Psychopathy

Question 1

Personality disorders

Answer 1

Deeply ingrained, inflexible patterns of thinking or feeling relating to others, difficulty controlling impulses
Long standing and usually begins before adulthood (no noticeable change in a person’s behaviour)

Question 2

Personality Disorder Criteria

Answer 2

A - Enduring pattern of deviation
B - Pattern is inflexible and consistent across all social situations
C - Leads to distress or impairment
D - Stable and long duration tracing back to adolescence
E - Pattern is not explained by another condition
F - Behaviour not due to medication or substance

Question 3

Antisocial personality disorder

Answer 3

Clinical diagnosis in the DSM-5. Categorised as ‘a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since the age of 15.

Question 4

Psychopathy

Answer 4

Theorised as a disorder of personality and affective deficits while ASPD diagnosis is behaviour based

Question 5

Anti-social disorder diagnostic criteria

Answer 5

1. Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviours
2. Deceitfulness
3. Irritability and aggressiveness
4. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others
5. Impulsivity
6. Consistent irresponsibility
7. Lack of remorse

Question 6

Borderline Personality Disorder criteria

Answer 6

Inappropriate or intense anger or difficulty controlling anger

Question 7

How many people have anti-social personality disorder?

Answer 7

Approximately 1-4%

Question 8

Male vs Female personality disorder

Answer 8

Males are 3 to 5 times more likely to be diagnosed with ASPD than females (Compton et al, 2005)

Question 9

Psychopathy and Antisocial personality disorder

Answer 9

Nearly all cases of psychopathy meet criteria for ASPD, whereas only a small amount of ASPD participants meet criteria for psychopathy (Hare, 1996)

Question 10

Fazel and Danesh (2002)

Answer 10

Reviewed 62 surveys from 12 countries (>22000 prisoners)
65% of men and 42% of women had a PD
47% of men and 21% of women had ASPD
Prisoners were 10x more likely to have ASPD than average population

Question 11

How many prisoners have ASPD?

Answer 11

Approximately 4.4% in the UK but 15% in the USA

Question 12

Personality disorders in prisons

Answer 12

Prisons have different norms of behaviour compared to the outside world. Prisons emphasise characteristics of fear, anxiety, hostility, suspiciousness, self-centredness and social withdrawal which could exaggerate personality characteristics.

Question 13

Few et al (2015)

Answer 13

The higher ASPD, the more high participants would score on the psychopathy test.

Question 14

Psychopathy definition (Cleckley, 1941)

Answer 14

A clinical construct defined by a collection of interpersonal, affective and lifestyle characteristics
Little reference to criminality at first

Question 15

How is Psychopathy measured?

Answer 15

By the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R) theorised by Hare in 2007

Question 16

Primary Psychopathy (Porter, 1996)

Answer 16

Born with a predisposition to interpersonal and affective features of psychopathy

Question 17

Secondary Psychopathy (Porter, 1996)

Answer 17

Acquired deficits associated with psychopathy following negative life events

Question 18

4 sub factors of the PLC-R

Answer 18

Interpersonal, Affective, Lifestyle, Antisocial. 20 items from each.

Question 19

Scores of the PCL-R

Answer 19

Rater scores each item on a 3 point ordinal scale (0-2) according to the extent to which the item applies.
Dimension scores vary from 0-40. Either 30+ (US/Canada) or 25+ (UK) means you’re a psychopath

Question 20

PCL-R Accuracy (Hare et al, 2000)

Answer 20

Studied 728 male UK prisoners.
Found that PCL-R predicted prison assaults, violent reconviction rate and general recidivism rate more than other risk assessment tools.

Question 21

Hare (1999)

Answer 21

Psychopaths use violence in a more instrumental way, without emotion and more predatory.

Question 22

Woodworth and Porter (2002)

Answer 22

93.3% of homicides by psychopaths instrumental while only 48.8% of non-psychopath murders instrumental
Non-psychopathic tended to be more reactive and with strong emotion

Question 23

What brain area is responsible for psychopathy?

Answer 23

Amygdala

Question 24

Amygdala facts

Answer 24

Controls automatic responses associated with fear and emotion
Important in attention, learning and affect
Involved in processing emotions, particularly fear.

Question 25

Blair (1995)

Answer 25

Identified the Violence Inhibition Mechanism
Children need to recognise and associate harmful transgressors with victim’s distress. Amygdala damage can make this not the case.

Question 26

Adolphs et al (1999)

Answer 26

Tested 9 patients with amygdala damage and found that their psychopathy ranged from severe to normal amounts of psychopathy

Question 27

Waldman and Rhee (2006)

Answer 27

Genetics account for 50% of variance in psychopathic traits

Question 28

Tuvblad et al (2014)

Answer 28

Up to 69% of psychopathic traits could be due to genetics

Question 29

Larsson et al (2007)

Answer 29

Longitudanal twin study in Sweden and found common genetic characteristics loaded into affective/interpersonal and lifestyle aspects of psychopathy.
Environment only effected lifestyle/antisocial

Question 30

Marsh and Blair (2008)

Answer 30

Meta-analytic evidence for impaired fear recognition among antisocial populations

Question 31

Dawel et al (2012)

Answer 31

The amygdala has a broader role in emotion processing and can even effect vocal tone

Question 32

Viding and McCrory (2012)

Answer 32

Callous unemotional traits in childhood have moderate-to-high heritability

Question 33

Viding et al (2005)

Answer 33

High callous unemotional traits are more dominant in genetics than those of low callous unemotional traits

Question 34

Blonigen et al (2008)

Answer 34

58% of the stability of callous unemotional traits was due to genetic influences

Question 35

McMahon et al (2010)

Answer 35

High callous emotional traits in young people led to more delinquency, juvenile and adult arrests, and ASPD diagnosis.

Question 36

Frick et al (2013)

Answer 36

Psychopathic traits remain stable from childhood to adulthood in its severest form

Question 37

Harris, Skilling and Rice (2001)

Answer 37

Callous unemotional traits shown to remain consistently stable