Analysis Of Without Conscience: The Disturbing World Of Psychopaths

Psychopaths are typically devoid of emotion, and have an inherent sense of superiority that drives them to take actions that society considers

When most people hear the word psychopath their mind forms a picture of a wild-eyed, rambling, lunatic who is often restrained in a straitjacket. The media has helped this belief along the way with slasher horror films and grisly CSI episodes depict these strange humans. However, the average psychopath is much harder to spot than most people believe. In fact, most of them are extremely difficult to distinguish from ordinary humans. They outwardly appear normal and many do not find it difficult to blend into common society. They can interact with others, hold successful jobs, and effectively keep themselves out of trouble. Most are not the sadistic killers many people think they are. Psychopaths are people born with problems (Bartol 105) or

Psychopathy, in both the mental health and criminal justice systems, has emerged as one of the most important clinical constructs of the 21st century (Hare, Clark, Grann, & Thornton, 2000, p. 623). Where clinically, psychopathy is traditionally described as a combination of inferred socially deviant behaviors and personality traits. Some traits and behaviors a psychopath is seen to possess are commonly known, for example, to being impulsive, selfish, aggressive, lacking remorse, shame, feeling for others, pathologically lying, and having asocial or antisocial behaviors (Hare, & Neumann, 2006, p. 59-60). One of the reasons as to why psychopathy has come to see an increase in the development of its theoretical and applied interest is the

Psychopaths have been around for more than a century, and have found themselves to be able to make the public fear them. Belle Gunness, the Zodiac Killer, and John Wayne Gacy are all examples for the character traits compatible with psychopathy and have been able to provide more reason to the research of psychopaths. Statistically, psychopathy is found in three percent of the male population and in one percent of one percent of the female population. A psychopath’s behavior of exploitation, lying, recklessness, and arrogance has been studied to further understand how their brain structure is different in MRI scans and how they are able to use special abilities to catch its victims. Many research studies have been able to provide more information

Berit Brogaard, D.M.Sci., Ph.D., is a Professor of Philosophy and the Director of the Brogaard Lab for Multisensory Research at the University of Miami. She earned a medical degree in neuroscience and a doctorate in philosophy. This article explained the traits of a psychopath, such as their callous, manipulative, and cunning behavior, along with the differentiating between psychopaths and psychotics. This article helped me by providing a good background on psychopathology and useful examples.

Accordingly, there exists a small group of people who exhibit most-to-all of these specific and peculiar characteristics and behaviours. This particular group of predators presents numerous challenges to morality, safety and policy. For instance, because a "psychopath" may display a general coldness toward others, they are more likely to commit criminal acts, and afterward not respond to punishment or deterrent tactics. Hare’s psychopathy checklist when used as a tool to identify psychopaths prevents harmful exposure of non-psychopaths to this dangerous group of offenders. For this tool to work effectively there must not be significant overlap of the specific characteristics used in the PCL-R to identify psychopaths as in the general population of non-psychopaths. In other words, the psychopath must

Almost everyone has morals, it is what connects every human in the world. However there are a special few that are detached from these morals. In an article written by Todd Calder of Stanford titled The Concept of Evil it demonstrates how psychopaths to demonstrate concept of evil. “Some of the defining characteristics of psychopathy include shallow emotions, egocentricity, deceitfulness, impulsivity, a lack of empathy, and a lack of guilt and remorse. Particularly relevant for assessments of moral responsibility is the psychopath’s inability to care for others and for the rules of morality.”

This article states that we need to stop interchanging psychopath and sociopath, as they are two different disciplines. Pemment goes into detail about the history, research, and growth of psychopathy. He says that we need to understand the difference between the two, as the behavioral characteristics and potential treatments for each are different. The article includes details on Hervey Cleckley and Robert Hares work on psychopathy. The article describes the PCL-R, and how Hare says the test should be done. The PCL-R is used as a screening tool to identify psychopaths, and

Moving forward into the 20th century, Hervey Cleckley made a contribution to the knowledge and research of the psychopathic brain. He wrote a book called, “The Mask of Sanity” (1976) where he described psychopathy as a configuration of interpersonal and behavioral features. He found that not only do psychopaths contain an antisocial behavior, they also have many negative characterizations and traits such as being manipulative, fearless, impulsive and lacking empathy as well as remorse or guilt. He also found that psychopathy is not only in those who show criminal behavior, however psychopathy may be present in those who appear to be successful and socially fit individuals.

Besides traits, we can also look at the different behaviors of psychopaths, both in respect to lifestyle and in terms of behaviors considered anti-social. Common lifestyle behaviors among psychopaths comprise of stimulation-seeking behavior, impulsivity, irresponsibility, habitually relying on or exploiting others (also known as parasitic orientation), and a lack of realistic life goals. The antisocial behaviors include poor behavioral controls, especially early on in childhood, and possibly along with childhood delinquency. Revocation of conditional release because of failure to meet expectations or requirements and criminal versatility may be factors in psychopathy as well. These demonstrate important characteristics of psychopathic serial murderers and relate to how we can attempt to comprehend their actions and

devious, heartless humans. There are many questions surrounding the actions of psychopaths Why do they murder? What could possibly drive someone to take another 's precious life away? At first glance, most believe that psychopaths are irrational and are entitled to punishment without fully understanding there clinical disability first. The fundamental cause of psychopathic behavior has to do with their environment and neurological structure. Psychopaths are not morally responsible for their actions, but they are, to a certain extent, criminally responsible.

One may predict that placing psychopaths in therapy may help make them become less violent or help rectify their actions in some way. Before reading this book, I already knew that, while this may be true for more normal individuals, this is false in regards to psychopaths. However, this novel made it more clear for me as to why therapy would not work. This is because, in order for therapy to work properly, the patient must recognize that there is something wrong. With psychopaths, they “feel they don’t have psychological or emotional problems, and they see no reason to change their behavior to conform to societal standards with which they do not agree” (195). This statement addresses one of the reasons as to why serial killers are able to serially kill. They do not see a problem with what they are doing, ergo making it impossible to get them to stop or

s that are linked to individuals with psychopathy include aspects related to the antisocial way of life and behaviour, of which include, deficits in responsibility taking, impulsivity, and criminal flexibility (De Brito et al.,

“Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by an inability to form human attachment, aggressive narcissism, and antisocial behavior defined by a constellation of affective, interpersonal and behavioral characteristics, most of which society views as pejorative” [1]. Some of these characteristics include irresponsibility, grandiosity, cunning, deceitfulness, selective impulsivity, sexual promiscuity, lack of empathy, etc. People who are psychopathic display not only antisocial behavior but also emotional impairment such as the lack of guilt. They are able to prey on others using their charm, deceit, violence or any other methods that allow them to get what they want. A strong feature of most of the behavior

In the book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us by Robert D Hare, the author described how those diagnosed with this have little capacity for seeing the consequences of their behavior (Hare 77). Psychopaths exhibit extreme emotions or none at all, and their function processing is slower than that of a person with little to no psychopathic tendencies.