Psychopathy - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Psychopathy

The Evolution of the

”Bad Seed”

• Personality disorder, characterized by
• Callousness
• Lack of empathy
• Self-centredness
• Remorselessness
• Persistent antisocial behaviour
• “Against” society, social norms

• Measures criminal psychopathy
• 20 items, scores range from 0-40
• Items include glibness & superficiality; impulsive behaviour; lack of remorse; early behaviour problems
• Two-factor structure
• Selfish, callous, & remorseless use of others
• Chronically unstable & antisocial lifestyle

Hare (1991)

• John Wayne Gacy was a contractor, Junior Chamber of Commerce “Man of the Year,” Pogo the Clown, and raped and murdered 32 young boys
• Kenneth Bianchi was one of the “Hillside Stranglers,” who raped, tortured, and murdered 12 women, & fooled experts into believing had had multiple personality disorder

Hare (1996)

• Pinel: Manie sans délire
• Construed psychopathy as “moral insanity”
• Began the “mad or bad” debate
• Cleckley’s Mask of Sanity
• Most influential of the classical texts
• Described the syndrome of psychopathy and gave the impetus for the research that followed

• Psychopathy vs. Antisocial Personality Disorder
• Considerable overlap between constructs
• APD is over-inclusive
• If scored similarly, they correlate highly
• Psychopathy vs. Sociopathy
• Psychopathy is not synonymous with psychosis
• “Sociopathy” differs with regard to etiological underpinnings

• Developmental delay
• EEG pattern similarity between psychopaths and normal adults
• Early brain damage or dysfunction
• Primarily to frontal lobes
• Poor socialization and psychological trauma
• Poverty, emotional instability, inconsistent punishment, abuse

• Adaptationist perspective on psychopathy
• Not a result of pathology, but an adaptive strategy (obligate genetic causes)
• Antisocial behaviour is maintained in the population through frequency-dependent selection
• Taxometric analyses reveal discrete classes
• “Genetic Dregs” hypothesis (Figueredo, 2002)

• Psychopathy is related to a general tendency to deceive, not just in sexual arenas (Seto et al, 1997)
• MAOA polymorphism moderates antisocial behaviour in maltreated adolescents (Caspi et al, 2002)
• Antisociality is correlated with earlier sexual experiences; unrelated to neuro-developmental insults (Krupp, 2001)

• Two-path model

Neuro-developmental Insults

Antisocial Parents

Criminal Violence

Psychopathy

Harris, Rice, & Lalumière (2001)

• Canada is at the forefront of risk assessment research
• PCL-R, LSI, VRAG, VRS
• Psychopathy appears to be an important predictor of recidivism
• Considerable debate surrounding
• Clinical judgment
• “Static” vs. “dynamic” factors

• Most therapeutic intervention has been unsuccessful with psychopaths
• Therapeutic community had an iatrogenic effect in one study (Harris et al., 1991)!
• The model of psychopathological behaviour is problematic; rather, psychopathy appears to be a life-history strategy
• Perhaps most appropriate therapy will focus on self-interest of psychopaths

• The construct of psychopathy defined
• Historical perspectives
• Etiological theories
• Psychopathy as a frequency-dependent, life-history strategy
• Recent evolutionarily-relevant research
• Risk assessment and therapy

• Pedophilia
• Definitional and practical issues
• Etiology
• WHR and pedophilic sexual preference
• Implications