Lecture 3 Flashcards
1
Q
What is Schneider’s Affectionless Psychopath?
A
- Lacking in compassion, shame, honour, remorse and conscience (empathy)
- Personality is sinister, cold, surly and the conduct brutal and unbridled
- Callous, cold and ruthless
- Highly intelligent
2
Q
What is the history of psychopathy?
A
- French term: mania without delirium
- Then called Moral insanity via British Psychiatrist
- UK mental health act added psychopathic personality renamed psychopathic disorder = not one psych diagnosis
- DSM 2 did not list psychopathy but Antisocial Personality Disorder
- Moral Imbecile
- Psychopathy was used to refer to almost any mental or behavioural dysfunction
3
Q
What is Cleckley’s Psychopath?
A
- Influential thinker/writer
- Based on clinical observations of his patients
- Drew up 21 characteristics of psychopathy = reduced to 16
- Describes a person who outwardly appears normal. But has a semantic neuropsychiatric defect - inability to have genuine emotion
4
Q
History after Cleckley?
A
- Hare developed checklist based on Cleckley and his own experiences
- PCL was first published in 1985, PCL-R in 1991 and was adopted by many as the gold standard in definitions
- Interest in non-criminal psychopathy and successful psychopaths
- DSM-V still refers to Antisocial Personality Disorder, noting it has also been known as psychopathy/sociopathy
4
Q
How to assess psychopathy?
A
- Clinical Opinion: interviews
- Personality questionnaires: normal questionnaires that can help identify psychopaths
- Structured diagnosis - PCL-R
- Self-report measures
- DSM-V: confuses ASPD and psychopathy
5
Q
Why are ASPD and psychopathy confused?
A
- ASPD is mostly criminal behaviour
- Psychopathy is not a DSM diagnosis
- In associated features, it describes some personality traits that are associated with Psychopathy: two clinicians can reach different conclusions = incorrect
- Most clinical/forensic psychologists measure psychopathy separately from ASPD using the PCL-R
- Only 60-80% of offenders reach criteria for ASPD BUT only 10-20% reach criterion for psychopathy
- Does not mean psychopaths are confined to prisons: white collar psychopaths are 1% of population
- Females can be psychopaths but levels of psychopathy tend to be much lower in females so fewer reach the criteria
6
Q
What does the PCL-R entail?
A
- Requires extensive fail info
- Interviews should be done NOT without background info as psychopaths are good at manipulating you and making stuff up
- Rates 20 items of personality and behaviour as absent, maybe or definitely to give a score of 0-40, score of 30+ indicates psychopathy
- Requires specialist training and professional overseeing
- Screening version and youth version introduced
- P-scan: a non-clinical tool for use by correctional facilities, law enforcement, probation, parole etc
- B-scan: Instrument for psychopathy in the workplace
7
Q
How is the PCL-R split?
A
- Initially into 2 factors: Affective/interpersonal style (compelled lack of emotion) AND behavioural lifestyle (impulsive behaviour)
- Now split into 4 factors: Interpersonal, Affective, Lifestyle, Antisocial
8
Q
What is psychopathy split into in the various measurements
A
- PCL-R: factor 1 & 2
- PPI-R: Fearless dominance, self-centred disinhibition (cold-heartedness)
- TriPM: Boldness, meanness, disinhibition
9
Q
What is primary and secondary psychopathy?
A
- Primary = emotional deficiency (limbic hyporesponsitvity)
- Secondary = emotional disturbance (impairment of frontal cortex)
- Factor 1 - referred to as primary psychopathy
- Factor 2 - akin to ASPD and sociopathy
10
Q
What is the case of impulsivity?
A
- Examined measures of impulsivity in offenders and levels of psychopathy using PCL-R
- Tired to match different forms of impulsivity via the UPPS-P: multidimensional measure of impulsivity with 5 types of impulsivity
- Negative Urgency: acting rashly when strong negative effect
- Positive urgency: acting rashly when elated
- Lack of premeditation: planning ahead
- Sensation seeking: need for novelty and excitement
- Lack of perseveration: sticking to a task
- Factor 2 was strongly related to all impulsivity measures
- Factor 1 was opposite: more psychopathic someone is, the less impulsive they are
11
Q
What are the criticisms of PCL-R?
A
- The antisocial aspect is a consequence of other personality features
- PCL-R has become psychopathy, no room for any debate and no longer just a measurement for it
- Use of PCL-R in capital death sentences
- PCL-R is hard to administer
- Needs trained professionals, need extensive file info and takes a long time
12
Q
What are the alternatives to PCL-R?
A
- Several self-report
- SRP4 - based on PCL-R four-facet model
- PPI-R
- TriPM based on endophenotypes: boldness, meanness and disinhibition
13
Q
What was a study looking at Psychopathy and Recidivism?
A
- PCL-R can predict violence in the literature - even though it is an instrument to measure psychopathy
- Measured release and followed them across 3y, looking to see how many are still free
- Before release, each offender undertook PCL-R measurement and classified into low, middle, and high points
- Knowing psychopathy score strongly predicts if they come back to prison
- High = less than 20% are still free, Low = 75% are still free, 40% for middle
14
Q
What was a study looking at reconvictions?
A
- 268 offenders
- Measured whether reconvicted after 24 months follow up
- Measured nature of reconviction BUT psychopaths are less likely to get caught doing the same crime
- Low psychopathy score = 40% reconvicted for general, only >10% for violent
- High psychopathy score = 80% reconvicted for general, 40% for violent
15
Q
What was a study looking at psychopathy and crime?
A
- Examined nature of 125 homicides and classified them as either cold blooded or hot blooded
- Defined groups via PCL-R
- Nearly all homicides committed by psychopaths was cold blooded
- Examination of factors show that this is due to factor 1 rather than 2
16
Q
When is the PCL-R used in other populations?
A
- Sex offenders
- Spousal assaulters
- Females: study shows that psychopathy measures are just as predictive of future crimes and violence for women as they are for men
- Forensic and civil psychiatric patients in UK
- Non-white
- Youth
- BUT vast majority of work has been in adult North American White Incarcerated males
17
Q
Link between genetics and psychopaths?
A
- UK twin study of 3687 7yo twin pairs
- Rated by teachers/parents on items similar to Antisocial Process Screening Device
- Concluded genes account for 70% of individual differences in callous-unemotional traits
- Genetic contribution was highest when callous-unemotional traits were combined with antisocial behaviours
18
Q
Link between environment and psychopaths?
A
- Examined quality of parenting and presence of callous-unemotional traits in children (6-13) referred to a clinic (76% male)
- Measured conduct problem symptoms using structured interview and psychopathy via Psychopathy Screening device
- Split children into conduct problems and callous/emotional problems
- Parenting composite: how good/bad parenting is and correlated against Predicted Conduct Problem
- Found relationship in quality of parenting and conduct problems linearly = worse parenting = more problems
-BUT callous/emotional had little to no relationship with parenting, supports genetic factor
