Psychopathy, Misc

This study assesses the relationships among unethical corporate values, bullying experiences, psychopathy, and selling professionals’ ethical evaluations of bullying. Information was collected from national/regional samples of selling professionals. Results indicated that unethical values, bullying, and psychopathy were positively interrelated. Psychopathy and unethical values were negatively associated with moral intensity, while moral intensity was positively related to ethical issue importance. Psychopathy and unethical values were negatively related to issue importance, and issue importance and moral intensity were positively related to ethical judgment. (...) Finally, ethical judgment and moral intensity were positively linked to ethical intention; psychopathy was negatively associated with ethical intention. (shrink)

Any social and political arrangement depends on acceptance. If a substantial part of a people does not accept the authority of its rulers, then those can only remain in power by means of force, and even that use of force needs to be accepted to be effective. Gramsci called this acceptance of the socio-political status quo “hegemony.” Every stable state relies primarily on hegemony as a source of control. Hegemony works through the dissemination of values and beliefs that create acceptance (...) and that serve the interests of the state and/or the ruling elite (the “hegemones”). Hegemony is most efficient if it remains invisible. A key hegemonic belief is the idea that there is no alternative to the current socio-political status quo or that the way things are is “natural.” The current hegemony – that is, the set of values and beliefs that bolster the current socio-political status quo – is a hegemony of psychopathy: it promotes “cultural psychopathy” and destroys empathy and compassion, thus threatening everything that makes us human. The hegemony of psychopathy is responsible for massive human suffering. It must be fought and replaced with a counter-hegemonic set of values and beliefs that promote compassion and care. Fighting hegemony requires fighting the “pillars” that support it. Most important among these are the mass media and culture industry, and mainstream economics. The former is responsible for a continuous stream of hegemonic propaganda; the latter – among others – for providing a pseudo-scientific justification for the false belief that there is no alternative. The book concludes with some considerations on tactics and strategy in the struggle against the hegemony of psychopathy, but does not – and cannot – offer any concrete advice. (shrink)

Insurance agents are confidence-men--con men--and that is what psychopaths are; and that is why psychopaths are drawn to the insurance industry, which is the insurance industry is so tightly regulated.

A fictitious dialogue in which an answer is given to the question: Why are the rates of psychosis and psychopathy in the United States so high?

In order to assess the potential of psychopathy to increase evolutionary fitness, we examined the relations between psychopathy and fitness indicators (number of children and grandchildren, problems in physical health both in parents and offspring) in a sample of post-reproductive individuals (N = 187; Mage = 66.52). Specifically, we explored the possibility that psychopathy traits are involved in evolutionary trade-offs: both positive and negative relations with different fitness components. Psychopathy was measured via three traits—interpersonal, affective, and lifestyle characteristics, which are (...) operationalized by proxy scales derived from the HEXACO-PI-R inventory. Research findings showed that interpersonal traits were positively related to the number of children and negatively to the number of grandchildren and problems in physical health; lifestyle characteristics were positively associated with problems in physical health in participants’ offspring. The data are in line with previous studies which explored the relations between psychopathy and fitness. The findings extend on previous studies by suggesting that psychopathy may be involved in evolutionary trade-offs, especially the quantity-quality trade-off. These trade-offs may in return maintain inter-individual variation in psychopathy. (shrink)

Klasične moralne dileme žrtvovanja, u kojima je potrebno žrtvovati život jedne osobe kako bi spasili nekoliko drugih života, često su definirane konfliktom između racionalnog odgovora maksimizacije ukupne dobrobiti (utilitaristička moralna prosudba) i emocionalne averzije na povredu (deontološka moralna prosudba). Novija su istraživanja moralnog prosuđivanja pokazala da su socijalno averzivni stilovi ličnosti povezani sa sklonosti utilitarističkom odgovaranju na moralne dileme. Cilj je ovoga istraživanja bio ispitati povezanosti crta ličnosti tamne trijade i odgovora na moralne dileme, kao i medijacijski efekt emocionalne empatije (...) na tu povezanost. U istraživanju je sudjelovalo 210 ispitanika u dobi od 18 do 68 godina, od toga 147 žena i 63 muškaraca. Dobiveni su rezultati pokazali da su viša psihopatija i viši makijavelizam povezani s većom sklonosti utilitarističkoj moralnoj prosudbi. Nije pronađena povezanost narcizma i moralne prosudbe. Žene iskazuju višu emocionalnu empatiju, a muškarci višu psihopatiju i veću sklonost utilitarističkoj moralnoj prosudbi. Viša je emocionalna empatija povezana s nižim narcizmom, nižim makijavelizmom i nižom psihopatijom te manjom sklonosti utilitarističkoj moralnoj prosudbi. Niska emocionalna empatija je značajan medijator povezanosti makijavelizma i psihopatije sa sklonosti utilitarističkoj moralnoj prosudbi. Raspravljeni su efekti crta tamne trijade i emocionalne empatije na moralnu prosudbu. (shrink)

