Copyright © 2012 Pearson Canada Inc. 11 - 1 Chapter 11 Psychopaths

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Canada Inc. 11 - 1

Chapter 11

Psychopaths


Learning Objectives

• Define psychopathy• Outline the different assessment methods

developed to measure psychopathy• Describe the association between

psychopathy and violence• Identify the concerns associated with

labeling a youth as a psychopath• Explain the two main theories of

psychopathy


Psychopathy

• Psychopathy: A personality disorder defined by a collection of interpersonal, affective, and behavioural characteristics, including manipulation, lack of remorse or empathy, impulsivity, and antisocial behaviours

• Descriptions of psychopathy exist in most cultures


Assessment

• Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1993, 2003) most popular method of assessing psychopathy in adults

• 20-item scale• Semi-structured interview and review of

file information• Assesses interpersonal, affective, and

behavioural features


Assessment

• Scores range from 0 to 40

• 30 or higher is a psychopath

• Currently psychopathy is a 2 factor model:– Factor 1: interpersonal, affective traits– Factor 2: unstable and socially deviant traits

• Some researchers have argued for 3 or 4 factor models


Self-Report Measures

• Advantages:– Cost-effective– Measure emotions that cannot be observed– Easy to administer – Do not require inter-rater reliability– Can detect faking (good and bad)

• Challenges:– Psychopaths lie– May not have sufficient insight – Do not experience certain emotions


Subclinical Psychopaths

• Students who scored higher on the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (SRP) were more likely to defraud the experimenter (Paulhus, Williams, & Nathanson, 2002)

• Students with higher SRP scores were better at identifying vulnerable victims

• Students owning vicious dogs were more likely to report criminal behaviours (Ragatz, Fremouw, Thomas, & McCoy, 2009)


Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD)

• A personality disorder characterized by a history of behaviours in which the rights of others are violated

• Need to display three or more symptoms– Repeatedly engage in criminal activity– Deceitfulness - Irresponsibility– Impulsivity - Lack of remorse– Irritability - Reckless behaviours


Antisocial Personality Disorder

• Almost all psychopaths can be classified as having APD

• Most offenders diagnosed with APD are not psychopaths

• APD, psychopathy, and sociopathy are used interchangeably– They are related but distinct constructs


Psychopathy and Criminal Cases

• Court cases with testimony about psychopathy resulted in more severe dispositions (DeMateo & Edens, 2006; Walsh & Walsh, 2006)

• PCL-R scores were used in death-penalty sentencing

• Psychopathy does not meet the insanity defense (psychopaths know the difference between right and wrong)


Psychopathy and Violence

• Psychopaths make up a small proportion of the population but account for a large proportion of all crime committed

• Psychopaths:– Start their criminal careers younger – Persist longer and commit a greater variety of

crime– Engage in more violent crime – More likely to reoffend



• In cases of murder, psychopaths have multiple victims, stranger victims, male victims, left the scene of the crime, and deny responsibility (Häkkänen-Nyholm, 2009)

• Psychopathic homicide offenders are more likely to engage in instrumental homicide as compared to nonpsychopathic homicide offenders (Woodworth & Porter, 2002)



• Psychopathic violence is more likely to be:– Predatory– Instrumental– Callous– Calculated– Not reactive in nature– Target strangers– Vindictive or opportunistic


Psychopaths in the Community

• Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist-Screening Version (PCL-SV; Hart, Cox, & Hare, 1995) is used to assess psychopathy in community samples

• Coid, Yang, Ullrich, Roberts, and Hare (2009)– 71% of the sample scored 0– Psychopathy is rare in the community


Psychopaths in the Community

• Not all psychopaths are violent offenders

• Babiak, Neumann, and Hare (2010) found 5% of their sample of corporate professionals met the criteria for psychopathy

• Psychopathic professionals tend to have:– Poor management and performance appraisals

– Better creativity

– Stronger communication skills

– Less likely to be team players


Psychopaths and Victims

• Kirkman (2005) identified characteristics of nonincarcerated psychopaths in heterosexual relationships. He found that women:– Were talked into being victims– Were lied to– Were economically abused– Emotionally abuse– The men had multiple infidelities– Were isolated– Their children were mistreated


Psychopathy and Sexual Violence

• Psychopathy is weakly associated with sexual offenses

• Brown and Forth (1997) report that psychopathy was related to number of previous violent offenses, but not related to previous sexual offenses

• Offenders who commit sexual homicide score higher on psychopathy


Psychopathy and Sexual Violence

• Mixed sexual offenders (assault both adults and children) are the second most psychopathic offenders

• Compared to other sex offenders, child molesters have the lowest psychopathy scores

