control
Lack conscience & empathy making them manipulative
volatile & often criminal
• Not = psychosis: loss reality contact
• Not = antisocial personality disorder
• Not = sociopath: impaired conscience
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2
Q

Hare’s categories (3)

  1. aka
  2. aka
    - the two categories differ from first bc?
A
  1. Primary psychopath (personality wise)
  2. Secondary psychopath (neurotics or behavior wise)
  3. Dyssocial Psychopath
    - Other two categories combine a hetero group of anitsoical ppl who are larger segment of criminal pop. Both often incorrectly called psychopaths bc of their high recidvism rates
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3
Q

Primary Psychopath

  • is?
  • not?
  • criminals/crimes
  • 5 traits
A

is a “true” psychopath, has identifiable psych, emotional, cognitive, bio diffs; outgoing, charming and verbally proficient.

  • Not neurotic, psychotic, or emotionally distrubed. Usually not explosive, violent, or extremely destructive.
  • May be criminals but many not. When they do engage in violent crimes they tend to be brutal

callous, manipulative, glib (shallow talk),
lack anxiety & remorse
pathological liars

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4
Q

Secondary psychopath

  • are?
  • sometimes called?
  • differ from primaries?
  • 3 traits
A

Psychopaths committ anitisocial or violent acts because of severe emotional probs or innter conflicts.

  • acting out neurotics, neurotic delinquents, and symptomatic psychopaths, emotionally distrubed offenders.
  • Research shows that they are more emotional instable and impulsive than the primary and more aggressive and violent. Also more rooted in parental abuse, and rejection
  • impulsive, antisocial, poor behavioral controls.
    
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5
Q

Dyssocial psychopaths

- label misleading bc?

A

display aggressive, antisocial behavior that they have learned from subculture like gangs or families.
- Psychopath label may be misleeading bc their behavior and backgrounds are not simm to primaries.

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6
Q

Antisocial Personality disorder

  • is?
  • Antisocial personalities
  • APD and psychopathy
A

used to describe a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of others that begins in childhood or early adolscence and continues into adulthood
−are those who fail to conform to social norms whith respect to lawful behaviors. They may repeatedly perfomr acts that are grounds for arrest
−Psychiatric Term APD follows very closely to psychological term psychopathy but APD is more narrow then primary bc it restricts its def to behavioral indictars (Emotional, neuro, cognitive aspects)

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7
Q

Criminal Psychopathy

  • are
  • vs. nonpsychop prisoners
  • more likely to
  • many psychop’s
A

those psychop’s that engage in repetive antisocial or criminal behavior though not necessarily violent; demonstrate wide range of persistent and serious antisocial behavior. Tend to be dominant, manipulative inndividuals, charactersized by impulsive, risk-taking and antisocail lifestyle
- Commit more serious & violent crimes than non-psychopathic prisoners
• More likely to recidivate after they are released from prison
- have no history of serious antisocial behavior, and persistent serious offenders not necessarily psychop’s

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8
Q

Hervey Cleckley

A

described in clear and empiraclly useful terms the major behaviors in full fledged primary psychop’s; identified 16 charactersitics

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9
Q

Behavioral Descriptions:

  • 2 main features during initial contact
  • other characteristics (7)
  • vocab
  • however, success
A
  • Superficial charm and averag to above avg intelligence
  • Friendly, outgoing, likable, alert, display many intersts, skillfull and talk themselves out of trouble
  • Verbally fluent; Vocab is often so extensive they can talk about anything; often jump from topic to topic and speech is empty of real substance (may lack a central organizer to play and keep track of what to say)
  • However, psychop’s not always verbally and socially skillfule at succesfully manipulating others. Study found that psychop traits did not lead to status, wealth or succesful intimate relationships (charm, deception and impression mangagment did not lead to success in life)
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10
Q

Psychological testing differences

  • IQ tests
  • Hare found
  • so recent research has? overall indicates?
A

−psychop’s usually score higher on IQ tests than gen pop, particullary on individ adminstered tests
− Hare said psychop’s in his sample prob least intelligent of their group since they were not smart engout to avioid being arrested
− Recent research found that useful dichotomy of psychopthay may be to divide them into succesful ones (avoid getting arrested) and unsuccessful ones.
Overall research indicats many are bright but some arent