One of the most prominent models of psychopathy operationalizes this construct as consisting of four factors: interpersonal, affective, lifestyle and antisocial traits. These traits show different relationship patterns with other constructs, and these relations may differ in men and women. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the relations between psychopathic traits and indicators of emotional distress (depression, anxiety and stress), differ between men and women. Data was collected on 650 students (60% women) at the University of Zagreb. (...) The results of Canonical Correlation Analysis indicated that affective psychopathic traits have adaptive potential and represent a protective factor for experiencing emotional distress, while Lifestyle and Antisocial behavior represent risk factors for emotional distress. Moreover, sex had a moderating role in the relationship between Interpersonal and Lifestyle traits and distress, indicating that psychopathic traits seem to be more adaptive in males, compared to females. (shrink)

In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that psychopathy emerges as an adaptive behavioral response to a harsh environment: psychopathy could represent a mediator in the link between a harsh environment and fast life history pathway. We measured environmental harshness, psychopathy (boldness, meanness, and disinhibition), and a wide range of life history parameters (expected longevity, covitality, age at first menstruation, age at first sex, mating success, planned age at first reproduction, and expected total fertility) in a sample of young (...) female adults (N = 196). Factor analysis of the life history indicators produced three- and two-factor solutions and we decided to analyze the latter one—extracted components are described as long-term mating and expected future fitness. Environmental harshness was positively related to psychopathy and negatively to expected future fitness. Path analysis revealed that the disinhibition trait mediates the link between the environment and expected future fitness. Analysis also showed adaptive differences between boldness and disinhibition: while both psychopathy traits were negatively associated to long-term mating, boldness was positively related to expected future fitness, in contrast to disinhibition which showed negative associations with this life history measure. Hence, boldness showed the highest adaptive potential. Study results are in line with life history theory in humans and show the heuristic power of applying behavioral ecological framework to the study of psychopathy. (shrink)

Psychopathy is a personality disorder frequently associated with immoral behaviors. Previous behavioral studies on the influence of psychopathy on moral decision have yielded contradictory results, possibly because they focused either on judgment (abstract evaluation) or on choice of hypothetical action, two processes that may rely on different mechanisms. In this study, we explored the influence of the level of psychopathic traits on judgment and choice of hypothetical action during moral dilemma evaluation. A population of 102 students completed a questionnaire with (...) ten moral dilemmas and nine non-moral dilemmas. The task included questions targeting both judgment (“Is it acceptable to … in order to …?”) and choice of hypothetical action (“Would you … in order to …?”). The level of psychopathic traits of each participant was evaluated with the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy (LSRP) scale. Logistic regression fitted with the generalized estimating equations method analyses were conducted using responses to the judgment and choice tasks as the dependent variables and psychopathy scores as predictor. Results show that a high level of psychopathic traits, and more specifically those related to affective deficit, predicted a greater proportion of utilitarian responses for the choice but not for the judgment question. There was no first-order interaction between the level of psychopathic traits and other potential predictors. The relation between a high level of psychopathic traits and increased utilitarianism in choice of action but not in moral judgment may explain the contradictory results of previous studies where these two processes were not contrasted. It also gives further support to the hypothesis that choice of action endorsement and abstract judgment during moral dilemma evaluation are partially distinct neural and psychological processes. We propose that this distinction should be better taken into account in the evaluation of psychopathic behaviors. (shrink)

The issue whether psychopathic offenders are practically rational has attracted philosophical attention. The problem is relevant in theoretical discussions on moral psychology and in those concerning the appropriate social response to the crimes of these individuals. We argue that classical and current experiments concerning the instrumental learning in psychopaths cannot directly support the conclusion that they have impaired instrumental rationality, construed as the ability for transferring the motivation by means-ends reasoning. In fact, we defend the different claim that these experiments (...) appear to show that psychopaths in certain circumstances are not aware of the relevant means for their ends. Moreover, we suggest how further empirical research could help to settle the issue. (shrink)

