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Some concepts
of Psychopathy and the PCL-r. Darragh Scully Edith Cowan
University. The choice of Professionals 2004413
The psychopath
is believed to be what Moffit (Bartol, 1999) would describe as a life course
persistent offender, however the psychopath may not always be detected and
can be living among us (Ishikawa, Raine, Laniz, Bihrle, and Lacasses, 2001).
That is there are two types of psychopaths, “unsuccessful and successful
psychopaths” (Ishikawaet al, 2001). Unsuccessful psychopaths once identified
and convicted have accounted for the majority of participants in the studies
of psychopathic behavior. The unsuccessful psychopath population is not only
the smallest offender group among prison inmates they are also characterized
as those who commit a disproportionate number of offences and offend more
frequently than those classified on the anti social personality scale (Hare
Hart, and Harpur, 1991). Development
psychology and the study of adolescent development helps
to explain why psychopaths are distinct from other offenders of normal
people. The fledging psychopath can be characterized as suffering from
abnormalities and will have consistent antisocial behavior for the most of
the childhood years and it is predicted to continue into adulthood (Lynham,
1997, Lynham 1998). That implies that the psychopath is a life course
persistent offender and is distinct from Moffits adolescent limited offender
(Bartol, 1999). Adolescent limited offenders are not characterized by
antisocial behavior in childhood and the majority of adolescent offenders offences decline from 18 to 24 years of age
(Mounts, 2001). There is evidence to suggest that a distinction between
impulse disorders and poor inhibition as a characterization of psychopathy
and poor decision making processes as characteristic of adolescent limited
offenders The premise
that adolescence (Steinberg and Parental
control by law will continue till the age of 18 years of age. This is
believed to serve as an opportunity blocking mechanism that can lead to
hostility and resistance to social norms (Scot and Grusso, 1997). Further
more in adolescence conformity to peer association increases as the value of
parental control becomes less salient in decision-making processes of
adolescents. So what is the cause of adolescent limited offender, and why is
this not salient in the construct of the psychopath? Bauramind
cited in (Mounts, 2001) found that parenting styles, which are Authoritarian
as opposed to Authoritative, would increase the risk of delinquency or anti
social behavior during indolence. Mounst (2001) stated the authoritarian
parents are hih or low in monitoring behavior and high in controlling
factors. Authoritive parenting is characterized by moderate levels of
monitorein and moderate levels of controlling (Mounts, 2001). Steinberg &
Morris (2001) have also contested that Parental responsiveness and demanding
ness is relative to adjustment in adolescence. Mounts (2001) conducted a
study to test Lynham (1997)
has stated that the fledgling psychopath reflects a variety of common
disorders such as oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder and
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Lynham has taken a group of pre
adolescent boys who exhibit a range of behavior and classified them into four
categories. These are HIA, hyperactive, impulsiveness, attention problems,
CP, conduct problems. These groups were classified into father subsections.
Some had HIA-CP, some had CP only, some had HIA only and some were non
HIA-CP. The study indicated that the HIA-CP group closely resembled the
history of psychopaths as when they were children (Lynham, 1998). That is the
fact that the psychopath has a strong correlation with the types of problems
that are associated to HIA-CP boys allowed Lynham (1998) to convert that
HIA-CP are highly likely to be the Fledgling psychopath of the future. Lynham
notes that they have poor “tempers”(Lynaham, p. 572,
1998), are argumentative, deceitful and shift blame away from themselves onto
others (lynham1998). This will manifest into adult hood to become
fully-fledged psychopathy with tendencies to “lie to, manipulate, blame and
use others”(Lynham p. 572, 1988). The research
in adult psychopathology will reflect that the psychopath s personality
construct consists of an innate level of low cortical arousal (Bartol, 2001).