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11
Q

Psychopaths and Mental Disorders

  • symptoms (6)
  • psychopathy not a disorder
  • disagreement
  • Tengstrom found
A
  • most don’t have mental disorders
    −Most lack symptoms of excessive worry, anxiety, psychotic thinking, delusions, severe depressions, hallucinations. The remain calm under pressure
    −Psychologists don’t consider psychopathy a mental disorder but recognized its biological basis. So the legal system does have some sympathy for the psychopath bc of its bio aspect
    − Not everyone agress with the view that psychopaths do not suffer from some mental disorder; some clinicians argue that psychopathy and schizo are part of same spectrum and some say that see offenders who are both psychopathic and schizophrenic
    −those with schizo demonstrated many of the feaures of psychopathy and had several histories of offending and violence
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12
Q

Psychopaths and suicide

  • reason
  • indicators of suicidality
  • suicidality
A
  • may take life if intolerable situation (includes long prison term, incurable illness, being surrounded by police)
  • found that among male inmates, psychop’s who were espically aggressive and impulsive
  • a term used by clinicans to indicate there is a risk of suicde, usually inferred from suicidal thoughts or intent
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13
Q

Other Principal Traits

  • 2
  • Cleckley (trait always present)
  • other traits:
    1. pretending
    2. flat emotion
    3. acts of kindness
    4. truth
    5. unreliable
A
  • selfishness, inability to love or give affection to others
  • egocentricity is always present and is essentially unmodifiable
    1. Skillful in pretending to have deep affection and mimic approp emotions but true loyalty, warmth, and compassion foregin to them
    2. Have flat emotion and affect and little contact with families and may change residences often
    3. Don’t usually respond to acts of kindness and show capacity only for superfical appreciation (they do small favors and appear considerate toward others)
    4. Have remarkable disregard for truch and often called pathological liars; no internalized moral or ethical sense and cant understand honesty
    5. They are unreliable, irresonsible, unpredicatable regardless of importance of the occasion or consequences of their impulisve actions
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14
Q
  • A Cardinal feature

- A Cardinal fault

A

− Impulsivity seems to be cardinal feature of psychopathy. Pattern is cylcilical however, they may be responsible/reliable for months but as they attained goals they unravel and become irresponsible and have bad temper (if they are young adult, irresponsible behavior will likely return)
− Cardinal fualt of psychop’s is lack of remorse or guilt regardless of severity or immorality and irrespective of effect on others

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15
Q

Altho high intelligence

- theorists suggest

A

−Although often above avg intelligence they appear incapable of learing to avoid failure and situations that are potentially damaging.
- Some theorists suggest that the self-destructive deeds relfect need to be punished to mitigate guilt they subcounsciuosly experience or that they are driven by a mascochsitic purpose

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16
Q

Semantic aphasia

- hare says

A

is what Cleckley called an articaulation of regret for having done something but words don’t have emotional meaning
− Hare says they are semantically and affectively shallow individuals

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17
Q

Imp characteristic is use of?

- diff from

A

is excessive use of instrumental aggression which is purposful and goal directed aggression used to achive a specific gaol such as pssoessions of another person. Diff from reactive aggression which is considered spontanenous and don’t in response to an envent

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18
Q

Prevalence of criminal psychopathy

  • rob hare estimates (gen pop and prison)
  • simourd estimates of inmate pop
  • conclusion
  • APA prev of APD in community
A

− about 1% where in adult prison pops its 15-25%
−Simourd and Hoge report only 11% of inmate pop
− Percentage estimates of crim psycopathy within any given pop should be tempered by type of facility as well as cultural, ethnic, gender and age
−prev of APD in community is 3% in males and 1% in females

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19
Q

Offending patterns of criminal psychop’s:

  • in todays society
  • sex offenders and psychop
  • sexual homicides
  • Porter found how many sex offenders?
  • psychop rapists
A

-resopnsible for disproportionate amount of crime in society and considered most violent and persistent offenders
- Psycopathic sex offenders more brutal and violent than other sex offenders. Appear to be motivated by thrill seeking and excitement rather than simply sexual arousal
−Psycopahts are more sadistic than violent nonpsychopaths and commit more diverse forms of sexual homicides
−Porter found in sample of male offenders, ½ could be classified as sexual homicide offenders
-Rapists who are psychop’s more likely to have nonsexual motivations for crimes such as anger, vindictivness, sadism, opportunism

