Psychopathy Lecture Notes

These flashcards cover key terms and definitions related to psychopathy based on the lecture notes.

Psychopathy

Synonymous with psychopathic personality, refers to a mental disorder presumed to be heritable.

Antisocial Personality Disorder

Counterpart diagnosis to psychopathy included in the DSM; characterized by symptoms of behavioral deviancy.

Triarchic Model

A model formulated to reconcile conceptions of psychopathy, comprising three components: boldness, meanness, and disinhibition.

Disinhibition

A symptomatic component of psychopathy characterized by tendencies toward impulsiveness and difficulties in regulating emotion.

Boldness

A component of psychopathy reflecting social assurance, emotional resilience, and venturesomeness.

Meanness

A feature of psychopathy associated with lack of empathy and exploitativeness.

Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R)

The most widely used instrument for diagnosing psychopathy in forensic settings.

High overall PCL-R scores are correlated with..

impulsive and aggressive tendencies, low empathy, Machiavellianism, (personality trait of strategic manipulation) lack of social connectedness, and persistent violent offending

Structural analyses of PCL-R was developed to index psychopathy as a unitary condition, but it revealed

Interpersonal-affective and antisocial deviance subdimensions (factors)

Interpersonal affective factors in PCL-R

include charm, manipulation, and shallow emotions.

High scores on the antisocial deviance factor are associated mainly with

Maladaptive tendencies and behaviors: Impulsiveness, sensation seeking, alienation, mistrust, reactive aggression, early and persistent antisocial deviance, and substance related problems

Psychopathy assessment in noncriminal adult samples

Self report based measures that evaluate personality traits and behaviors associated with psychopathy, often focusing on interpersonal and emotional factors.

The subscales of PPI are united by

Fearless dominance factor (FD) and Self-centered impulsivity factor (SCI)

Fearless dominance factor (FD)

Social potency, stress immunity, and fearlessness

Self centered impulsivity factor (SCI)

Egocentricity, exploitativeness, hostile rebelliousness, and lack of planning

Callous-unemotional traits

Encompass low empathy, deficient remorse or guilt, shallow affect, lack of concern about performance (in school, etc.,)

Antisocial process Screening Device (APSD)

Research measure for assessing psychopathic tendencies in youth (6-13)

Lykken’s low fear theory of psychopathy

Proposes that individuals with psychopathy have a reduced fear response, making them less sensitive to punishment. A precursor to psychopathy

FD factor of the PPI

Refers to the Fearless Dominance factor of the Psychopathy Personality Inventory, which measures traits like social assertiveness and emotional resilience in individuals. A precursor to psychopathy

Developmental research on fearless temperament

Precursor to psychopathy

Cleckley’s conception of psychopathy emphasized

Boldness and disinhibition

Disinhibition and Meanness scales are taken from the …

Externalizing Spectrum inventory (ESI)

Triarchic Psychopathy Measure

is a psychological assessment tool that evaluates three key components of psychopathy: boldness, meanness, and disinhibition.

triPM Boldness scale

Developed to index fearless tendencies in social, affective-experiential, and activity preference domain: with reference to the FD factor of the PPI

Existing theories of casual factors in psychopathy

1. Theories emphasizing core deficits in emotional sensitivity or responsiveness

2. Theories positing basic impairments in cognitive-attentional processing

Triarchic model may prove to be of use for…

reconciling alternative causal models of psychopathy that proposed based on contrasting neurobiological and behavioral findings

Lack of startle enhancement during aversive cuing

Tied to interpersonal-affective factor of PCL-R and counterpart FD factor of PPI (link to boldness component in psychopathy)

Reduced brain potential responses in cognitive tasks appear to be..

Impulsive-externalized tendencies with an association w/ disinhibition component of psychopathy

The triarchic model perspective has issues: One in particular..

Whether psychological/emotional stability is a characteristic or not of psychopathy

The concept of boldness provides a way to think about this instance of psychopathy

the “mask” element

The Dark Triad

Social psychologists classified three personality traits: Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism

Men exhibit ________ at much higher rates than women

criminal deviance and ASPD

It is important to consider whether underlying psychopathic dispositions in men and women may be manifested differently in ….

Overt behavior

Hall and Benning (2006)

Hypothesized that successful psychopathy entails a prevalence in certain casual influences over others. Boldness may be conductive to success when not accompanied by disinhibition

Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI)

A self-report measure developed to index personality dispositions related to psychopathy.

Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD)

An assessment tool for psychopathic tendencies in children and adolescents.

Callous-Unemotional traits

Traits associated with psychopathy, indicating low empathy and lack of remorse.

Early characterization of psychopathy

Atypical form of mental illness; Philippe Pinel documented, “manie sans delire” (insanity without delirium)

Julius Koch (1888)

Introduced the “disease-oriented term” psychopathic to convey the idea that conditions of this type had strong constitutional heritable basis

The Mask of Sanity

A concept introduced by Hervey Cleckley, described psychopathy as a deep-rooted emotional pathology concealed by the physical appearance of good mental health

Henry Cleckley provided 16 diagnostic criteria distilled from…

Clinical case summaries, indicators of apparent psychological stability (charm, intelligence, absent of nervousness) and along with behavioral deviancy (irresponsibility, failure to plan) and social connectedness (absence of remorse, deceptiveness, inability to love)

Cleckley deemed these individuals who were professors, medical doctors, or businessmen are examples of..

“Successful psychopaths”

Henry Cleckley’s emphasis

Criminal expressions: Emotional coldness, aggression, and predatory victimization. Lack of guilt or remorse as central defining features.

McCord and McCord (1964)

Described the condition in more generally pathologic terms, highlighting “guiltlessness” (lack of remorse) and “lovelessness” (lack of attachment capacity) as central defining features