In their paper “Is psychopathy a mental disease?”, Thomas Nadelhoffer and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argue that according to any plausible account of mental disorder, neural and psychological abnormalities correlated with psychopathy should be regarded as signs of a mental disorder. I oppose this conclusion by arguing that at least on a naturalistically grounded account, such as Wakefield’s ‘Harmful Dysfunction’ view, currently available empirical data and evolutionary considerations indicate that psychopathy is not a mental disorder. For an online version of the paper, (...) see https: //rdcu.be/bffeZ. (shrink)

There is an ongoing debate regarding the content of psychopathy, especially about the status of antisocial behavior and disinhibition characteristics as core psychopathy features. Psychopathic Personality Traits Scale (PPTS) represents a novel model of psychopathy based on core psychopathy markers such as Interpersonal manipulation, Egocentricity and Affective responsiveness. However, this model presupposes another narrow trait of psychopathy: cognitive responsiveness, which represents a lack of cognitive empathy. Since previous models of psychopathy do not depict this feature as a core psychopathy trait, (...) the goal of this study was to empirically evaluate if the lack of cognitive empathy is a narrow psychopathy trait or its correlate. The research was conducted on a community sample via online study (N=342; Mage=23.7 years; 31% males). Results showed that the correlations between Cognitive responsiveness and other psychopathy features were significantly lower than intercorrelations of other three traits. Factor analysis, conducted on PPTS items, provided a two-factor solution, where Cognitive responsiveness was yielded as a factor separate from other psychopathy indicators. Finally, the exploration of the shared latent space of psychopathy and cognitive empathy resulted in the two-factor solution where psychopathy and the lack of cognitive empathy were extracted as correlated but separate latent variables. The data clearly supported the former model. Research results showed that the lack of cognitive empathy should not be considered an indicator of psychopathy but its correlate. The findings emphasize the need to be cautious in conceptualization of the psychopathy construct. (shrink)

The diagnosis of psychopathic personality disorder has salience for forensic clinical practice. It influences decisions regarding risk, treatability and sentencing, indeed, in certain jurisdictions it serves as an aggravating factor that increases the likelihood of a capital sentence. The concatenation of symptom that is associated with modern conceptions of the disorder can be discerned in early writings, including the book of Psalms. Despite its forensic clinical importance and historical pedigree the concept remains elusive and controverted. In this paper I describe (...) an attempt to map the concept of psychopathic personality disorder—the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality (CAPP). I outline the processes used to create the concept map; I summarise evidence in support of the content validity of the map and describe different operations designed to operationalise the construct. It is only when conceptual clarity is achieved that valid operations and measures can be created. I end with a plea for more carefully considered application of statistical methods; applications that better fit the theoretical questions being posed. (shrink)

Recent debates in psychopathy studies have articulated concerns about false-positives in assessment and research sampling. These are pressing concerns for research progress, since scientific quality depends on sample quality, that is, if we wish to study psychopathy we must be certain that the individuals we study are, in fact, psychopaths. Thus, if conventional assessment tools yield substantial false-positives, this would explain why central research is laden with discrepancies and nonreplicable findings. This paper draws on moral psychology in order to develop (...) tentative theory-driven exclusion criteria applicable in research sampling. Implementing standardized procedures to discriminate between research participants has the potential to yield more homogenous and discrete samples, a vital prerequisite for research progress in etiology, epidemiology, and treatment strategies. (shrink)