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20
Q

Murders by nonpsychop’s vs. psychop’s

  • Pattern
  • attacks against who?
A

−Many of the murders and seroius assults committed by nonpsychopaths occurred during domestic disuptes or extreme emotional arousal thereby qualifying as reactive aggression (this pattern rarely observed for crim psychopaths)
Criminal psychos engage in voilence as form of revenge or retribution or during drinking. Many attacks of nonpsychop’s towared women they know well but crim p’s attacks directed at men who are strangers

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21
Q

Measures of Psychopathy (4)

A
  1. Psychopathy Checklist & PCL-R
  2. Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version
  3. P-Scan
  4. Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version
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22
Q

Psychopathy Checklist (PCL)

  • based on
  • works best with
A

22-items and currently the most popular instrument for measuring criminal psychopathy.
-The PCL scales largley based on Cleckley’s conception of psychopathy but are specifically designed to identify psychop’s in male prison, foresnsic, or psych pops (cleck’s work based on psych patients)

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23
Q

PCL-R

  • used for
  • second edition used for?
  • controversy
A

is 20-itme revison and includes new info applicable in forensic and research settings. Often regarded as gold standard of measurment for psychopathy.
- offenders in other countrise and updated normative data on male and female offenders
- Some scholars believe that the PCL-R has become so popular that it obscures the dinstinction between a measure and a theory. That is the PCL-R is a limited measure of psychopathy not a theory of psychopathy, it is heavily based on those psychops who are convicted not on those who are criminal offenders
Therefore the PCL-R may not be an adequate measure of psychopathy and it doesn’t qualify as a comprehensive theory of psychopathy

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24
Q

Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV)

A

is 12-itme short version

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25
Q

P-Scan

A

Research Version is a screening insturment that serves as a rough screen for psychopathic featrues and a source of working hypotheses to deal with managing suspects, offenders, or clients. Used in law enfrocement, probation, and corrections. Needs much more research before results can be considered definitive

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26
Q

Skeem and Cooke controversy on def of psychopathy

- Hare and Neumann disagree

A

Cooke believe that some antisocial behavior seems essential to the interpersonal and emotional core of psychopathy such as noncriminal manipulation of others for personal gain
- with Skeem and Cookes’ claim that criminality is an essential compenent of the PCL-R. They agrue that antisocial behavior, not criminal behavior is central to the concept and measurement of psychopathy.

27
Q

PCL-R assessment

  • assess (4) from?
  • item ratings require?
  • scoring
A

−the affective (emotional), interpersonal, behavioral, and social deviance facets of criminal psychopathy from various sources including self reports and behavioral observations
− some integration of info across multiple domains such as behavior at work, or school with friends or family and criminal and antisocial behavior
− Highly trained examiners use all this info to score each item on a 0-2 scale. Scoring is complex and requres extensive time/ training and access to background info. Score of 30+ qualifies a person for primary. In some clinical settings cutoff scores rang from 25 to 33.Scores below 21 are nonpsycop’s

28
Q

Factor analysis

  • is?
  • with the PCL-R (2)
  • however
A

-stat procedure designed to find diff dimensions or factors in test data.
-When expert ratings of psychop on PCLR submitted to factor analysis and at least 2 behavior dimensions emerged; psychopathy is multidimensional in nature
−However, many reserachers note that more have been identified and the two factor position is becoming less accepted as complete portryal of psychopahty

29
Q

Two factor position

  • F1
  • F2
  • diff between F1 and F2 (violence)
  • F2 and F1 related to
  • F1 better at predicting vs F2
A

−Factor 1 reflects the interpersonal and emotional compents and measures remoreslessness, calousness and selfish use and manipulation of others; also linked to resistance and inabiliy to profit from psychotherapy and treatment programs
−Factor 2 assoc with a socially deviant or anitsocial lifestyle characterized by poor planning, impulsivness, excessive need for stimulation, proneness to boredome, lack of realistic goals
− Some researchers found that F1 related to planned predatory violence while F2 related to impulisive violence
− F2 related to SES, edu attainment, culture and ethnic background and F1 realted to biopsych influences
− F1 may be more powerful indicator of psychopathy than F2; howver F2 may be better at predicting gen recidivism and violent recidivism

