Psychopathy Flashcards
What is a successful psychopath?
Someone who integrates well into society.
Serial killers are “partially successful”
Most are unsuccessful (with criminal records)
many are successful and integrate well into society (leaning towards some professions)
They are mostly omnivorous criminals: they do things that they want to when it suits them, not just violence.
How does Cleckley view psychopathy?
Often good or better than average intelligence, no obvious problems, some “screw ups”
Take advantage of things to their benefit without remorse, but no big master plan/scheme.
They lie shamlessly, something seems off but not mentally ill. “know the words but not the music”
What is the PCL-R?
By Robert Hare, psychopathy checklist for forestic measures. Requires training to use, interview process and criminal record check. Based on factor analysis by a computer. Its the “gold standard” but has limitations.
- combo of personality traits and behaviors (bad)
- criminal activity predicts criminal activity, but there’s limited utility in that.
Checklist has multiple factors (2) and facets (4)
Factor 1: interpersonal (supeficial charm, grandiose self worth, pathological lying, manipulation and conning)
affective (lack of remorse, shallow affect, lack of empathy, failure to accept responsibility)
Factor 2: impulsive (need for stimulation, prone to boredom, parasitic lifestyle, irresponsible)
antisocial: poor behavioral control, early behavioral problems, delinquency, criminal versatility, revocation upon release)
What is the prevalence of psychopathy?
1% of general population
Less common in women
High instance in criminals (25%)
Higher instance in business (3.5%)
Higher instance in violent criminal men and women (10-30%)
Highest instance in serial killers (57-97%)
Possibly a neurodevelopmental disorder. Not really environmental or cultural because it is uniform in all social strata.
What is the difference between Psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder?
Psychopathy isn’t in DSM.
Most psychopaths qualify for ASPD but not all ASPD are psychopaths.
ASPD: causing harm to people on many occasions. Antisocial behavior in all aspects. people feel cornered into a violent lifestyle. Lack of socialization
Psychopathy: lack of emotional experience at its core.
NOT the same thing.
WHy do we care about psychopathy?
Economic and societal burden
Psychopaths are at an increased risk of crime, recidivism, and drug use/addiction.
Behavioral abnormalities at an early age.
What are physiological differences in people with psychopathy?
Lower arousal altogether.
Lower heart rate
Lower EEG reactivity.
Diminished reactivity to startle response in reaction to good and bad things (less increase in startle response by aversive and less decrease in startle response by pleasant stimuli)
What are structural differences in those with psychopathy?
Amygdala: decreased grey matter due to less synapses/connectivity. Weaker connectivity between amygdalar regions.
vmPFC: decreased grey matter due to less branching and synapses, thinner cortically.
Reduces strutural (DTI) and functional (fMRI) connectivity between vmPFC and amygdala. Suggests a connection.
What are the functional differences in people with psychopathy.
THey can identify moral violations verbally, but when looking at their brain, they show no difference for moral vs non moral stimuli the way controls do. (controls get more activity vmPFC and terporal lobe during moral situations)
Can psychopathy be measured in the general public? how?
Its very hard, but Linienfeld and Andrews created Psychopathic personality inventory (PPI): its a self report measure that shows some validity due to its questions. Anyone can administer it. Doesn’t give harm or punishment for being a psychopath. Can’t “diagnose” but can see if someone is at risk for problems.
Questions factor analyzed into a series of factors.
1. Fearless dominance.
2. Self centered Impulsivity.
How do psychopaths think about reward? Have studies looked at this? how?
When presented with unexpected rewards, the nucleus accumbens of the basal ganglia, activity increases. Target of VTA dopamine. Psychopaths are hypersensitive to reward?
Couldn’t look at behavior, but saw activity go up in the scanner.
MRI scanners are taken to prisons (1.5 T) and measured men on their PCLR scale.
(Jay’s work)
Measured interemporal choice (delay discounting)
BOLD response during choice
Resting state functional connectivity
FOUND: that there is a curve between delay of reward and the subjective value of that reward. (10 now or 15 later) Looking at NAcc. Steepness of curve determines how impulsive someone is.
Those with psychopathy had a higher slope, and showed higher bold response to subjective value. also…
connectivity between NAcc and vmPFC goes down!
(PFC is the logical part of you to tell you to take the longer reward) And as this connectivity decreases, the number of crimes committed increases too.
How do we treat psychopathy?
Talk therapy makes it worse (more successful)
Psychopaths don’t learn from punishment the way we do. Don’t adjust their behavior, thats why resitivism is so high.
They ARE sensitive to reward, so maybe looking at that would be good, leveraging power of manipulated reward schedules could mitigate antisocial behavior seen in those with psychopathy.