Researchers who argue that moral judgment is based on emotions (`emotion-backers') and those who believe that it is based on reasoning and deliberation (`reasoning-backers') have both struggled to account for the notorious moral deviance of incarcerated psychopaths. Emotion-backers, such as Jonathan Haidt, focus on psychopaths' lack of a affect,or defciencies in particular emotions, such as sympathy. Reasoning-backers, such as Lawrence Kohlberg, focus instead on psychopaths' de cient reasoning. Both accounts offer separate descriptions of what goes wrong in the disorder, but (...) neither can fully explain psychopathic moral deviance. The moral account that I built, bridges these accounts in an attempt to better and more fully describe the empirical data available on psychopathic moral judgment. I argue that their judgment is best explained with a dual-process account of moral judgment that incorporates a large system of moral emotions as well as integrates multiple bases of morality, such as concerns of fairness, harm, and purity. It is only by focusing on both the reasoning and emotional de cits in psychopaths that we can begin to understand psychopaths' use of utilitarian reasoning, general population psychopaths, and psychopaths' di erential presence in the prison popu- lation. All of these issues are best described using a dual-process account of moral judgment that incorporates a larger system of moral emotions than other accounts of morality as well as a pluralistic conception of moral foundations. I used psychopaths because their moral deviance can teach us about morality more broadly. By understanding the cognitive processes implicated in the moral judgment of psychopaths, I better explain how moral judgment works in the general population more broadly. My account of moral judgment has both theoretical and practical applications. Theoretically, it o ers a new dual-process paradigm for describing moral behaviour which bridges reasoning-based and emotion-based accounts. This description can explain both the moral deviance of psychopaths as well as, more broadly, moral judgment in non-psychopaths. Additionally, my theory challenges accounts of moral emotion that narrowly focus on speci c emotions, such as guilt or empathy. It in- stead integrates all emotions, including disgust, fear, and sympathy, and links speci c emotions to moral judgments. Practically, my paradigm of moral judgment encourages the development of new moral judgment measurements such as new self-report questionnaires of moral reasoning. According to my research, in order for these tools to accurately measure morality, they need to account for both emotion-based and reasoning-based judgments. (shrink)

Objective: Appropriate reactivity to emotional facial expressions, even if these are seen whilst we are engaged in another activity, is critical for successful social interaction. Children with conduct problems (CP) and high levels of callous-unemotional (CU) traits are characterized by blunted reactivity to other people's emotions, while children with CP and low levels of CU traits can over-react to perceived emotional threat. No study to date has compared children with CP and high vs. low levels of CU traits to typically (...) developing (TD) children or each other, using a task that assesses attentional capture by irrelevant emotional faces. -/- Method: All participants performed an attentional capture task in which they were asked to judge the orientation of a single male face that was displayed simultaneously with two female faces. Three types of trials were presented, trials with all neutral faces, trials with an emotional distractor face and trials with an emotional target face. Fifteen boys with CP and high levels of CU traits, 17 boys with CP and low levels of CU traits and 17 age and ability matched TD boys were included in the final study sample. -/- Results: Compared to TD children and children with low levels of CU traits, children with CP and high levels of CU traits showed reduced attentional capture by irrelevant emotional faces. -/- Conclusions: This study is the first to demonstrate a different pattern in emotional attentional capture in children with CP depending on their level of CU traits. (shrink)

This paper is rather a profound hermeneutic enunciation putting into question our present understanding of psychopathy. It further articulates, in complement, a novel theoretical and methodological conceptualisation for a hermeneutic psychological science. Methodology-wise, it puts into question a traditional more or less categorical and mechanical approach to the social and behavioural sciences as it strives to introduce a creative and insightful approach for the articulation of ideas. It rather seeks to construe the scientific method as being more about falsifiability and (...) validation but driven by a sense of creative understanding and insight of notions laid out as open-ended conceptualisations. Theory-wise, it sees continuity between anthropology and psychology as anthropopsychology behind an entropic construct of human psychology based on a recurrent re-institutionalisation mechanism for intemporal-preservation-entropy/contiguity. (shrink)

Antisocial behaviors including bullying, violence, and aggression have been an area of intense interest among researchers, clinicians, policy makers, and the general public because of their grievous consequences on individuals and society. Our understanding of the origins and development of these behaviors in individuals has recently progressed with the application of new scientific advancements and technologies such as neuroimaging, genomics, and research methods that capture behavioral changes in the first few years of life.The Origins of Antisocial Behavior: A Developmental Perspective (...) provides an overview of the recent research on the development of antisocial behavior and synthesizes this information to inform readers not only of the risks, but also how they interact, to result in antisocial and aggressive behavior. The volume is divided into three sections: advances in neuroscience, advances in behavioral and clinical research, and legal and policy implications. Specific topics include genetic markers and aggressive behavior, the use of fMRI to track adolescent brain development, the role of peer influences on aggression, parenting and temperament, screening tools for diagnosing antisocial behavior in toddlers and adolescents, and how new research will influence interventions, policy, and future study. Experts from genetics, neuroimaging, and developmental science discuss the insights these scientific approaches have provided in understanding how nature and the environment interact in the emergence of antisocial behavior. The Origins of Antisocial Behavior is an important and unique resource that will be of use to developmental scientists, mental health professionals, and policymakers involved in the juvenile justice system. (shrink)

Review of the collection "Responsibility and Psychopathy: Interfacing Law, Psychiatry and Philosophy", edited by Luca Malatesti and John McMillan.