Secondly low cortical arousal will cause impulsive sensation seeking behavior
(Bartol, 2001). The sensation seeking is characterized as impulsive and is
strengthened in childhood with primary reinforcement and classical
conditioning principles. The resulting learning mechanism is that through
child hood the psychopath will be plagued by hyperactive sensation seeking
behavior. The principles of imitational learning form evidence for behavior
governed by procedural memory. Factors such as learned violence, and parental
influence, in particular authoritarian parental styles can easily influence
the easily influential fledgling psychopath whom is loosely inhibited and
craves sensations. Why is the psychopath superficial, why does the
psychopath not develop strong emotional feelings, and seem to not even be
passionate about there criminal acts? The most comprehensive explanation of
psychopathic people comes from the work of Robert Hare. Hare (Harpur, Hare,
1994) designed the psychopath checklist a 22 questionnaire that can weed out
the psychopaths from the antisocial personality disordered individuals
diagnosis in the DSM IV. The PCL checklist
Cited
in Hare, Hart and Harpur, p. 394, 1991 The statistics from this
comparison showed that 80% of all prisoners are diagnosed with APD however of
these there is only 15-25 % who qualify on the PCL
as psychopaths (Hare, Hart and Harpur, 1991). The major differences
between the PCL and the DSM IV anti social personality disorder arises
from the additional personality components outlined in factor 1 which are not
a feature of the DSM IV. The focus on an anti-social construction in the
DSM-IV does not reflect the personality factors that account for “egocentric
behavior, lack of remorse, and callousness” (Hare, Hart and Harpur, 1991).
The complicated process of testing subjects with the PCL is not the focus of
this paper though scoring high on the antisocial scale alone will not qualify
a person as a psychopath. More salient to the structure of the psychopath is
sensation seeking behavior grandiose sense of self worth, and impulse
dependant imitation learning behaviors such as callousness, sexual deviancy
and remorseless overtones in the superficial mysterious behavior. A brief
overview of the research will allow a clearer picture of the above-mentioned
behavioral description. Lykken cited in (Bartol 1999, Davidson and Neale,
1997) has contributed two important points. Firstly in the experiment Lykken
found that psychopaths had a relatively nonexistent anxiety response in a
classical conditioning exercise. A buzzer was conditioned with an electric
shock over twenty minutes of low stimulation relaxation (Davidson and Neale,
1997). The buzzer then elicited an increase in skin conductance in
non-psychopaths as the anticipated the shock, this was the anxiety response
and was not present in the psychopaths (Davidson and Neale, 1997). Lykken also
performed an experiment with his “electric
maze” (Bartol p 101, 1999) experiment. In the experiment the psychopath had
20 games to play. The game was to work out the correct choice of four
switches. The wrong choice of switch gave a red light signal, and one wrong
choice of switch also had an electric shock attached to it. The probability
of getting three wrong choices in a row was 1 in 4. There was also a twenty
five percent chance of getting the correct choice. If the psychopath made a
wrong choice and it had an electric shock associated to it then it was common
for the psychopath to switch the same switch more than once. In
non-psychopathic participants however the response was to avoid the electric
shock and these participants made far less avoidance errors than the psychopath
group. The result indicated that low arousal and sensation seeking was
synonyms in psychopaths though it wasn’t Lykken that made that assumption.
Lykken concluded that the level of anxiety a psychopath experiences in the
presence of and aversive stimulus is not the same as that of a person with
normal levels of arousal (Bartol, 2001). Schacter and
Latane (cited in Bartol 1999) replicated Lykkens (cited in Bartol 1999)
research two conditions were tested on psychopaths in an avoidance learning
game in Lykens electric maze. The participants included a sample of
psychopaths and non-psychopaths in a sample of prisoners. They were divided
up evenly and distributed into two groups. The test conditions included half
of each group being injected with saline solution and the other half of a
group being injected with adrenalin. The results in the psychopathic
participants were good. Bartol (1999) states, “the psychopaths learned to
avoid shocks more quickly than non psychopaths with adrenalin injections.