30
Q

Three factor position

  • argument
  • the 3
A

− Psychopahtic behavior may be too diverse to be caputred in only two dimensions. With sophistican of stat methods, contemp research indicates there may be at least three core behavioral dimensions

  1. An arrogant, deceptive interpersonaly style, includes grandoise sense of self worth, glibness, superfical charm, lying, conning, manipulation, deciefulness (referred to as impression management dimension)
  2. Deficient affective or emtoinal experience with low remorse, low guilt, weak conscience, absence of anxiety, fearlessness, callousness, little empathy, failure to accept responsibility
  3. An impulisvie irresponsible behavior style, failure to think before acting, lack of long-term goals, stimulation seeking, poor work habits, parasitic lifestyle (living off others)
31
Q

The four dimensions position

  • argument (should include)
  • argument based on?
A

−Some have asserted that in addition to distrubances in interpersonal, affective, and behavioral functioning psychopathy should also include a fourth factor: antisocial behavior
−based on finding that ppl with psychopathic traits often exhibit violence and large collection of other antisocial behavioral patterns that are more than poor planning and impulsivity assoc with F2
1. Interpersonal such as pathological lying and conning
2. Impulsive lifestyle such as irresponsible behavior, sensation seeking, impulsivness
3. Affective such as shallow affect or emotional reactions, lack of remorse
4. Antisocial tendencies such as poor self-reg, and wide range of antisocial behavior

32
Q

Recidivism

  • in psychop’s
  • research shows they (3)
  • failed furlough rates (%)
  • failure rate during parole compared to non (%s)
  • follow up after 8 years (%s compared to non)
  • 6 year follow up of sex offenders (%s compared)
  • 2 of most powerful predictors of violent recidivism
  • adolescent males and reci
  • hi recidivism rates led to
A

− Research shows that recidivism rate of psychopaths is very high. Psychopaths commit crimes again and agins regardless of methods used to rehabilite them
−Research suggests psychop’s reoffend faster, violate parole sooner, and committ more institutioanl vioence
−failed in psychops was 37.5% while rate for non was zero
−showed 7% nonp’s violated while 33% psychop’s violated
−65% of psychopaths were convicted withing 3 years compared with 25% for nonp’s
− more than 80% of psychop’s convicted as sex offenders had violently recidivated compared 20% for non
− PCL:SV measure of persistent offending history in conjuct with high scores on the PCLR (in fact the PCLR is strong predictor of recidivism even when offenders criminal history unknown)
− High recidivism also seen in psychop’s adolescent males. more likley than other adolescent offenders to escape from custody, violate probation, commit nonviolent and violent offenses over 5 year follow up.
− prompted some researchers to conclude that there is nothing the behavioral sciences can offer for treating psycopahty. Partly bc they are unmotivated to alter behavior and lack insight into nature and extenet of ther pathology

33
Q

Female psychopathy

  • overall there are
  • gen pop prev % for males/females
  • % of incarcerated females vs males
  • in general they are (2)
A

−Signficantly less female than male psychopaths both in gen pop and convicted criminals
- 1% males, less for females
- 15% incarcerated females; 25-30% males
– Less violent with Lower recidivism rate

34
Q

Gender differences in psychopathy:

  • The PCL
  • females compared to males (5)
  • imp when identifying psychop females
  • evidence that females psychop’s are less vs males
  • gender diffs in psychop due to
A
  • have been developed on males and some studies show that female criminal psychop’s may have diff behavior patterns
    − lack realistic long-term goals, have numerous maritail relations, engage in wide range of crime, more sexually promiscious. Also may not express same emotional abnormalities
    − Affective features of psychop are especially imp when identifying females with high levels of callousness and low levels of empathy distinguishing them from nonpsychops
    − less aggressive and violent than males and begin offending later; may recidivate less (in fact may have reci rates no diff from nonpsychop’s)
    − Sim to gender diffs in criminality, gender diffs in psychop due to number of social influences and neuropsychological diffs that occur across developmental trajectory. Women and men arrive at paths diff ways
35
Q

Racial/ethnic differences

  • most measures of psychop
  • PCL with blacks
  • met analysis conclusion
  • researchers raise question
A
  • using white males
    − Psychop as measured by PCL does exist in blacks in same pattern as whites but with one imp diff: black tended to be less impulsive
    −Metanalysis supports conclusion that diffs between races minimal; concluded that findings not meaninful and consistend with self-report and community based findings
    -Some researchers raise question whether stigmaitizing diagnosis of psychop biased towards minority
    Diagnosis of psychop becoming more serious; evidence that its used as an aggravating factor in sentencing of death penalty cases where presence renders a threat to society
36
Q