Objective: Two major etiological theories on psychopathy propose different mechanisms as to how emotional facial expressions are processed by individuals with elevated psychopathic traits. The Response Modulation Hypothesis (RMH) proposes that psychopathic individuals show emotional deficits as a consequence of attentional deployment, suggesting that emotional deficits are situation-specific. The Integrated Emotions System theory (IES) suggests that psychopathic individuals have a fundamental amygdala dysfunction which precludes adequate responsiveness to the distress of others. Methods: Participants performed a visual search task in which (...) they had to find a male target face among two female distractor faces. Top-down attentional set was manipulated by having participants either respond to the face's orientation, or its emotional expression. Results: When emotion was task-relevant, the low-scoring psychopathy group showed attentional capture by happy and fearful distractor faces, whereas the elevated group showed capture by fearful, but not happy distractor faces. Conclusion: This study provides evidence for the RMH such that top-down attention influences the way emotional faces attract attention in individuals with elevated psychopathic traits. However, the different response patterns for happy and fearful faces suggest that top-down attention may not determine the processing of all types of emotional facial expressions in psychopathy. (shrink)

Sarah Brouillette explores the emergence of social scientific studies of the importance of creativity and innovation for the economy — a link that has become a mantra in the twenty-first century. Brouillette shows that, long before Richard Florida, artists and writers offered organizational psychologists and management theorists models of the ideal worker in a knowledge economy.

We make three suggestions with regard to Mealey's work. First, her lack of a cognitive analysis of the sociopath results in underspecified mappings between sociobiology and behavior. Second, the developmental literature indicates that Mealey's implicit assumption, that moral socialisation is achieved through punishment, is invalid. Third, we advance the use of causal modelling to map the developmental relationships between biology, cognition, and behaviour.

After describing the disorder of psychopathy, I examine the theories and the evidence concerning the psychopaths’ deficient moral capacities. I first examine whether or not psychopaths can pass tests of moral knowledge. Most of the evidence suggests that they can. If there is a lack of moral understanding, then it has to be due to an incapacity that affects not their declarative knowledge of moral norms, but their deeper understanding of them. I then examine two suggestions: it is their deficient (...) practical reason or their stunted emotions that are at fault. The evidence supports both explanations. I conclude with an overview of the debate concerning whether they are morally or legally responsible for their actions. (shrink)

Neurobiological theories of psychopathy typically include abnormalities in paralimbic circuits, and a neurobiological profile of paralimbic dysfunction in increasingly invoked in applied legal settings. The current study systematically evaluated whether sMRI and fMRI findings in PCL-R defined psychopaths suggest paralimbic dysfunction. Our review indicates diffuse and variable neural correlates of psychopathy, with numerous issues complicating the interpretation of these heterogeneous data. Our review also extends previous discussions concerning how this heterogeneity may be related to sample characteristics, methodological variations, and statistical (...) analyses. To elucidate the neural correlates of psychopathy, researchers may need to clarify the relationship between psychopathy and co-occurring conditions (such as substance use disorders) both conceptually and methodologically. Our review also indicates that caution is warranted when introducing these data in applied contexts. (shrink)

Public perception, fueled not only by popular and news media but also by expert claims that psychopaths are archetypes of evil: incorrigible, remorseless, cold-blooded criminals, whose crimes manifest in the most extreme levels of violence. But is there empirical evidence that psychopaths truly are what they are portrayed to be? If so, should the law respond, and adjust its treatment of psychopaths in court — permitting psychopathy to be admitted under an insanity defense and/or resulting in mitigation? In this paper, (...) we demonstrate that fundamental questions from the law to science remain unanswered and must be addressed before any alternative treatment of psychopathy can be considered. As it stands, psychopaths cannot be reliably defined or diagnosed and, as we will demonstrate, even the presumed link with criminal dangerousness is problematic. We conclude that the current legal approach should not be modified, however, if preliminary findings regarding impairments in impulsivity/self-control are confirmed, some, but not all individuals who fall under one definition of psychopathy may merit different treatment in future. (shrink)

