Predators among us: understanding and assessing psychotherapy

Question 1

How many attributes that characterize psychopaths? (Cleckley)

Answer 1

16

-basis for development of PCL and PCL-R

Question 2

What findings did John Monaham find?

Answer 2

• reviewed extent that psych was doing good job in crime justice system (correlational rehab psych and predictive risk assessment psych)
• find out it was horrible (would do just as well if a coin was flipped)

Question 3

how is the PCL-R scored?

Answer 3

rating from 0-2
0=no
1=maybe
2=yes

Question 4

Assessment of PCL-R- procedure 1

Answer 4

Collateral review: review of file info

*most important part of assessment

Question 5

Assessment of PCL-R- procedure 2

Answer 5

Interview after reading file

Question 6

can you do a PCL-R without an interview?

Answer 6

yes

-valid PCL-R ratings can be made solely on the basis of collateral info if sufficient high quality info available

Question 7

What us the highest score on a PCL-R? What is considered a psychopath?

Answer 7

highest rating is 40
need a score of 30 to be considered a psychopath1/4 of canadian offenders meet criteria
-average is 24

Question 8

What 3 traits are not in interpersonal/ affective or social deviance categories on PCL-R?

Answer 8

1. promiscuous sexual behaviour
2. many short term marital relationships
3. criminal versatility

Question 9

what 2 categories is the PCL-R divided into?

Answer 9

1. interpersonal/ affective- dangerous and will not be fixed with remediation
2. social deviance- attitudes towards criminality, police, gangster thinking (changeable)

Question 10

woodworth and porter

Answer 10

125 homicide cases in nova scotia and BC

• instrumental vs. reactive homicide
• non psychopathic offenders tend roughly equal numbers of reactive and instrumental homicides
• psychopaths killed for purpose

Question 11

definition of instrumental homicide

Answer 11

motivated by gain

Question 12

definition of reactive homicide

Answer 12

emotionally based and may be impulsive

Question 13

characteristics of psychopaths

Answer 13

• commit greater variety of crimes
• more violent
• tend to have multiple victims, stranger victims, left scene of crime
• plan things out more

Question 14

what are consequences of having psychopaths testify?

Answer 14

• court cases with testimony of psychopaths resulted in more severe dispositions

Question 15

How to you attempt to get death sentence for psychopaths?

Answer 15

• when trying to get death sentence, try to elevate PCL-R scores so they look likely to reoffend and untreatable

Question 16

does psychopathy work for NCRMD?

Answer 16

NO

-psychopaths understand the difference between right and wrong, they just don’t care

Question 17

Hart, Kropp and Hare

Answer 17

• follow up of 231 offender receiving conditional releases
• level of psychopathy is associated with survival
• 80% of violate conditions within 3 and a half years (not good)

Question 18

Hemphill and Wong

Answer 18

• looked at PCL-R and recidivism
• found PCL is important predictor across diverse inmate samples
• psychopaths 3x more likely to recidivate than non-psychopaths

Question 19

Harris

Answer 19

treatment

-group therapy doesn’t help psychopaths

Question 20

advantages of self report method for psychopaths

Answer 20

1. cost effective
2. measure emotions that can’t be observed
3. easy to administer

Question 21

what is antisocial personality disorder?

Answer 21

history of behaviours in which rights of others are violated
-describes people who cause crime

Question 22

symptoms of antisocial personality disorder

Answer 22

need 3 or more:

1. deceitfulness
2. impulsivity
3. irritability
4. reckless behaviour

Question 23

how does APD differ from psychopathy?

Answer 23

APD doesn’t have lack of empathy or regret, lack of being able to take other perspective
-most people that meet criteria for psychopathy meet criteria for APD but not other way around

Question 24

what is the difference between psychopaths and sociopaths?

Answer 24

psychopaths are born that way, sociopaths becomes like that because of lack of socialization

Question 25

what are some professions that are higher in psychopathy tendencies?

Answer 25

1. CEO
2. lawyer
3. media
4. salesperson
5. chef

Question 26

what is the response modification deficit theory?

Answer 26

• made by joe newton
• fail to use contextual cues that are peripheral to dominant response set to modulate their behaviour
• dont pay attention to ongoing behaviour to see if it’s appropriate

Question 27

what is the newman card playing task?

Answer 27

• supports réponse modification déficit theory
• most stop around 50 chips
• psychopaths play right till the end (9 losses 1 win)

Question 28

Iowa gambling task

Answer 28

• deck a and b have high rewards but large deficits
• decks c and d pay off
• normal non psychopaths learn and start responding to desk c and d by end of trial but psychopaths drawn to deck b

Question 29

what is the affective theory of psychopathy?

Answer 29

-have deficit in experience of certain critical emotions that guide prosocial behaviour

Question 30

williamson and Hare

Answer 30

• psychopaths didn’t identify emotional words faster than neutral words
• normal people identify emotional words faster

Question 31

what is the dot problem?

Answer 31

participants stare at x in middle of screen then shown 2 stimuli (one neutral and on showing emotion)

• limbic system will orient to emotional stimuli without conscious awareness of it
• non psychopaths will respond quickly
• psychopaths slower because still staring at middle of screen and not really looking at emotional stimuli

Question 32

7 conclusions about psychopathy

Answer 32

1. assessed reliably and validly
2. related to greater general, sexual and violent recidivism
3. associated with more instrumental than reactive violence
4. associated with less success on conditional response
5. associated with poorer response to institutional treatment
6. when co existing with aberrant sexual arousal, is particularly problematic
7. probably secondary to underdeveloped neural circuitry between limbic system (amygdala) and aspects of pre front cortex (occipital frontal cortex and pre frontal cortex)