Juvenile Psychopathy

  • evidence for male psychop’s; however
  • the debate (why= 3)
A

− Evidence that male crimnal psychops begin their offending at early age, however attmpts to label psychop to juv pops raise several conceptual, methodological, and practical concerns
− Debate focused on whether psychop can be or should be applied to juvs at all
1.label may have neg affects implying that prognosis for treatment is poor, high rate of offending expected,
2.intrinsic bio basis means little can be done outside bio interventions
3.contends that psychop assessments on youths must achieve hi level of confidence before used

37
Q

Identifying juvenile psychopathy

  • major problem
  • many researchers don’t search for it bc?
  • typical youth
  • some adolescents appear psychopathic by way of (3) reason?
  • going against the rules
  • however problems
A

−is that psychop is very difficult to measure reliably bc of the constantly changing developmental patterns across the life span
- noting that features of adult psychop simply rep normal adolescent development
-they often appear callous and narcisstic to hide their own fear and anxiety, they are impulsive and sensation seeking and may be poor planners. These psychop like charactersitics rep passing phase in transtion to adulthood or adolescents cover to make themselves appear noncaring. Also can indicate abuse.
- poor anger control, lack of goals, poor judgment, but is acutlaly influencing by parallel developmental task encounterd by most adolescents
- part of many adolescents attempts to gain autonomy from adult dominance sim to AL
−However, certain problems found in AL such as conduct probs, hyperactivity, impuslisivity, AHD resemble features of adult psychopath and suggest term juv psychopahty

38
Q
  • Construct of juv psychopathy must?
  • proposed def (includes 3)
  • research of construct (ages)
A

−To be useful, the construct of juv psychop must be distinguished from other diagnoses and it appears that current research is appraoching a distnict construct
- a multidimensional model that identifies CU traitsm narcissim, impuslivity has been propoes as indicated of child psythopathy)
−Large amt of research support the juv consturct, studies find support and it seems to remain stable from age 7-24

39
Q

Ethical considerations

  • misuse of labels
  • study of juvs indicated of psychop
  • even when kept in juv system
A

− Considerable concern about misuse of lables suggesting psychopath by juvs Bc of widespread assertion tht psycops are highly resistant to treatment, and adolescent psychop more likely to be transferred to adult court rather than juv. Treatment more likley to be available if in juv court.
- got harsher treatment such as being sent to adult courts
− the label may become self fulfilling prophecy with treatment providers who may be unlikely to put in effort to treat

40
Q

Research shows juv psychopathy linked to (3) (%w/ CD)

- psychop juvs differ from antisocial juvs by (4)

A

CD, high levels of police contact, high levels of delinquency (only 25% of juvs with CD shows psychop tendencies)
- in terms of age of onset, and number of violent acts committed, seirousness of offenses, recidivism rates

41
Q

Prevalence of psychopathy juvs

  • study of 1,000 boys %
  • study of violent offenders
  • sample of incarcerated adolescents with persistent violent histories
  • Most studies note/conclusion
A
  • found 4.3% psychop
  • found 59% psychop
  • found 37% psychop
  • that juvs studied primarly nonviolent in nature with only 15% having history of violent offending. Therefore, the sample used in a study and the instrument used to measure will influence that number of psychop traits
42
Q

Measure of juvenile psychopathy

  • 4 measures
  • used for
  • difficulty of measures
A

the Psychopathy Screeining device (PSD), the Childhood Psychopathy Scale (CPS), the Youth Psychopathic Trait Inventory (YPI), the Psychopathy checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV)
−Most develped for research purposes rather than clinical or courts
- difficultuy bc juv psychop’s unlikley to give accurate or honest self-reports

43
Q

PCL:YV

  • requires
  • measures
  • reliability
  • limits
A

a 20-item scale and relies on interview and collateral data so requires extensive training to adminster and time consuming. Also more research based and measures four dimensions (interpersonal, affective, behavioral and antisocial factors).