Antisocial behavior is a heterogeneous construct that can be divided into subtypes, such as antisocial personality and psychopathy. The adverse consequences of antisocial behavior produce great burden for the perpetrators, victims, family members, and for society at-large. The pervasiveness of antisocial behavior highlights the importance of precisely characterizing subtypes of antisocial individuals and identifying specific factors that are etiologically related to such behaviors to inform the development of targeted treatments. The goals of the current review are to briefly summarize research (...) on the operationalization and assessment of antisocial personality and psychopathy; to provide an overview of several existing treatments with the potential to influence antisocial personality and psychopathy; and to present an approach that integrates and uses biological and cognitive measures as starting points to more precisely characterize and treat these individuals. A focus on integrating factors at multiple levels of analysis can uncover person-specific characteristics and highlight potential targets for treatment to alleviate the burden caused by antisocial behavior. (shrink)

Recent studies suggest that psychopathy may be associated with dysfunction in the neural circuitry supporting both threat- and reward-related processes. However, these studies have involved small samples and often focused on extreme groups. Thus, it is unclear to what extent current findings may generalize to psychopathic traits in the general population. Furthermore, no studies have systematically and simultaneously assessed associations between distinct psychopathy facets and both threat- and reward-related brain function in the same sample of participants. Here, we examined the (...) relationship between threat-related amygdala reactivity and reward-related ventral striatum (VS) reactivity and variation in four facets of self-reported psychopathy in a sample of 200 young adults. Path models indicated that amygdala reactivity to fearful facial expressions is negatively associated with the interpersonal facet of psychopathy, whereas amygdala reactivity to angry facial expressions is positively associated with the lifestyle facet. Furthermore, these models revealed that differential VS reactivity to positive versus negative feedback is negatively associated with the lifestyle facet. There was suggestive evidence for gender-specific patterns of association between brain function and psychopathy facets. Our findings are the first to document differential associations between both threat- and reward-related neural processes and distinct facets of psychopathy and thus provide a more comprehensive picture of the pattern of neural vulnerabilities that may predispose to maladaptive outcomes associated with psychopathy. (shrink)

Recently, attempts have been made to determine the evolutionary status of psychopathy. However, there is still a gap in empirical literature regarding the connection between psychopathy and fitness. In the present study, we explored the relations between the four-factor model of psychopathy and reproductive success as a fitness indicator in a sample of male convicts (N = 181). Direct relations were analyzed, together with the interaction effects between psychopathy and family risk factors (presence of criminality, substance abuse, and maltreatment in (...) participants’ families). Basic regression models showed that the facet of interpersonal style is positively related to fitness, while other psychopathic characteristics had a negative connection with the criterion measure. Additionally, we found three significant interactions, which further clarified the relation between psychopathy and reproductive success. One of the interactions showed that affective traits can facilitate fertility in unfavorable environmental conditions. Results support a hypothesis of a possible adaptive function of psychopathy, broaden the concept of “successful psychopathy,” and confirm a view of psychopathy as a heterogeneous and complex construct, consisting of facets with distinct content. (shrink)

Philosophers typically rely on empirical data when they comment on psychopaths’ moral responsibility. Many argue that psychopaths, as per the data, suffer from significant impairments in the precursors of moral reasoning and behavior, and therefore they should not be held morally responsible for their actions. However, careful analysis of these studies shows that this view is mistaken. We discuss how several philosophers— perhaps following the lead of social scientists—have systematically misinterpreted or simplified psychological data to support their conclusions about psychopaths’ (...) responsibility. We discuss four data sources: Case studies, the moral/conventional distinction task, fear conditioning, and facial affect recognition experiments. We examine how errors in the interpretation of these data have influenced, for the worse, the moral responsibility discourse. We recommend that philosophers exercise more caution in drawing conclusions from the psychological data on psychopaths. (shrink)

Mealey's excellent target article rests on several assumptions that may be questioned, including the overarching assumption that sociopathy reflects the failure of a small minority of males to cooperate with the larger group. I suggest that violent competition in ancestral bands cheatinggame was the primary evolutionary precursor of sociopathy. Today's violent sociopath is far more a than a failed cooperator.

