Module 10

Question 1

What is Psychopathy?

Answer 1

A personality disorder characterized by an arrogant, deceitful interpersonal style (how they interact with other people)
deficient affective experiences ( how they experience emotion: general lack of empathy, emotional reactivity is low)
impulsive and irresponsible behaviors (do not care about their actions and what the consequences will be)
early onset & diverse antisocial behaviors (they engage in antisocial behavior, a long history of a lot of different types and a lot of them
Long criminal history)

Question 2

How do you assess psychopathy?

Answer 2

Self-report inventories: most common
Informant rating: Only for children, when you ask someone else to report on the emotions
Clinical rating: clinical professional, interview and time intensive

Question 3

What is the most common assessment?

Answer 3

Psychopathy checklist-revised 9PCL-R)
It is a semi-strutted interview + file review with a 20 item questionnaire on a 3 point scale. there is a total score of 40, it is a dimension rating where you look for spikes, >30 is more definite
There is a youth version (PCL:YV)
only qualified professional people can administer it

Question 4

What are the 4 facets for PCLR and each trait?

Answer 4

Facet 1 - Interpersonal:
Glib/superficial
Grandiose
Lying
Manipulative

Facet 2 - Affective:
Lack of remorse
Shallow affect
Lack of empathy
Not responsible (blame others for their actions)

Facet 3 - Lifestyle:
Needs stimulation
Parasitic lifestyle
Lack of goals
Impulsivity
Irresponsibility

Facet 4 - Antisocial:
Poor behavior control
Early behavior problems
Delinquency
Condition release (breaking parole, etc.)
Criminal versatility

Promiscuous
Many marital relationships

Question 5

What will a psychopathic suspect behave like in an interview?

Answer 5

Try to outsmart interviewer
enjoy being focus of attention
attempt to control
will not be fooled by bluffs
attempts to shock

Question 6

What are recommendations for interviews with psychopaths?

Answer 6

Be very familiar with the case - have to be able to challenge the lies
convey experience and confidence
admiration - they have huge egos
avoid criticism - they will take that badly
avoid emotions about the case - they don’t have them

Question 7

What are the overlaps with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and psychopathy?

Answer 7

In the prison population, 60-80% have ASPD, 10-25% of that have psychopathy. Just because you have ASPD, doesn’t mean you have psychopathy. people with psychopathy will most likely meet the standards for ASPD

Question 8

What have twin studies shown in psychopathy?

Answer 8

Viding et al. showed that high callous-unemotional traits and antisocial traits are heritable.
Waldman et al. showed that there is about the same amount of genes involved as any other personality traits (introverted, etc.) Meaning it is about 50%

Question 9

What are the 3 structural anomalies for people with psychopathy?

Answer 9

The Prefrontal cortex:
They have reduced function + reduced connectivity to amygdala. They don’t experience emotions and those centers don’t really communicate well with the prefrontal cortex, which makes them not really get punishments. This makes them impulsive. Overall there is volume reductions. This is an important area for decision-making and impulse control

Amygdala/hippocampus:
Part of the emotion/memory center. there is less blood flow/less processing of emotional stimuli. Lower connectivity, structurally and functionally it doesn’t work great. The most consistent one is fear, they do not experience fear.

Striatum:
Involved in voluntary movement, decision-making and processing rewards. Increased volume in psychopaths, which makes them reward-oriented; less affected by consequences. It’s bigger, lights up more. They are more reward sensitive then others, if they have a goal they will go for it because it; single minded on the goal

Question 10

What is the cognitive deficit hypothesis called?

Answer 10

Response modulation hypothesis:
People with psychopathic traits, they are more likely to go with the perseveration route rather than response modulation, where they change their behavior based on an event. They are unable to account for new stimuli in order to change to a new route. When they make a decision, they cannot see past their goal.

Question 11

What is the affective deficit hypothesis?

Answer 11

Fearlessness hypothesis: The emotion they lack the most is fear.

They tested this in Patrick et al. using the startle reflex; reflex occurs when something unexpected occurs, it is magnified if person is in negative emotional state and reduced in a positive emotional state. it is mediated by circuits in the amygdale. Patrick et al. was one of the first well designed studies around fear in psychopaths. It measured the startle reflex through blinking, which shows fear. It used incarcerated offenders (psychopaths vs. non psychopaths) and showed three different pictures (pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral). Then they measured the blinks.

It showed that normal people blink more when they are upset.
Psychopaths don’t show the increase startle response to negative images, there is no change

Question 12

What are broad conclusions on psychopathy and emotional processing?

Answer 12

Emotions play little role in their thinking, language, and behaviors
their approach to the world is predatory
they put on a good show
They learn to mimic emotions by seeing how other people react to things; part of how they manipulate people, just like someone who is colorblind does
They learn the notes but not the music of emotions

Question 13

What are childhood antecedents for psychopathy (Farrington & Bergstrom)?

Answer 13

All significant factors:
Criminal Father/Mother
Depression Mother
Uninvolved father
Poor supervision
disrupted family
hyper activity
high dishonesty
high impulsivity

Question 14

What is the interaction model?