• Psychopathic sexual offenders are more likely to be vindictive and opportunistic, whereas, nonpsychopathic rapists are more likely to report feeling anxious (Brown & Forth, 1997)


Psychopathy and Treatment

• Rice, Harris, and Cormier (1992) examined the effects of treatment with psychopaths. Violent recidivism rates were:– Untreated nonpsychopaths = 39%– Treated nonpsychopaths = 22%– Untreated psychopaths = 55%– Treated psychopaths = 77%

• Caution is required when interpreting such result. It could be that treatment to date just has not worked with psychopaths


Psychopathy and Treatment

• Olver and Wong (2009) found that psychopathic sex offenders who remained in treatment showed positive gains and were less likely to reoffend


Psychopathy in Youth

• Two ways to assess psychopathic traits in youth:

1.Antisocial Process Screening Device: Observer rating scale to assess psychopathic traits in children (Frick & Hare, 2003)

2.Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version: Scale designed to measure psychopathic traits in adolescents (Forth, Kosson, & Hare, 2003)



• Several issues with labeling a youth as a psychopath

• Are psychopathic traits in youth stable?– Study found fairly high stability across a 4

year period (Frick et al., 2003)– Study found moderate stability in traits from

ages 13 to 24 (Lynam et al., 2007)

• Are measures of psychopathy in youth assessing characteristics of adolescence?



• Youth who score high on PCL:YV:– Begin criminal behaviours younger– Engage in more violence– Are at greater risk to reoffend once released

• Psychopathic traits are linked with delinquency and aggression, not anxiety and depression (Campbell, Porter, & Santor, 2004)



• Youth with psychopathic traits may be more responsive to intervention

• Youth with high PCL:YV scores were given treatment in an intensive treatment centre or a correctional centre (Caldwell et al., 2006)– Youth who received treatment from

correctional centre violently reoffended at twice the rate of those in intensive program in treatment centre


Psychopathy Label

• Students presented with information on a defendant who was either psychopathic, psychotic, or no mental illness– Mock jurors were more likely to support death

penalty for psychopathic offenders (Edens, Colwell, Deforges, & Fernandez, 2005)

– Mock jurors were less likely to support death penalty for juveniles (Edens, Guy, & Fernandez, 2003)


Youth Psychopathy Label

• Diagnostic labels are not strongly related to probation officers’ recommendations of type of sanction, risk level, or treatment amenability (Murrie, Cornell, & McCoy, 2005)


Nature vs. Nurture

• Nature: Innate characteristics

• Nurture: Personal experiences and environment

• Evidence to suggest genetic contribution to psychopathy


Nature vs. Nurture

• Identical twins have more similar scores on Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI; Lilienfield & Andrews, 1996) than do fraternal twins (Blonigen, Carlson, Krueger, & Patrick , 2003)

• Genetics account for between 29% and 59% of variance on PPI subscores


Does Family Matter?

• The Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (40 year prospective study)– 97% of men scoring 10 or more on PCL-R

had been convicted of an offense (Farrington, 2006)

– Children who experienced abuse in childhood had slightly higher PCL-R scores than the control group (Weiler & Widom, 1996)


Does Family Matter?

• Best family background predictors of developing psychopathy in adulthood are (Weiler & Widom, 1996):– Criminal parent– Having uninvolved father– Low family income– Disrupted family life– Experiencing physical neglect


Psychopathy and Law Enforcement

• Almost half of police killers had traits consistent with psychopathy (Pinizzotto & Davis, 1992)

• Psychopathic suspects are difficult to interrogate, according to Quayle (2008) they:– Try to outwit – Attempt to control the interrogation – Will not be fooled by bluffs – Enjoy being the focus of investigation– Attempt to shock


Response Modulation Deficit Theory

• Response Modulation Deficit Theory: Psychopaths fail to use contextual cues that are peripheral to a dominant response set to modulate their behaviour (Newman et al., 2007)– Fail to learn to avoid punishment – Do not pay attention to cues that would inhibit

behaviours


Affective Theory of Psychopathy

• Affective Theory of Psychopathy: Psychopaths have a deficit in the experience of certain critical emotions that guide prosocial behaviour (Blair, 2006; Hare, 2007; Patrick, 2007)


Affective Theory of Psychopathy

• Williamson, Harpur, and Hare (1991)– Psychopaths did not identify emotional words

faster than neutral words

• Patrick, Bradley, and Lang (1993)– Psychopaths’ blink startle did not differ in

magnitude across pleasant, unpleasant and neutral slides

• Blair (2006, 2008) has proposed an amygdala dysfunction theory to explain the affective deficits seen in psychopaths

Documents

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Canada Inc. 11 - 1 Chapter 11 Psychopaths