  • Subjected to extensive research suggested some reliablity and validity.
  • However, appears to have limited ability to find meaniningful realtionship to psychop and antisocial behavior in adolescent girls
44
Q

PCS, YPI, APSD, CPS

- info obtained how?

A

−The PCS and YPI rely on self-reports while the APSD and CPS obtain info from parents, teachers, child themselves

45
Q

Study of CPS and PCL:SV

- results suggest

A

− One study on whether psychop scores on CPS at age 13 predicted psychop scores on PCL:SV at age 24. Found that it did a decent job.
- Results suggest that psychop not only appears across stage of development but implies that juv psychop appears sim to adult psychop in many ways

46
Q

Bio factors in psychopathy

  • public belief/ however
  • contempt research view
A
  • that psychop tendencies caused exclusivley by social factors such as abuse and poor ubrining. However, researchers shown variety of bio factors play role
  • that psychop results from complex interaction between neuropsych and learning or socilization factors
47
Q

Genetic factors

  • suggests a link between?
  • psychopathic youth
  • overall genetic influence
  • Blair: genetics signf role
A

−Suggests that temperament linked to low arousal and fear responses assoc with psychop. Temperant of this nature may disrupt forming of guilt, conscience or concern about punishment.
- suggests that psychop youth may have brain abnormalities and that it runs in families
− is not large but seems to draw attention especially in twin studies
−believes that genetics may play signf role in emotional dysfunction; heredity contributes to underarousal and low emotional responsivness of psychops’

48
Q

Neurophysiology

  • current trend in psychop research
  • markers
A

−Altho research on psychopaths in recent years has focused on psychometric charctersitcs, current trend in psychopathy research is investigation of neurophysio factors involved in determining behavior
- neurophysio indicators have been found in psychops as reflected in electrodermal measures and cardio and other nervous system indicators

49
Q

Cerebral Cortex

A

− Interpreation, thoughts, memories and images all occur in cerbral cortex, the highest center of the brain. It is the processing center for stimulation and sensations received via the PNS. It is outer surface of brain and contans 100 billion neurons

50
Q

2 cerebral hemispheres

  • relationship
    1. right side
    2. left side
  • contribution to human emotions (right vs left) prev in?
A
  • 2 coexist in reciprocal balancing relationship in cortical functioning and info processing.
    1. specializes in nonverbal functions, process info more holistically
    2. left is verbal functions, analytical info. Right is used for recog of faces
    −Right used to understand and communicate emotion, left is self inhibiting process which is more impuslisive (2 must have balance for normal judgment and approp self control) These control and judge process prev in frontal lobes
51
Q

Hemisphere Asymmetry

  • is
  • psychop’s are
  • their left side (vs non’s) on language tasks
A

Hare hypothesizes that criminal psychopaths have an abnormal balance between the two hempispheres both in language processing and in emotional/arousal states
− inconsistent with their verbalized thoughts, feelings, intentions. They are highly peculiar in the organization of certain perceptual and cognitive processes.
-Their left hemisphere seems deficient in linguistic processing bc they don’t rely on verbal sequential operations like many ppl do. As langauage tasks increase in complexity, nonpsychop’s rely more on left to process info but psychop’s rely on right

52
Q

Research on reading emotional expressions?

- under what conditions (known as)

A

− shows they are less accurate at reading emotional expressions.
-Less accurate in facial emotional recog under conditions designed to promote reliance on left hemisphere processing (known as left-hemisphere activation hypothesis- states that they have deficits on variety of tasks that require acivation of left hemisphere)

53
Q

impulsive behavior may be due to?

- linked to research

A

−Bc langauage plays role in self-reg of behavior, one factor in the impulsiive behavior of psychop’s may resisde in deficiency of use of internal language.
- Linked to Flory-Henry’s research that psychopathy is linked to left hemisphere lang dysfunction

54
Q 
Preventing exp of strong emotions?
Emotional paradox 
- is
- due to?
- research found violent repetitive offenders have?
A
  • dysfunction in right side that prevents them from experiencing emotions as strong as nonpsychop’s
  • displayed in psychop’s where they have normal appraisal of emotional cues and situations in the abstract (verbal discussion) but defecient in using emotional cues to guide their judgments and behavior (able to talk about cues but lack ability to use them) (due to deficienty in left side)

