Exam #2

Question 1

Callous-Unemotional (CU) Traits

Answer 1

Pattern of behaviors including lack of empathy, guilt, or remorse, shallow or deficient affect, and lack of concern over one’s own actions/feelings and others’ feelings

• CU traits are NOT psychopathy

Question 2

CD+CU

Answer 2

A particularly severe form of antisocial behavior in youth

• a way to specify youth with CD (diagnosis must be CD+CU)

Question 3

Predictors of CU traits

Answer 3

1. Genetic Heritability
2. Parental Harshness/Low Warmth
3. GxE Interactions

Question 4

Heritability

Answer 4

The proportion of variation in psychopathy that can be attributed to genetic factors, as opposed to environmental factors

• Twin studies provide moderate to strong heritability for CU traits [particularly fearlessness]
• 40-78% of the variation in CU traits is attributable to genetic influences
• Genetic influence is stronger at younger time points

Question 5

Psychopathy

Answer 5

Personality disorder defined by antisocial behavior paired with callousness, low empathy, and low interpersonal emotions

• Can reliably be measured across age and gender
• 30 out of 40 traits on the checklist
• A disorder associated w/ increased goal-directed instrumental aggression AND frustration-based relative aggression

Question 6

Primary Psychopathy

Answer 6

Low anxiety and thought to result from a genetic predisposition

• Affective and attention-related deficits
• Primary = Prototypic

Question 7

Secondary Psychopathy (Sociopathy)

Answer 7

Stems from social disadvantage, excessive neurotic anxiety, and/or some other forms of psychopathy

• High anxiety and thought to develop in response to environmental adversity

Question 8

Factor1 (F1)

Answer 8

Interpersonal-Affective Trait of Psychopathy

• Narcissistic personality disorder (“grandiose”)
• Superficial charm/conning/manipulative = Interpersonal
• Lack of remorse/callous = Affective

Question 9

Factor2 (F2)

Answer 9

Impulsive-Antisocial Trait of Psychopathy

• ASPD (“externalizing”)
• Impulsive/Irresponsibility/Parasitic Lifestyle = Lifestyle
• Early behavioral problems / criminal versatility = Antisocial
• Related to EF deficits

Question 10

Reactive Aggression

Answer 10

Impulsive response to a perceived threat

CD w/o CU

Question 11

Instrumental/Proactive Aggression

Answer 11

Premeditated and motivated by an anticipation for reward

CD+CU

Question 12

Fear Conditioning

Answer 12

Learning paired associations between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an unconditioned stimulus (US)

Study: photos of 2 male neutral faces (CS) and a 10ms pressure stimulus/shock (US)
- w/ Psychopathy = showed less arousal to threat/shock
- Lower electro modal, amygdala, and OFC response
- Poor fear conditioning; difficulty associating fear stimuli from non-fearful stimuli

Question 13

Passive Avoidance

Answer 13

Learning to avoid responding to a previously punished stimulus

Study: Newman et. al - modified passive avoidance
- w/ psychopathy = can respond to punishment if it is the goal focus

Question 14

MAOA

Answer 14

An enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin.

Variations in the MAOA gene have been associated with an increased risk of psychopathy and aggressive behaviors.

Question 15

vmPFC

Answer 15

processes moral outcomes and inhibits emotional responding

Question 16

OFC

Answer 16

integrates signals and represents the VALUE of emotion information

Question 17

Amygdala

Answer 17

controls, or “gates” the outflow of fear and detects salient information

Question 18

Serial Attention

Answer 18

Processing style that focuses on one source of information at a time, potentially contributing to impulsivity and lack of inhibition

Question 19

Attention Bottleneck

Answer 19

Refers to the limited capacity of attention to process multiple streams of information simultaneously.

May have diminished ability to attend to multiple streams of information, leading to ‘serial attention’.

Question 20

Executive Function (EF)

Answer 20

the mental process that enables us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks successfully

Question 21

Utilitarian

Answer 21

The view that what is the morally right thing to do is whatever produces the best overall consequences

Example: Pushing the person into the train tracks or letting it kill 5 people

Question 22

Cognitive Empathy

Answer 22

Refers to understanding and representation of mental states that enables an individual to explain and predict others’ behaviors

• recognize another agent’s feelings or thoughts (perspective taking)
• Individuals with the “anti-social only” subtype have largely intact CE

Question 23

Theory of Mind/Mentalizing

Answer 23

Forming an inference about the feeling and thoughts of the other agent

Question 24

Emotional Empathy

Answer 24

Includes response to affective displays by others (e.g. facial expressions) and emotionally evocative stimuli (e.g. phrases and stories)

• Even though psychopaths can read other people’s emotions well, they are unable to FEEL another person’s emotions

Study: Affective empathy tasks:
- CD: Reduced performance, increased amygdala activity
- ASPD: reduced performance, decreased neural activity

• Indication of difficult appear in inferring the emotions of others when cues are very subtle or tasks place greater demands on EF (e.g. abstraction, memory)

Question 25

Culpability

Answer 25

The degree of responsibility or blameworthiness of an individual for their actions

• In psychopathy = the degree of culpability can be influenced by factors such as impaired decision making and reduced emotional responsiveness

Question 26

Insanity

Answer 26

refers to a legal concept that describes a mental state in which an individual is unable to distinguish right from wrong or is unable to understand the consequences of their actions

Question 27

Procedural Justice

Answer 27

A newer form of police training to communicate about their decisions

1. Voice and Fairness (allowing someone to tell their side of the story)
2. Neutrality (presenting yourself in a way that is unbiased/transparent)
3. Respect (acknowledges a person’s dignity)
4. Trustworthiness (perceived trustworthiness about authority’s intentions)

Question 28

Parent Management Training (PMT)

Answer 28

Typical treatment is 12 core weekly sessions including parent and therapist to set limits and structured techniques when dealing with conduct problems in order to break the coercive cycle between parent and child

• Define and record child’s behavior (+ and -)

-Positive reinforcement for appropriate behavior

• Simple behaviors are initial focus and reward small steps towards larger goals

Question 29

3 Main Elements of PMT

Answer 29

1. Rewards
2. Boundaries
3. Consistency

Question 30

Multisystemic Treatment (MST)

Answer 30

Focus on addressing all environmental systems and how that impacts chronic behavior (interventions last 3-5 months)

• Blends cognitive behavioral therapy + behavior management training + gamily therapy + community psychology
• Focus on improving prosocial functioning in youth and families
• Extremely time sensitive but most cost-effective at the end

Question 31

Cognitive Remediation

Answer 31

Refers to the use of targeted interventions to improve cognitive functioning in individuals with cognitive deficits

• In psychopathy, this could be used by addressing deficits in areas such as decision making, impulse control, and emotional processing

Question 32

Biofeedback

Answer 32

a technique that involved measuring physiological processes in real-time and providing feedback to an individual to help them learn to control those processes

Question 33

tDCS [Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation]

Answer 33

A non-invasive brain stimulation technique that involves the application of a low-level electrical current to the scalp to modulate brain activity

• Can be used in psychopathy to target specific brain regions implicated in emotional processing and regulation