Answer 14

Individual is born with a certain predisposition (determined by genetics) and through interactions with environmental factors psychopathic traits may develop.
This is how you describe most people, without the genes and without the bad environment are both possible, this is the average
Factor 1 (callous-unemotional traits) more influenced by genetics; Factor 2 more influenced by the environment

Question 15

How does the criminal justice system use a psychopathic diagnosis?

Answer 15

They justify:
Imposing adult sentence on a child
guilt determination
denial of parole
termination of parental rights
death penalty
longer sentences
DO/LTO hearings
criminal responsibility
increased supervision after release
pretrial secure detention

Question 16

What did reidy et al show for why psychopathy matters?

Answer 16

People with psychopathic traits are estimated to cost the US criminal justice system $460 billion/year, including everything.
Psychopathy one of the most influential predictors of violent offense/reoffenses, sexual offenses/reoffenses *especially when combined with sexual deviance

Question 17

What is affective mimicry?

Answer 17

To be successful at manipulating others, one must be able to
a) read cues of vulnerability in others,
b) avoid detection by appearing to be socially trustworthy, and
c) display a range of emotions even if not felt.

People with psychopathic traits have to be really good at mimicking emotions

Theory is people with psychopathic traits can do this successfully

Question 18

How does gait affect victim vulnerability?

Answer 18

Students and offenders with higher psychopathy scores associated with greater accuracy in perceiving walker’s vulnerability. Offenders are more self aware of the gait and why they are choosing what they did.
Offenders with higher Factor 1 scores more likely to report using gait cues

Question 19

Why do psychopaths murder, is it reactive or instrumental? Woodworth & porter + Blais et al.

Answer 19

Reactive - unplanned, crimes of passion, extreme provocation
Instrumental (planned, settle a score, cold-blooded
Low PCL-R tend to kill much more reactively.
If they score higher on factor 1, there is a higher correlation in planning their murders
Looking at factor 2, there’s not that difference.
Overall, psychopaths are just more violent, more likely to commit more crimes.

Question 20

How do psychopaths survive without committing another crime compared to non-psychopaths?

Answer 20

Very poorly, People with psychopathic traits, once they get out, are more likely to reoffend and do it quickly. Only 20% make it 10 years without reoffending, compared to non - psychopaths 60%

Question 21

What did Rice et al. show?

Answer 21

Showed that in a social therapy unit, while non psychopaths tend to be treatable, psychopaths get worse with treatment, tend to reoffend more. This was a very influential study however the social therapy unit was weird asf (naked lsd anyone?)
the limits:
no assessment of treatment change
limited professional staff involvement
limited number of criminogenic needs targeted
treatment integrity not monitored
single source used as outcome measure

Question 22

How do psychopathic offenders react to treatment?

Answer 22

they are resistant (don’t change and don’t want to) to traditional treatment modalities
more likely to drop out of treatment
are more disruptive ing group therapy - tend to want to control the situation; take in what people say to try to manipulate people and push their buttons
lack of empirical studies make it premature to conclude that they cannot be treated

Question 23

what is different about treating psychopaths? (Wong)

Answer 23

When you are providing therapy to someone, you must build a relationship, this is different with a psychopath because they don’t form connects the same way
Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation is different
Contains treatment-interfering behaviors and interpersonal manipulation

Question 24

What is the two component model (Wong & Hare)

Answer 24

It states that when treating psychopathic people, one should follow the risk factor, treat who are most likely to reoffend and specific responsivity, where one tailors to the person’s needs.
In this, one should manage factor 1 so that the treatment can go to factor 2, which is more malleable. This entails convincing them that making better choices will be better for them and minimizing factor 1.

Question 25

What the Brian Dugan case try to do?

Answer 25

Neuroscientist Diehl tried to use fMRI scans which showed Brain Dugan’s response inhibition and moral decision making (impulsive section and whether he knew right from wrong), as well as if PCL-R score to show he had the brain of a psychopath
From that finding, you tried to argue that Dugan lacked the ability to feel emotions and should not be executed because he was less responsible for his actions and offending.
The Jury sentenced him to death but the state abolished the death penalty before he died.

Question 26

How should psychopathy be used in the legal system?

Answer 26

Deciding when it is appropriate to assess psychopathic traits for use in the legal system should be based on sound assessment procedures, empirical evidence, and ethical principles.
This is not always followed, once someone was labelled as high on the PCL-R, it follows them forever so it has to be done by someone who is trained and who does a good job
Must be based on empirical evidence for why it is done
Ethical principles must be done openly and with ethical stances, defense vs prosecution scores

Question 27

What did Forth et al show?

Answer 27

Interviewed survivors of psychopathic relationships that were recruited and studied online. They answered open-ended questions about their experiences, which showed that often there were little to no red flags (lying, moving too fast, controlling, evoking sympathy) at the start of the relationship and it had great effects on their physical and mental health.
Limitations, you cannot get the partner’s real score, they have to do it for their ex/current partner
Also probably a sampling issue, could be inflating, people with more serious experiences are more likely to speak out about it