−Research found disproportionate percent have left-hemisphere dysfuncton

55
Q
  • frontal lobe problems
  • executive functions
  • damage results in (3)
  • study with non incarcerated psychop’s
A

− show frontal lobe problems or the prefrontal cortex in psychops. Frontal lobe is the higher level functions of abstraction, decsion making, flexibililty, foresight, reg of impulses, control of behaivor (executive functions)

  • are the higher order mental abilities involved in goal-directed behavior; includes organizing behavior, memory, inhibition, planning.
  • Research shows prefrontal damage resulsts in poor decisoin making, reduced auto functiong, psychop like personality
  • did not have same frontal lobe deficits as incarcerated ones. Speculated it was do to succesful psychop’s who escaped conviction and had better functioning in frontal lobes. succesful psychops don’t have same neuropsych deficts as unsucessful ones
56
Q

Amygdala

  • is
  • in psychop’s
A
  • cluster of neurons responsible for emtotions like fear, anger, disgust. Learning and short-term memory, posession of CU traits
    − psychop’s had lower amygdala activiy during emotional processing tasks
57
Q
  • Autonomic activity in psychop’s
  • sympathetic and parasym in psychop’s
  • common physio indicator of emotional arousal/ auto activity
  • low SC in psychop’s assoc w/
A

− very revelant to psychop bc it activates emotional behavior and responsivity to stress and tension
−Sympathetic may not react properly to stressful situations or the parasymp may spring into action more rapidly in psychop’s
− is the skin conductance response or galvanic skin response
− low SC arousal in psychop’s assoc with low auto levels leading to low emotionalility, poor conditionalbility, lack of empathy, ability to lie easily

58
Q

Avoidance learning

- Lykken study

A

is a process whereby, if a person responds in time to a warning signal, he or she avoids painful or aversive stimuli.
- hypothesized that psychop’s have difficutly in learning to avoid unpleasant things, reasoned that avoidance learning would be rewarded by reduction of anxiety on getting correct choice but since psychop’s are deficient in anxiety their performacne should be worse that normals. Hypothesis was supported; revealed that pyschop’s have an underresponsive auto system

59
Q

the 2 characteristic features of psychop’s

A

are inability to learn from unpleasant experiences and high recidivism rates

60
Q

Schachter and Latane replication of Lykken study

- implications suggest

A

did sim study but each subject was injected with saline solution or adrenaline. Adrenaline dramatically improved psychops performance and learned to avoid shocks more quickly than normal prisoners. However the saline injections showed deficiency in avoidance learning
− Manipulation of arousal states by drugs may suggest implications for effective treatment for psychop’s; specific drug have potential to increase emotional level of psychop’s to point equal to gen pop

61
Q

Orienting response
- Hare’s study of it
- Hare’s study of SC, and HR
(suggests)

A

a nonsepcific complex cortical and sensory response to strange unexpected changes in enviro; make be turning of head, dilation of eye or increase in HR. Pavlov referred to it as the “what is it” reflex. Also increases analytical powers of the sense and the cortex
- Hare found that psychop’s have little auto activity and smaller ORs suggesting they are less sensitive and alert to enviro particually to new and unusal events
− Hare also found that while SC is consistently low, cardiac activity (HR) is often as high as nonpsychop’s. Appears that alotho they don’t learn to react to stimuli as measured by SC they react automatically when HR measured. Suggests that psychop more adaptive to stress when psycho defense mechansims used. Said that accelerative HR is adaptive and helps them tune out the emotional impact of noxious stimuli

62
Q

Chris Patrick’s study of startle reflex

A

− Chris Patrick did study on ways the startle reflex action in psychops differ from norm pop (eye blink reflex to puff of air) found that they how lower startle responses

63
Q

General Hypo-emotionality

A

− Hare postulates that psychop’s suffer from general hypoemotionality; they fail to experience the full impact of any emotion, postive or neg. they may be born with it

64
Q

Summary of auto functioning in psychop’s (4)

A
  1. The are cortically and autonomically underaroused but in rest conditions and under some stress conditions (much more physio drowsy than non)
  2. Bc they lack emotional equipement, they are deficent in avoidance learning which might account for high recidvism rates
  3. If emotional arousal can be induced (adrenaline) they can learn from past experiences and avoid aversive situations
  4. With adequate incentives (money) they can learn from past experiences and avoid aversive consequences as well as anyone

Forensics (24 decks)

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