Background -/- Impulsivity is generally considered a core feature of psychopathy, however one problem with understanding the association between these constructs is that both are multifaceted. Existing research often treats one or both of these constructs as unidimensional with important information regarding the complex nature of the relationship being lost. To clarify this issue the present study employs a canonical correlation analysis (CCA) which allows for the comparison of two multifaceted measurement scales simultaneously. -/- Methods -/- Respondents (n = 970) (...) completed the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) and the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI). CCA was performed to explore the strength and nature of the association between impulse control and psychopathy. -/- Results -/- There was a large correlation (r = 0.57) between BIS-11 and PPI total scores. Further exploration using CCA showed that 70.2% of the variance was shared between the subscales, and three significant canonical functions emerged. These were found to be interpretable and suggest that impulsivity relates to the broader psychopathy domain in a complex fashion, and that non-planning impulsivity may be the primary trait which distinguishes between psychopathy subtypes. -/- Discussion -/- The findings support a complex multi-dimensional relationship between impulsivity and psychopathy. The simple impulsivity-psychopathy correlation has much less explanatory power than has a multivariate approach. (shrink)

We used text analysis software to examine the linguistic features of the speech of 21 psychopathic and 45 other offenders during the interview part of a Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R) assessment. Regression analysis was run on the linguistic categories to determine which were the best predictors of psychopathy scores. Relative to the other offenders, psychopaths used more disfluencies (“you know”) and personal pronouns, made fewer references to other people (e.g., personal names, family), and were also less emotionally expressive. In particular, a (...) low frequency of anxiety-related words and a more frequent use of personal pronouns were the most significant predictors of PCL-R scores and accounted for 25% of the variance. These findings for the first time afford a unique glimpse into the language produced during the PCL-R assessment interview. In addition to enhancing our understanding of psychopathic speech, these results may provide interviewers additional insights relevant to the assessment and therapeutic process. (shrink)

Psychopathy is a disorder characterized by severe and frequent moral violations in multiple domains of life. Numerous studies have shown psychopathy-related limbic brain abnormalities during moral processing; however, these studies only examined negatively valenced moral stimuli. Here, we aimed to replicate prior psychopathy research on negative moral judgments and to extend this work by examining psychopathy-related abnormalities in the processing of controversial moral stimuli and positive moral processing. Incarcerated adult males (N = 245) completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging protocol (...) on a mobile imaging system stationed at the prison. Psychopathy was assessed using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R). Participants were then shown words describing three types of moral stimuli: wrong (e.g., stealing), not wrong (e.g., charity), and controversial (e.g., euthanasia). Participants rated each stimulus as either wrong or not wrong. PCL-R total scores were correlated with not wrong behavioral responses to wrong moral stimuli, and were inversely related to hemodynamic activity in the anterior cingulate cortex in the contrast of wrong > not wrong. In the controversial > noncontroversial comparison, psychopathy was inversely associated with activity in the temporal parietal junction and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These results indicate that psychopathy-related abnormalities are observed during the processing of complex, negative, and positive moral stimuli. (shrink)

Deficits in reinforcement learning are presumed to underlie the impulsive and incorrigible behavior exhibited by psychopathic criminals. However, previous studies documenting reversal learning impairments in psychopathic individuals have not investigated this relationship across a continuous range of psychopathy severity, nor have they examined how reversal learning impairments relate to different psychopathic traits, such as the interpersonal-affective and lifestyle-antisocial dimensions. Furthermore, previous studies have not considered the role that childhood maltreatment and substance use may have in this specific cognitive deficit. Using (...) a standard reversal learning task in a sample of N = 114 incarcerated male offenders, we demonstrate a significant relationship between psychopathy severity and reversal learning errors. Furthermore, we show a significant interaction between psychopathy and childhood maltreatment, but not substance use, such that individuals high in psychopathy with an extensive history of maltreatment committed the greatest number of reversal learning errors. These findings extend the current understanding of reversal learning performance among psychopathic individuals, and highlight the importance of considering childhood maltreatment when studying psychopathy. (shrink)

