Psychopathy Disorder

Also of note is a replication of the same study used on an adolescent population with psychopathic tendencies have shown the same associations (Blair,1997). The similarity between the two samples perpetuates the notion that psychopathy is a developmental disorder and is consistent throughout the lifespan, it also provides evidence that specific deficits in guilt may extend to non-clinical samples, which is one of the purposes of my study. To date, and to my knowledge lack of guilt has not been looked at specificity in non-clinical samples nor have subtypes of psychopathy been compared.

Psychopathy; a term used to describe an individual with the ability to differentiate between right and wrong and acknowledge the rules of society, but are impervious to the moral foundation of these rules. Unlike other mental disorders such as sociopathy and schizophrenia, psychopathic individuals are able to understand actions that violate the law or go against social norms (Glenn 1). Although, they may be able to accurately judge moral and/or legal violations, one major factor that they lack is – emotional capacity. It is estimated that about 1% of the general population is made up of psychopaths, which is a considerable risk when it comes to crimes (Parry n.p). Therefore, the way in which the law responses to psychopathic individuals is an important moral and empirical issue. With that being said, should psychopaths be held criminally responsible for their behavior? Due to psychopathic individuals failure to meet criteria necessary for moral responsibility, such as the lack of understanding of the human race, predetermined biological structures of the brain and the fact that psychopathy is

Introduction The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the constructs of psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder. The aim is to highlight whether the terms psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder reflect the same construct or whether they differ. Furthermore, recommendations for treatment of criminal behavior will be explored. For the purposes of this evaluation some definitions need to be highlighted: Criminal offence is an act that breaks a law, which relates how to behave in society. The harm caused by the act is seen to be against society as a whole, not just a specific person. Sometimes it refers to the specific law that was broken (Herring, 2009). Crime is the breach of rules or law for which some authority

Throughout this paper, there will be a number of studies done on criminals, offenders, and children in order to determine ways of identifying psychopaths through causes of psychopathy. In the article “Investigations of Criminal and Conditional Release Profiles of Canadian Federal Offenders as a Function of Psychopathy and Age,” Birt and her associates conducted a study on over 300 Canadian federal offenders, with around 90 being identified as psychopaths. They identified the psychopaths through a test called The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised or PCL-R. After identification, they defined whether the crimes were violent and if so, which type of violence (647). To complete their study, they made sure to follow the offenders’ behavior once they

Psychopathy is a disorder caused by biological, environmental, and psychological factors that result in both interpersonal/affective deficits and social deviance/antisocial behaviors. It can be broken down into primary psychopathy and secondary psychopathy. Primary psychopathy mainly encompasses the interpersonal/affective components of psychopathy, such as superficial charm, lack of empathy, remorse or guilt, and manipulative tactics. These aspects of psychopathy are typically life-long and caused by biological deficits. Secondary psychopathy involves the social deviance/antisocial behaviors components of psychopathy, such as impulsive behavior, aggression, lack of responsibility, and need for excitement. These aspects are typically more attributable to the environmental determinants of psychopathy. Psychopathy, unlike Antisocial Personality Disorder, includes both conduct and personality components.

According to Jackson (2008) these assessments can aide with predicting the onset of psychopathic characteristics. With this in mind, one can study the development of these traits through childhood and adolescence, as well as, bridging the gap between childhood and adult psychopathy (Jackson, 2008). Another area that will benefit for assessing for conduct disorders in juvenile settings is the risk for recidivism. In a study conducted by Yampolskava and Chuang (2012) found children with conduct disorder, as well as having other mental health disorders possessed 80% for recidivism. The contributing factors for these juveniles’ behaviors were associated with childhood

Psychopathy has a strong connection to violent behavior and recidivism. Research indicates that persons with high levels of psychopathy are more likely to continue instrumental violent behavior when compared to those person’s with lower levels of psychopathy Jackson, R. (2008). Mannerisms connected to this behavior are grandiosity and arrogance which are frequently found in psychopaths . According to a study completed by Williamson, Hare and Wong (1987), criminals with high PCL-R scores

Past research that observes the relationships between psychopathic traits and emotional recognition has been conducted on facial expressions. Categorising emotional facial expressions allows our response to our environment to be of an appropriate manner. Evidence has shown that people with psychopathic tendencies show impairments in recognising facial expressions for a range of emotions. There is strong evidence surrounding the impaired emotional facial recognition in psychopaths, however, their low-level perceptual categorisation of vocal expressions remains unexplored.

