Child Psychopathy Flashcards
1
Q
psychopathy
A
- A form of personality disorder
- 3 main factors:
- Arrogant, deceitful interpersonal style (ex. Lying, conning others)
- Deficient affective experience (ex. Low emotional responsiveness, lack of empathy)
- Impulsive or irresponsible behavioural style (ex. Acting in impulsive, irresponsible ways)
- Sometimes a 4th factor of antisocial/violent behaviour is included, but it’s not necessary
- Not currently recognized by the DSM-V (the term “psychopath” is too negative) -> instead, you’ll be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder
2
Q
antisocial personality disorder: DSM-V criteria approach 1 (categorical - you are or you’re not)
A
- Pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by 3 or more of the following:
- Failure to conform to social norms re: lawful behaviours (breaking the law)
- Deceitfulness
- Impulsivity
- Irritability and aggressiveness
- Reckless disregard for safety of self or others
- Consistent irresponsibility
- Lack of remorse
- Adult disorder -> need to be at least 18 to be diagnosed
- But, you need evidence of conduct disorder (basically the child equivalent) before age 15
3
Q
antisocial personality disorder: DSM-V criteria approach 2 (dimensional)
A
- Impairment in personality functioning, in at least 2 of the following 4 areas:
- Identity (ie. Egocentrism, arrogance)
- Self-direction
- Empathy
- Intimacy
- 6 or more of the following 7 personality traits:
- Manipulativeness, callousness, deceitfulness, hostility (antagonism)
- Impulsivity, irresponsibility, risk-taking (disinhibition)
- Individual is at least 18 years
- Specify if with psychopathic features
- Marked by lack of anxiety or fear, and by bold interpersonal style that may mask maladaptive behaviours
- Low levels of anxiousness and withdrawal, high levels of attention seeking
4
Q
psychopathy vs. antisocial personality disorder
A
- Most professionals believe psychopathy is a smaller, more specific construct within ASPD
- However, others believe they’re different but overlapping concepts
5
Q
2 types of data used to identity psychopathy in childhood
A
- Prospective: starting with child sample and seeing if you can predict their behaviour later on
- Harder to do, but considered more robust/valid
- Most severely antisocial children more likely to receive an adult diagnosis of psychopathy/ASPD
- Retrospective: starting with adults and getting info about their childhood
- Families of psychopaths report having seen an early onset of severe and enduring dysfunction
6
Q
conduct disorder
A
- Developmental (have to be a child)
- Behaviour that disregards the rights of others or social norms, as well as aggression to people/animals, destruction of property, deceitfulness/theft, and/or serious violations of rules
- Can specify if with “limited prosocial emotions” - ie. Lack of empathy
- Like adult psychopathy, most professionals believe child psychopathy is a smaller, more specific construct within conduct disorder, while others believe they’re different but overlapping concepts
7
Q
oppositional defiant disorder
A
- pattern of angry/irritable mood, argumentative/defiant behaviour, or vindictiveness
- Some researchers look at this too when identifying psychopathy in childhood, but conduct disorder is better predictor
8
Q
identifying psychopathy in childhood: initial and current approaches
A
- Initially, looked for overlap between conduct disorder/problems + ADHD
- Neurological profile and behaviour looks similar to adults with psychopathy
- More recently, look for callous-unemotional traits (CU)
- Ex. Lack of guilt, lack of empathy, shallow emotions
- Children who have conduct disorder, ADHD, and callous emotional traits score higher than children with 1 of those diagnoses on measures of thrill-seeking and reward-dominance
9
Q
identifying psychopathy in childhood: measures
A
- Many measures have been developed:
- Ex. Childhood Psychopathy Scale (filled out by parents or teachers, BUT they may not have true idea of what’s going on), & Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (self report, BUT may not report accurately)
- These measures seem to be fairly reliable/consistent
- These measures also seem to be fairly valid:
- Scores seem to predict antisocial and violent behaviour
- Scores correlate with scores on adult psychopathy measures
10
Q
arguments against and for labelling children as “psychopaths” - is it appropriate?
A
- Arguments against:
- Consequences of labelling on child’s, parent’s, and teacher’s perceptions of the child (may stigmatize the child and create self-fulfilling prophecy)
- Label suggests stability (ie. Once you’re diagnosed, you’ll be a psychopath for life), but there isn’t necessarily strong stability in psychopathic traits throughout childhood/adolescence
- Psychopathic-like traits may not always be distinct from normal behaviours in childhood/adolescence (ie. Psychopaths are more driven by reward, but so are most teens -> how can we tell it’s abnormal?)
- Arguments for:
- Biggest pro = early identification and treatment (improving research, more effective treatment)
11
Q
origins of psychopathic-like triats
A
- genetics
- neurological differences
- emotional attention/responsiveness (empathy)
- environment/family factors
- interaction between genetics and environment
- LIMITATION: most research on psychopathy and its origins has been done on boys/men
12
Q
origins: genetics
A
Twin studies show high genetic component to antisocial behaviour and high CU traits in children
13
Q
origins: neurological differences
A
- Reduced levels of arousal in amygdala in response to fearful faces in boys with conduct problems and CU traits
- In adults, you see reduced functioning of frontal lobe
14
Q
origins: emotional attention/responsiveness (empathy)
A
- Adults with high levels of antisocial behaviour have difficulties in identifying emotions in faces, particularly fear
- Children with high scores on Psychopathy Screening device show deficits in recognizing fear, sadness, and anger in faces
- One theory is that we learn empathy/emotional attention through eye contact
- Children with high CU traits make less eye contact, even though moms make normal amounts of eye contact (but fathers also make less)
15
Q
origins: environmental/family factors
A
- Early abuse/neglect
- Separation from parents
- Poor parental supervision/discipline, harsh parenting
- Inconsistent parenting
