Psychopathic Disorders

Psychopathy as a mental disorder or construct, although not included in the presently valid classification systems, is gradually fascinating the experts and investigators involved in the field of mental health. Curiosity in psychopathy has mainly grown after the declaration of the new classification system DSM V in which psychopathy is mentioned as a clear diagnosis in the context of six new personality illnesses.

However, more recently, a study led by King’s College London has claimed that there are differences between the brains of psychopaths and other criminal offenders diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. Dr. Nigel Blackwood who led the research is quoted as saying “We describe those without psychopathy as 'hot-headed' and those with psychopathy as ‘cold-hearted’.” This statement shows a clear distinction between what should be interpreted as a lack of self-control and ability to repress impulses and what should be diagnosed as psychopathy.
The study took MRI scans of 66 men, two thirds of which were offenders who had been diagnosed with antisocial personality whilst the other third were non-offenders considered to not have any personality disorders. Of the 44 offenders, 17 met the diagnosis criteria for psychopathy (ASPD+P) assessed by the guidelines stated in the DSM-IV. Researchers saw that the members of the study diagnosed as psychopaths had notably less grey matter in areas associated with moral behaviour and understanding other peoples’

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

In fact,because psychopaths are not able to feel empathy involuntarily, they are able to turn the feeling on. It is very common for psychopaths to have “ a false belief in their own superiority, a sense of entitlement and a complete disregard for social norms” (Paula, year). Psychopathy had recently been changed into ‘antisocial personality disorder’ in the updated version of the FBI’s mental health book, DSM-III. It was changed for the reason of the personality not always being reliable, as well as psychopathy symptoms crossing over antisocial personality disorder symptoms. Another reason for the change was because it is believed that focusing on behavior instead of the why helped identify the disorder easier. The new research was highly and widely discussed among many physicians because some felt unsure of the change, but they were also for the change with consideration of the evidence that was found. The usual psychopath is not found to be violent. If they are violent, they are considered more dangerous than others and will most likely reoffend sooner and worse than the first time. Between psychopaths and non psychopaths, psychopaths have a longer criminal history which varies in crimes. Their patterns are unique when compared to a non psychopath, but due to their inability to have emotion, they are able to be more observant on their next chosen

The most common traits associated with antisocial personality disorder are general cognitive and emotional dysfunction, especially in regards to callousness, manipulation and shallow affect. This study examined specific brain functioning tendencies of both mentally healthy participants and patients diagnosed with psychopathy by comparatively analyzing their facial emotion processing. The comparison allowed researchers to determine the relationship between psychopathological tendencies in relevance to patterns of responses. Generally, people diagnosed with psychopathy demonstrate reduced autonomic responses to expressions of distress or sadness, which in turn leads

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

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

In this article the authors have conjectured up some features of the psychopathic condition (e.g., fearlessness, interpersonal dominance) which are adaptive in

There is no current compilation of tests or surveys that can serve as a standard to test for psychopathy in children. Even though the cause of this disorder is unknown, researchers have discovered a remarkable amount of information relating to brain abnormalities in psychopaths. Various psychologists claim that just like autism, psychopathy is a distinct neurological condition; this brain activity can be identified in children as young as five years of age (Kahn, 2012). A study tracked the psychological development of 3,000 children, this was done over a span of 25 years, it was stated that psychopathic signs could be detected in children as young as three years of age. New high-level technology such as the Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Functional Magnetic Resonance imaging (fMRI) has facilitated researchers in locating the affected sections in the brain of a psychopath.

The four categories used to assess the individuals in question are interpersonal traits, affective traits, lifestyle behaviors, and antisocial behaviors. Based on their results, they have evaluated which traits and behaviors can be attributed to psychopaths. The interpersonal traits of psychopaths, or traits that are apparent when the psychopath interacts with other people, include glibness, inflated ego, pathological lying, manipulative behaviors, and superficial charm. In addition, psychopaths respond emotionally to their wrongdoings with a lack of true remorse or guilt and a flat or shallow affect, along with a failure to accept responsibility and the absence of empathy. These are known as affective traits, and can be associated with the fact that psychopathic serial killers do not value human life, and are often cruel and heartless when dealing with their victims.

There were two groups that were established; the psychopathic group scored higher than 30 on the PCL-R while the comparison group scored less than 20 on the PCL-R (1114). There were then given the emotional expression multimorph task which contained stimuli of six basic facial expressions (happiness, surprise, fear, sadness, disgust, and anger); the pictures would start off neutral and become one of the six emotions. Successful recognition of stimuli was given one point while failure to identify was give zero points (1115). ANOVA and MANDOVA tests were done to calculate the results of each of the individuals and compare the two groups (1116). The results were that psychopathic individuals overall had a harder time identifying all of the six emotions which shows how they were not emotionally sensitive (1117). One main point the researchers mentioned was that there was more impairment in identifying fear than any other emotion which is based in the amygdala; psychopaths tend to have deficiency with this part of the brain

They then had the students sit in a room, wearing headphones, with sensors on their face to record their expressions and were shown videos of people who were yawning, laughing, or had a neutral expression. The results of this experiment showed based on the students’ psych evaluation, the less empathy a person had then the likely they were to yawn. Of course this doesn’t necessarily mean if a person doesn’t yawn they are a psychopath (Preidt, 2015). Though none of the students were probably considered a psychopath, there was definitely a correlation between those with less empathy towards others and those who didn’t

The researchers, based at King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, said the differences in psychopaths' brains mark them out even from other violent criminals with anti-social personality disorders (ASPD), and from healthy non-offenders. The study showed that psychopaths, who are characterised by a lack of empathy, had less grey matter in the areas of the brain important for understanding other people's emotions.

“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