Psychopathy Flashcards
What is psychopathy
A collection of interpersonal, affective and behavioral characteristics including;
- Dominance, selfishness, manipulativeness
- Lack of remorse or empathy
- impulsivity
- antisocial acts
Has been described as intraspecies predators
very stable overtime, like followed by callous unemotional traits in childhood
What percent of the population are psychopaths
1%
What is the gender bias in psychopath prevalence
More common in males
- could be up to 6:1
- females may be better at hiding it
Kunlangeta
Alaskan Inuit term for an individual who lies, cheats, steals, does not contribute to the group
Antisocial personality disorder
Pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others
- 95-98% of psychopathy fits within this category
Sociopath
A label used to describe` a person who psychopathic traits are assumed to be due to environmental factors
What percent of incarcerated individuals have ADP and what percent psychopathy
60-80% APD
10-25% psychopathy
Assessment of psychopathy
Most popular is hare psychopathy checklist -revised (PCL-R)
- Semi-structured interview
- 20 items on a 3 point scale (2 definitely applies, 1 applies to some extent, 0 does not apply)
- total score of 0 to 40
- Assesses different features: Interpersonal (manipulation, grandiosity), Affective (lack of remorse, shallow emotions), Behavioral (impulsivity, antisocial acts)
Factors of psychopathy
INITIAL ANALYSIS
Factor 1: interpersonal and affective features
- More likely to drop out of treatment or not respond to it
- emotional processing deficit
Factor 2: unstable and social deviant traits
- Mostly behavioral
- higher risk of reoffending
- more correlated with family background
- may be more environment based
FURTHER ANALYSIS
Factor 1 split into two
- Arrogant and deceitful interpersonal style
- deficient affective experience
Factor 3: impulsive and irresponsible behavioral style
Antisocial style later added as 4th factor
Advantages Self-report measures of psychopathy
- tells us how they perceive themselves
- quick, cheap
- used for research
Self-report measures of psychopathy
- Psychopathic Personality Inventory - Revised (PPI-R)
- Self-Report Psychology Scale (SRP)
Downsides to self-report of psychopathy
- Psychopaths often lie
- psychopaths may not have sufficient insight (think there thinking is normal)
- It may be difficult for psychopaths to report on specific emotions
- Report in own best interest
Validity scales for self-report of psychopaths
- questions not about psychopathy
- can detect faking good or bad
- can check for carelessness in responding
- can check for positive or negative response styles
What causes psychopathy
- Twin studies have show 29-69% of variability dye to genetics
Possible family factors - Lower levels of parental warmth and attachment
- mother or father has criminal past
- low family income
- family disruption
- physical neglect or abuse
- sons with absent fathers
Psychopaths in the community - workplace
Not all offenders and/or violent
IN WORKPLACE
- unwarranted rumors, getting info on others
- do not pull own weight
- use manipulation and blame others for their failures
- can cause toxic work environments, bullying
- creative, strategic, strong, communication skills
Wheeler, book & costello (2019) Victimization and psychopaths
- University students self-report on previous victimizations (bullied, manipulated etc.) then enter study area on video tap
- second set of male university students rated vulnerability based on videos
- Participants with high SRP were more accurate in detecting victim vulnerability
Book et. al (2015) psychopaths and remorse
- Male university students with high PPI-R videotaped describing a time when they did something that should have made them remorseful but did not
- other students then rate them on how genuine they sounded
- higher scores on Factor 1 traits were given more genuine ratings
Characteristics of psychopath during investigation
- Try to outwit interrogator
- Enjoy being focus of attention
- attempt to control the interrogation
- not fooled by bluffs
- attempt to shock
Interrogating psychopaths
- Ensure case familiarity - don’t let them poke holes
- Convey experience and confidence - convey authority
- Show liking or admiration - appear to narcissism
- Avoid criticism - avoid getting aggressive
- Avoid conveying emotions
Psychopathy in youth
Measures have been developed for children and adolescents
- Children: antisocial process screening device
- Adolescents: Hare psychopathy checklist youth version (looks for callous unemotional, impulsivity, narcissism)
Those who score high:
- More police contacts and conduct problems
- Criminal behaviours at younger age
- Engage in more violence and are at higher risk for reoffending
Potential for significant stigma in labelling at this age
What comes to mind when people think of the term psychopath
- 75% of people gain their knowledge form the media
- understands traits but thought symptoms of psychosis and delusion (not true)
- Serial Killer/mass murder (35%)
- Fictional serial killer (14%)
- Personalized (9%)
- Politician/ celebrity (5%)
Edens et al (2005) - bias towards psychopaths
- University students presented with written descriptions of a mock defendant in a murder case
- Described as either a psychopath, psychotic or no mental disorder
- Psychopathy viewed as less credible and higher risk by mock jurors
- Significant difference found between death penalty for psychopath and no disorder
Interventions for psychopathy in youth
- Adolescents and children more responsive to treatment than adults
- Children with callous-unemotional traits are more likely to reject affection from mothers and avoid eye contact
PARENT-CHILD THERAPY - positive parenting strategies and positive reinforcements
- appears to increase empathy and decrease conduct problems
Cognitive model of psychopathy
Response Modulation Deficit Theory:
Psychopaths fail to use contextual cues that are peripheral to a dominant response
- explains why psychopaths fail to learn to avoid punishment
Affective Model of Psychopathy
Explain psychopathy by deficit in the experience of certain critical emotions
- could be driven by a disconnect between cognitive-linguistic processing and emotional experience
Lexical-decision task
Used to research cognitive-linguistic processing in psychopaths
- Measures how fast people classify stimuli as works or nonwords
- Presented with words and nonwords that are either neutral or emotional
- Normal individuals are faster at classifying emotional words - amygdala activation reaches us faster
- Psychopaths show no timing differences
