social understanding in psychopathy

what are the two factors of psychopathy?

1. lack of empathy

2. impulsiveness

what percentage of the general population and prison population have psychopathy?

general = 1-4.5%

prison = 25-40%

how many more times likely will psychopathic criminals reoffend?

3 times

4 time to violently reoffend

why do psychopaths reoffend?

• dont fear punishment as much

• lack empathy

• impulsiveness

do psychopaths lack a ToM?

not all aspects but some

what is moral-conventional distinction?

dont realise some acts more morally culpable

what do psychopaths have deficits in?

• recognising emotions of others

• in emotional experiences (feeling fear and sadness)

what areas in the brain are compromised in psychopathy?

orbitofrontal cortex (reward/punishment, emotion recognition)

temporal areas

what does ASPD stand for?

anti social personality disorder

describe ASPD diagnsotic and statistical manual

for psychopathy to be present - all 7 need to be present

ASPD is also known as what?

psychopaht and sociopathy

what is the heretability rate for ASPD?

38% to 69%

out of psychopathy and sociopathy which one is more severe and less severe?

psychopath = more severe

sociopathy = less severe

Describe Patric Gagne

she is a sociopath who strangled her cat, broke into homes and stabbed a child with a pencil - felt no guilt or shame

can feel love and sadness

she is now a psychologist

when comparing sociopaths and psychopaths describe them based off

• biological and propensity

• competent parenting and incompetent parenting

sociopaths = biological and incompetent parenting

psychopaths = biological and any time of parenting

who is the chessboard murderer? describe him

alexander pichuskin

• supermarket worker in russia

• accused of 49 murders - admits to another 11

• hoped to put a coin on every square of a 64 place chess board

what did wikipedia say about alexander pichuskin?

experts speculated that when he fell off a sing when a child - he damaged the frontal cortex

Dutton conducted a study on psychopathy, what were the 3 categories to identify psychopathy?

1. fearless dominance

2. self-centered impulsivity

3. coldheartedness

what did Dutton find the top 10 psychopathic occupations were?

1. CEOs

2. lawyers

3. media people

4. sales people

5. surgeons

6. journalists

7. police officers

8. clergy

9. chefs

10. civil servants

how are psychopathic tendencies measured and assessed?

using the PCL-R (revised psychopathy checklist)

describe how the PCL-R checklist works?

have to score 30+ - rated by a clinician

need both behavioural (impulsivity) and affective (empathy) components to be classified as psychopathic

what declines over age, empathy or/both impuslivity?

impulsivity declines in old age

lack of empathy is stable

what is the problem with reoffending in psychopaths?

treatment is geared towards general criminals, not psychopaths

and they dont fear punishment

Describe the NZ research and study conducted on psychopaths

mean age 46, 32-81

offences- 87%

33% of these murder, then rapists

what was found from the NZ study?

scored high on PCL-V test

PCL-V is very good at predicitng reimprisonment - especially if you are aged 16 and over

when criminals reoffend, what was the top crime, they were re arrested for?

serious violent offending - 46%

what is the total percentage of violent offending reoffending?

78%

what was the initiative called that labour govt undertook to reduce reoffending?

integrated offender management

• create a senence plan and direct them into programmes which are consistent with their needs

costs $40 million a year

describe the rconvicted and reimprisoned rates for each of these years

• 2000-01

• 2002-03

• 2004-05

• 2006-07

• reconvicted 55.1%, reimprisoned 34%

• reconvicted 55.1% reimprisoned34.6%

• reconvicted 55.2% reimprisoned 37.2%

• reconvicted 55.4% reimprisoned 38.8%

Hare conducted a study looking at why psychopaths reoffend, what did they do and find?

group 1 - high score on psychopathic deviate scale of the MMPI

group 2 - low score

shocked the participants

measure skin conductance

found:

• groups equal on mean resting skin conductaance and intensity of shocks given

• highly significant increase in skin response from numbers 1-8

• pd score indicative of psychopathy

• skin conductance indicative of fear arousal

• psychopathic individuals react later and to a lesser degree to impending punishment thna non psychopaths

what does MMPI measure?

lack of deviancy and mental illness

psychoapths have a deficit in what?

violence inhibition mechanism (VIM)

Describe how violence inhibition mechanism becomes activated?

• distress cues (fear & sadness) activate

• these cues lead to arousal - which leads to withdrawal/inhibition of behaviours

• is interpreted as guilt and remorse

• basis of empathy and sympathy

Camras looked at the evidence for VIM in normal development, what did his study consist of, what did they find?

children ages 4 yrs and 7 months

changed their behaviour when faced with other childs sad expression

terminated demands for object if person displayed sad expression when trying to defend the object

shows that VIM is important for moral behaviour

what predicts that psychopaths will have a ToM deficit?

1. fear and sadness

2. moral vs conventional distinctions for adults and children

3. moral emotions such as guilt and sympathy

4. false belief

Blair conducted a study on moral/conventional distinction and moral emotions, what did they do and find?

psychopaths and non psychopaths matched for age and IQ

asked if stories tapping moral and conventional rule breaking were okay and to attribute emotions to characters

found:

• significantly worse than controls on moral/conventions

• didn’t attribute guilt, but other emotions are okat

Blair also conducted a study on second order false beleif, what was found?

• no ToM deficits in psychopaths

• consistent with autism research

• autism = show physiological arousal to distress

• psychoapthy = do not show arousal to distress

what area in the brain is psychopathy related to? where is it located, what is its function?

amygdala - within the temporal lobe

where emotional expression of fear and sadness are processed

where do psychopathic killers brains experience less activity?

orbitofrontal cortex

what is the warrior gene?

a low activity varaint of the MAOA enzyme - which results in reduced NT = increased violence

when does the warrior gene become activated?

when combined with abuse, violence, lack of love

what brain regions are associated with psychopathy?

• ventromedial prefrontal cortex

• amygdala

• hippocampus

• superior temporal gyrus

• corpus callosum

how does impairment of the hippocampus affect psychopathy?

impaired retrieval of emotional memories and contextual fear conditioning, impaired associative learning

how would an impairment of the superior temporal gyrus affect psychopathy?

impaired processing of abstract material, lack of persepctive awareness and empathy

how would impairment of the corpus callosum affect psychopathy?

increased function inter hemispheric, connectivity reduced inter-hemispheric asymmetries of function

how would the impairment of the ventromedial orefrontal cortex affect psychopathy?

impaire impulse control and emotional learning, impaired adaptation of behaviour to changes in reinforcement contingencies, impaired decision-making and planning