Psychopathy Flashcards
1
Q
Psychopaths
A
- Serial killers are “partially successful” psychopaths (don’t get caught right away)
- Likely many “successful” psychopaths in society (ie. Lawyers), but mostly unsuccessful psychopaths (weird people with criminal records)
- “Omnivorous criminals” - string of moral transgressions, wide conviction records (not focused on one type of crime)
2
Q
Cleckley’s insights into psychopathy
A
- Case studies: different than popular notion
- Often average or better intelligence, no obvious problems, but screw-ups -> ie. Shameless lying, bad cover-ups
- Something “off”, but don’t seem mentally ill
- Like a profound learning disorder when it comes to emotions - “know the words but not the music” (ie. They can tell you that honesty is important, but will still lie pathologically)
3
Q
Revised Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R)
A
- Developed by Robert Hare, adapted in part from Cleckley
- Structured interviews that require extensive training and previous look at the subject’s criminal records -> during interview, you score subject on various items
- Includes items like “superficial charm”, “pathological lying”, “shallow emotional experience”, “impulsivity”, “early behavioural problems”, “high rates of recidivism/repeat offenses”, etc.
- Based on factor analysis -> psychopathy is made up of 2 main factors:
- Factor 1: includes interpersonal and effective facets
- Factor 2: includes impulsive and antisocial facets
- The “Gold Standard”, but does have issues (ie. A predictor-criterion overlap)
4
Q
Psychopathy prevalence
A
- ~1% of general population
- Less common in women
- ~3.5% of business world
- 15-25% of prison population
- ~10% of violent criminal women; ~30% of violent criminal men
- 57-97% of serial killers
- Present in all social strata; thought to be a neurodevelopmental disorder
5
Q
Psychopathy vs. Antisocial Personality Disorder
A
- Psychopathy is not in the DSM, but ASPD is
- ASPD: pattern of moral transgressions and violent behaviours
- Most psychopaths in criminal system would qualify for ASPD, but not all diagnosed ASPDs are psychopaths
- Many ways to develop ASPD (ie. Troubled upbringing)
6
Q
Why care about psychopaths?
A
- Enormous economic and societal burden
- Psychopaths are at increased risk for:
- Criminal and other disruptive activities
- Violent crime
- Recidivism
- Drug use and addiction
7
Q
Physiological differences
A
- Low heart rate
- Low EEG reactivity
- Diminished augmentation of startle response by aversive stimuli
- Diminished suppression of startle response by pleasant stimuli
8
Q
Structural differences
A
- Most research has focused on amygdala and vmPFC (responsible for planning and future orientation; self-control)
- Amygdala: decreased gray matter, decreased connectivity between amygdala regions
- VmPFC: decreased gray matter, reduced cortical thickness
- Reduced structural (ie. Seen in DTI) and functional (ie. Seen in fMRI) connectivity between amygdala and vmPFC
9
Q
Functional differences
A
No trouble with identifying moral violations, but no brain response difference for moral vs. nonmoral stimuli
10
Q
Can psychopathy be measured in the general population?
A
- Difficult, but some believe it can
- Lilienfeld and Andrews developed Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI)
- Potential problems (it’s self-report) but shows some validity
- Some advantages over PCL-R (less administration, training necessary)
- Like the PCL-R, it divided into factors (fearless dominance & self-centered impulsivity)
11
Q
Psychopathy and reward
A
As Psychopathic Personality Inventory scores go up, activity in the ventral striatum (aka nucleus accumbens; influences impulsivity) goes up -> suggests psychopaths are hypersensitive to reward
12
Q
Psychopathy and decision-making study (Hosking et al): What did they do?
A
- Mobile MR scanner taken to 2 prisons; scanned 49 incarcerated male prisoners
- Measured psychopathy (PCL-R)
- Measured intertemporal choice (aka delay discounting – would you rather have $5 now or $10 in a week)
- This gets at Objective value of money (ie. Literal value) vs. Subjective value (how much it feels like to you, influenced by your self-control relative to the delay)
- Discounting curve: the steeper the discounting curve, the more impulsive you are (money gets more discounted as time goes on)
- Measured BOLD during choice (fMRI) and resting state functional connectivity (rsfcMRI)
13
Q
Psychopathy and decision-making study (Hosking et al): What did they find?
A
- Looked at nucleus accumbens (already knew that more impulsivity = more activity in NAcc; more self-control = more activity in PFC)
- As psychopathy scores go up, the NAcc (and not other basal ganglia regions) show more BOLD for subjective value
- As psychopathy scores go up, connectivity between the NAcc and vmPFC goes down
- As NAcc Bold goes up during decision-making, and as NAcc-vmPFC connectivity goes down, the number of convicted crimes increases
14
Q
Psychopathy: treatment
A
- Major problems (observed both in real world and lab):
- Talk therapy makes things worse (makes them better psychopaths -> they learn how to tell people what they want to hear)
- Psychopaths don’t learn from punishment
- But psychopaths are sensitive to reward (ie. Reward them at slightly larger increments for every day they don’t do something bad)
- Some preliminary results suggest manipulating reward schedules may be an effective method of mitigating the antisocial behaviour seen in psychopaths
15
Q
Cleckley Case Study: Max
A
- alert, self-assured, boastful, egotistical, yet friendly and cooperative
- planned to get himself admitted for treatment in order to avoid going to jail for various crimes (ie. fraud, brawls)
- encouraged other patients to fight, showed no concern when confronted; no nerves or anxiety
- falsely boasted about having epileptic seizures and a blow to his head during the military, about attending Heidelberg, and about being renowned for his knowledge of Shakespeare and philosophy
- lacking in emotional experience/understanding
