Lecture 3: Psychopathy Flashcards
What did Freud define “psychopathy” as?
Any mental or behavioral dysfunction (overused the term)
Is psychopathy a diagnosis?
No the DSM- 2 did not list psychopathy but it listed antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) a most similar
What was Cleckley’s definition of a psychopath?
Developed 21 characteristics of psychopathy (reduced to 16)
Describes a person who outwardly appears normal but underneath a “semantic neuropsychiatric defect” - an inability to have genuine emotions
What does the term mans sans delire mean (Phillipe Pinel, 1801?
Mania without delirium
What did James Pritchard (1835) develop as a category for a mental disorder?
Moral insanity
What did Maudsley (19th C) call psychopathy?
Moral imbecile
What are item 1-8 items on Cleckley’s checklist?
- Superficial charm & Intelligence
- Absence of delusions & other signs of irrational thinking
- Absence of nervousness or psychoneurotic manifestations
- Unreliability
- Untruthfulness & insincerity
- Lack of remorse/shame
- Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior
- Poor judgment/ failure to learn by experience
What are items 9-16 of Cleckley’s checklist?
- Pathologic egocentricity/ incapacity for love
- General poverty in major affective reactions
- Specific loss of insight
- Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations
- Fantastic & uninviting behaviour w/ and w/o drink
- Suicide threats are rarely carried out
- Sex life is impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated
- Failure to follow any life plan
What did Robert Hare develop?
The PCL was developed based on Cleckley’s checklist (1986) & renamed the PCL-R in 1991
PCL-R was adopted as the “gold standard” for definitions of criminal psychopathy
Is psychopath a diagnosis in the DSM?
DSM-V (2013) referred to antisocial personality disorder similar to DSM-5 notes psychopathy & sociopathy but it not a diagnosis
In what ways can we assess psychopathy?
Clinical Opinion - interview person & professionals
Personality questionnaires (NEO, MMPI, PAI, TCI)
Structured diagnosis (PCL-R)
Self-report measures (LPSP, PPI-R, TriPM model)
DSM-5 (confuses ASPD & psychopathy)
What is the confusion between ASPD & psychopathy?
Criteria for ASPD: mainly criminal behaviors
In “associated features” it describes some personality traits that are associated with psychopathy
Most clinical/forensic psychologists therefore measure psychopathy separately from ASPD
What % of offenders reach criterion for ASPD & psychopathy?
60-80% of offenders reach the criterion for ASPD
10-20% reach criterion for psychopathy
What professions often have psychopaths?
Lawyers, businessmen, surgeons, professors
Gender & Psychopathy
Females have much lower scores of psychopathy
What is the PCL-R?
Hare (1999, 2003)
Requires extensive file information & specialist training & professional overseeing
Rates 20 items of personality & behavior as 0 (absent), 1 (maybe), or 2 (definitely)
Give a score out of 40 (30 is ‘cut off’)
What are some revised checklists from the PCL-R?
Screening version (PCL:SV)
Youth Version (PCL:YV)
P-Scan: non clinical use; used in correctional facilities, law enforcement, probation, parole, etc
B-Scam: psychopathy in the workplace
What are items 1-10 on the PCL-R?
- Glibness/Superficial Charm
- Grandiose sense of self-worth
- Need for stimulation- proneness to boredom
- Pathological lying
- Conning/ manipulative
- Lack of remorse or guilt
- Shallow affect
- Callous/ Lack of empathy
- Parasitic Lifestyle
- Poor Behavioral Controls
What are items 11- 20 of the PCL-R?
- Promiscuous sexual behavior
- Behaviour problems
- Lack of realistic, long-term goals
- Impulsivity
- Irresponsibility
- Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
- Many “short-term” marital relationships
- Juvenile Delinquency
- Revocation of conditional release
- Criminal Versatility
How is psychopathy measured on the PCL-R? (sub-types)
There are numbers refer to the 2 subscales
Factor 1: Affective/Interpersonal style (Pathological lying, grandiosity)
Factor 2: Behavioural Lifestyle (Recklessness, criminal behaviours)
Hare & Neumann, 2008: Identified 4 factors (Interpersonal, Affective, Lifestyle, Antisocial)
What is primary & secondary psychopathy?
Primary (Factor 1): low anxiety, callousness, superficial charm (issue with the limbic system) - INTERPERSONAL + AFFECTIVE
Secondary (Factor 2): Similar to sociopathy, lack of long-term goals, higher impulsivity & anxiety (may be impairment of frontal cortex) - IMPULSIVE-ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR
What does the TriPM measure?
Boldness, meanness, disinhibition
Focuses on context, risk-taking
What does the PPI-R measure?
Fearless dominance, self-centered disinhibition (cold-heartedness)
What did Gray’s (2019) study of psychopathy & impulsivity find?
Used the UPPS-P measure of impulsivity & PCL-R to measure impulsivity in psychopaths
Findings showed nearly every aspect of impulsivity is related to factor 2 psychopathy
Most of correlations of factor 1 are negative
What are the criticism of the PCL-R ?
Psychopaths can learn how to answer the PCL-R correctly to “pass” - Book
Debate about whether “antisocial” is a consequence of other personality features
Skeem & Cooke., (2010) concerned PCL-R has become psychopathy rather than a measure of it
Hard to administer - long time, lots of training & extensive information is required
What did Hart et al., 1988 measure & find? (release)
Measured psychopathy scores & release
After 3 years, 80% with a low PCL-R were still free
What did Hare et al., (2000) study of reconviction find?
- Divided 268 offenders into low & high scores of psychopathy
- Measured whether there was a reconviction & nature of reconviction
- Those with high PCL-R scores, around 80-90% were back in prison for general crimes. However, the key finding was that 40% were back in prison due to VIOLENT crimes.
What did Woodworth & Porter., 2002 find when measuring cold blooded psychopathy?
Measured cold/hot-bloodedness of 125 ppts
Nearly all homicides committed by psychopaths were cold-blooded
This is due to Factor 1 (rather than Factor 2)
What did Gray & Snowden., (2016) find from psychopathy in women?
Psychopathy measures are just as predictive of future crimes & violence as they are for men
The vast majority of work has been in adult North American white incarcerated males
Who are Thompson & Venables?
abducted, tortured and murdered the toddler after leading him away from a shopping centre
What did Viding et al., 2005 find about genetic & psychopathy?
UK Twin study of 3, 687 7-year old twin pairs
Rated by teachers & parents on psychopathy
Found genes account for 70% of the individual differences in callous-unemotional traits
Genetic contributions was highest when callous-unemotional traits were combined w/ antisocial behaviors
What did Wooten et al., (1997) find from measuring callous-unemotional traits & conduct problems?
Ineffective parenting associated with conduct problems only in those without significant levels of callous-unemotional traits
- No relation between parenting and callous-unemotional traits
children with high CU traits exhibited significant number of conduct problems, regardless of parenting.
CU traits moderated association between poor parenting and children’s externalising behaviour
What did Rice et al., (1992) find regarding psychopaths & response to treatment?
Followed each ppt after release from a therapeutic community
Treatment had the opposite effect (for psychopaths - more likely to re-offend)
This was due to ppts learning how to manipulate & press people’s buttons (though Canadian therapeutic community) and the fact cannot randomise treatment (specific group tested)