Psychopathology disorder is any abnormal pattern of functioning that may be describe as deviant, distress, dysfunction and dangerous Comer (2013). According to the article, Matej Curko behavior have meet the criteria of Deviance abnormality. The first thing he did is to open a social network to interact with the people who wanted to commit suicide to convinced them, drug, kill, and eat them. A normal person with his senses will not try such an abominable acts. Secondly he build a ritual alter in the Slovakia forest and live there. He brake the legal norms in Slovakia and the norm in psychological functioning. Matej family accounted his highly unusual behavior to the Italian police. He falls in the ten scale test on the MMP1 profile indicating a person general personality of Schizophrenia which shows bizarre or unusual behavior. His family would find solution for his problem immediately they have notice the unusual behavior either by the electroencephalogram test or by the psychologist (Williams & Butcher 2011). Kittrie (1971), focusing on decriminalization, contends that the foundation of the therapeutic state can be found in determinist criminology, that it stems from the power of the state. Which means the state right to help those who are unable to help themselves). Pason

Research has shown that childhood psychopathy is associated with fearlessness, risk taking, aggression, theft, lying, destruction, vandalism, initiating fights, being physically cruel to people or animals, and forcing sexual activity (as cited by e.g., Asscher et al., 2011; Blair et al., 2006; Salekin, 2006; Viding, Blair, Moffitt, & Plomin, 2005). Psychopathy is starting to become an important issue of concern within the helping profession, but only one dimension of the condition, the limited prosocial emotion, has been incorporated in the DSM–5. Given the complexity of the disorder, adding the limited prosocial emotion condition only will continue to underrepresent this major disorder in the diagnostic system (Salekin,

Research has shown that childhood psychopathy is associated with fearlessness, risk taking, deceitfulness, theft, destructiveness, vandalism, initiating fights, being physically cruel to people or animals, and forcing sexual activity (as cited by e.g., Asscher et al., 2011; Blair et al., 2006; Salekin, 2006; Viding, Blair, Moffitt, & Plomin, 2005). To be diagnosed with conduct disorder, these behaviors must be present for at least a six-month time period or longer. Psychopathy is starting to become an important issue of concern within the helping profession, but only one dimension of the condition, the limited prosocial emotion, has been incorporated in the DSM–5 (Salekin, 2015). The complexity of the disorder is already substantial, and adding

This is a personality disorder sometimes referred to as sociopathic personality where those affected show no regard for moral and ethical rules of society or the rights of others. They may appear quite intelligent at first but may be manipulative and deceptive. They lack any guilt of wrongdoing. If they injure someone they may understand it intellectually that they have caused harm but they feel no remorse. They are impulsive and lack the ability to withstand frustration but can still be charming , engaging and highly persuasive like con artists. They may have come from a home where a parent died or left or where there was no affection or discipline or outright rejection. They may even come from lower socioeconomic

In Hemphälä and Hodgins (2014) study, utilized different checklists and questionnaires in their clinical interviews with mid-adolescent patients who sought treatment for substance misuse. The researchers wanted to test their hypothesis on whether psychopathic traits could predict criminal outcomes over a 5-year period.

In a study, Meloy (2007) found that “2/3 of all psychiatrists believe that a ‘psychopathic disorder’ can be a treatable condition” (pg 1). The checklist for measuring mild to severe psychopathy takes an interesting perspective and measures several traits that are distinctive to common psychopathic behavior. Glibness, parasitic lifestyle, callousness, promiscuous behavior are only some of the traits that are measured on a scale of 0-2, 0 not fitting at all, 2 fitting them perfectly and then tallied together (Meloy 2007). 10-19 would be only very mild psychopathy, possibly borderline, 20-29 would be moderately psychopathic, and anything over 30 is definitely considered psychopathic for all intents and purposes (Meloy 2007).

Over the years, throughout history until the present day, we have encountered various criminals from lavish thieves, financial swindlers, rapists, terrorists and serial murderers. Most of them all have something in common, they suffer from psychopathy or some form of mental illness or disorder. Our textbook states the “the term psychopathy “refers to a very specific and distinctive type of psychopathology”-a personality disorder characterized by antisocial behavior and a lack of feelings, especially empathy for or sensitivity to others .