This represented solid evidence that psychopaths do have stimulation seeking
behavior traits. Frankson, Gibson & Rowland (1992) describes those people
with sensation seeking tendencies as stress tolerant as stress provides
little anxiety arousal that it does for other individuals. Horvath &
Zuckerman (1983) have stated that sensation seeking will cause disruption in
the classroom for those students who suffer from it. Response
modulation in psychopaths is characterized by impulsiveness. That is
psychopaths tend to act on impulse when making choices rather than thinking
things through. Newman Patterson, & Kosson
(1987) developed a card game in which the longer a person played the greater
the odds of loosing became until no chance of winning remained. Every 10
games the odds of winning decreased by 1. By the 90th game the odds of
winning was only 1 in 10, and by the 100th game no wins could be
made. Davidson and Neale (1997)noted that in the
Newman (etal) experiment 75% of the psychopath prison inmate participants
played the game 119 times loosing 19 games in a row before quitting. A new
variable was later tested which included a five second intermittence between
each game. This improved the time a decision was made in to quit the game by
psychopaths. The conclusion that psychopaths did not have future consequences
decision-making skills, as a salient feature of their personality may not
have been an accurate conclusion. As it implies that the psychopath may have
some form of mental retardation. More recent research indicates that the
impulsiveness is relatively synonymous with under active cortical arousal; it
is not an independent variable and is dependent variable of psychopathic
personality. Belmore and
Quinsey (1994) replicated the Newman Peterson and Kosson (1987) study with a
non-institutionalized sample of psychopaths and non psychopaths labeled High
and Low psychopathy. The results were similar to the Newman (et al 1987)
experiment with an exception. Psychopaths had a reduced number of games
before quitting than the previous experiment. That is the psychopaths were
less interested in the stimulation as an incentive and were more interested
in the money they made keeping the money made when the odds were good.
Contrary to Newman’s (et al 1987) finding was the statement the Newman (et al;) sample did not have response modification problems.
More salient to Belmore and Quinsey (1994) was the fact that the prisoner
psychopaths in the Newman (etal) sample were bored in the low stimulation of
the prison environment and enjoyed the games arousal benefits. Belmore and
Quinsey (1994) concluded that the reason their sample cut their losses
earlier was due to having higher levels of stimulation prevalent in the
immediate future (perhaps the neighbors cat) in the
community. Furthermore was the fact that incentives increased the avoidance
learning capabilities of psychopaths. Raine stated,
“psychopaths are sufficiently motivated by financial incentives (cited in
Bartol. P 100, 1998). This has also got good rapport with the logic that
psychopaths have on occasion impersonated those in professions of extreme
prestige. For example, “Waldo Demara” (Bartol p. 80, 1999) used fake
identities of a physician to gain access to the Eysnec has
theorized that the stimulation seeking behavior in individuals is a result of
low cortical arousal, though the cortical arousal is determined by the
reticular activating system. This is conclusive with other evidence already
presented, which suggests that stimulation seeking is a primary personality
trait, which caused an impulsive behavior tendency to be conditioned into the
psychopath’s behavior pattern. Low levels of
cortical arousal can cause the psychopath to act impulsively. As the
statistics indicate the psychopath’s fledgling years are characterized by
antisocial behavior. This reflects two notions. Firstly psychopaths crave
stimulation and any highly stimulating activity will be coded into behavior
patterns by the principles of classical conditioning. As the need for
stimulation reflects a primary form of stimulation secondary stimulation such
as the benefits of following social norms of behavior will be a weaker
response as the fledgling psychopaths will have any behavior learned through
imitational learning that is rewarding in terms of high levels of stimulation
either positive or negative well be contingent on the response preservation
principle. According to the response preservation principle the fledgling
psychopath is unlikely to develop behavior inhibition skills as they are
subject to negative reinforcement. The proneness
to stimulation results in stimulation seeking behavior traits dependant on
classically conditioned responses from the positive reinforcement associated
to the reward. This is the dominant response and as long as the need for
stimulation is high the dominant response will be developed on the
classically condition positive reinforcement. Parenting style and other factors
that may show violence as rewarding may influence the antisocial behaviora of
the fledgling psychopath. The “authoritarian behavior
styles has been linked to parenting problems of adjustment in
adolescent limited offenders. Hare (1970) has also indicated that reform
programs are using an “authoritarian” inmate management style to control
psychopathic behavior and help them to develop more socially adept behavior
responses. Further more the level of stimulation in the programs included
tight control and ties to community programs which made the behavior
modification more appropriate to the offenders
personality problem of low stimulation levels. The results of
the research in psychopthy is believed total to be inconclusive, however the
area of development psychology has been borrowed from for issues of normal
adolexcent development to distinguish between psychopathic and normal
children. Further more there is a distinction between anticsocial personality
disorder and the PCl criteria. The research suggests that the dominant
development factor is the low level of cortical arousal. This can be seen to
be contingent on reinforcent principles and low levels of behavior inhibition
that form resistant responses as the reinforcement
is positive and primary. Parenting style is also supposed to have an adverse
effect on the development of the psychopath. It would be interesting to see
how research in the future may concentrate on ways to improve the levels of
arousal in psychopaths and couple that with a well managed offender program,
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