Background -/- Psychopathy is a mental health disorder characterized by callous and impulsive antisocial behavior, and it is associated with a high incidence of violent crime, substance abuse, and recidivism. Recent studies suggest that the striatum may be a key component of the neurobiological basis for the disorder, although structural findings have been mixed, and functional connectivity of the striatum in psychopathy has yet to be fully examined. Methods -/- We performed a multimodal neuroimaging study of striatum volume and functional (...) connectivity in psychopathy using a large sample of adult male prison inmates (N = 124). We conducted volumetric analyses in striatal subnuclei and subsequently assessed resting-state functional connectivity in areas where volume was related to psychopathy severity. -/- Results -/- Total Psychopathy Checklist Revised and factor 2 scores (which index the impulsive/antisocial traits of psychopathy) were associated with larger striatal subnuclei volumes and increased volume in focal areas throughout the striatum, particularly in the nucleus accumbens and putamen bilaterally. Furthermore, at many of the striatal areas where volume was positively associated with factor 2 scores, psychopathy severity was also associated with abnormal functional connectivity with other brain regions, including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, ventral midbrain, and other areas of the striatum. The results were not attributable to age, race, IQ, substance use history, or intracranial volume. Conclusions -/- These findings associate the impulsive/antisocial dimension of psychopathy with enlarged striatal subnuclei and aberrant functional connectivity between the striatum and other brain regions. Furthermore, the colocalization of volumetric and functional connectivity findings suggests that these neural abnormalities may be pathophysiologically linked. (shrink)

Psychopathy is associated with persistent antisocial behavior and a striking lack of regret for the consequences of that behavior. Although explanatory models for psychopathy have largely focused on deficits in affective responsiveness, recent work indicates that aberrant value-based decision making may also play a role. On that basis, some have suggested that psychopathic individuals may be unable to effectively use prospective simulations to update action value estimates during cost–benefit decision making. However, the specific mechanisms linking valuation, affective deficits, and maladaptive (...) decision making in psychopathy remain unclear. Using a counterfactual decision-making paradigm, we found that individuals who scored high on a measure of psychopathy were as or more likely than individuals low on psychopathy to report negative affect in response to regret-inducing counterfactual outcomes. However, despite exhibiting intact affective regret sensitivity, they did not use prospective regret signals to guide choice behavior. In turn, diminished behavioral regret sensitivity predicted a higher number of prior incarcerations, and moderated the relationship between psychopathy and incarceration history. These findings raise the possibility that maladaptive decision making in psychopathic individuals is not a consequence of their inability to generate or experience negative emotions. Rather, antisocial behavior in psychopathy may be driven by a deficit in the generation of forward models that integrate information about rules, costs, and goals with stimulus value representations to promote adaptive behavior. (shrink)

In the first meta-analytic review of the response modulation hypothesis (RMH), an attention-based model for understanding the etiology of psychopathy, Smith and Lilienfeld (2015) report that the average effect size for response modulation deficits in psychopathic individuals fell in the small to medium range (r = .20; p. < .001, d = .41). Moreover, support for the RMH extended to both psychopathy dimensions, across diverse assessments and settings, and spanned child, adult, female, and male samples. The analysis also revealed good (...) empirical support for a central tenet of the RMH, namely that response modulation deficits are not limited to the processing of threat or other emotion stimuli. Unfortunately, the Smith and Lilienfeld meta-analysis contains several theoretical and quantitative problems, including failing to distinguish adequately between the tasks used to evaluate RMH predictions and the theory itself, confusion regarding the evolution of the RMH and its impact on effect sizes, misinterpretations of RMH predictions and evidence regarding dominant response sets, passive avoidance, and primary task performance, and biased statements promoting the low fear model over the RMH. In this response, we endeavor to reduce misunderstanding by addressing the most salient issues, with the hope that increasing clarity will sharpen the focus of future research and result in more valid assessments of the RMH. (shrink)

This study compares the performance, when identifying negative emotions on facial expression, of male offenders (n = 62) with a high level of psychopathy (n = 25) with other criminals with a low level of psychopathy (n = 37), as well as other ‘‘successful psychopaths’’(n = 12) and non-criminals with a low level of psychopathy (n = 39) in order to clarify the negative emotional processing of offenders and nonoffenders that are either high or low in psychopathy. The participants were (...) assessed on a Go/No-Go paradigm in which subjects had to respond to the facial expressions of fear, sadness, and anger. The psychopathy level was obtained by Factor 1 of Hare’s PCL:SV. Both psychopathic groups, criminal and non-criminal, showed worse performance than their non-psychopathic counterparts on the identification of fear and sadness. An overresponsivity to both anger and fear was common to criminals, psychopaths, and non-psychopaths. These results reinforce the idea that psychopathy is related to a poor ability to identify fear and sadness in facial expressions independently of its manifestation in criminal behavior. In turn, a misidentified response pattern, characterized by an overresponsiveness for fear and anger, is common to both psychopaths and the criminal groups, and it appears to be the characteristic that distinguishes the three groups under study from non-criminal non-psychopath controls. (shrink)