Chapter 11 – Psychopathy Questions and Correct Solutions

Psychopathy - A personality disorder defined by a collection of interpersonal, affective, unstable and social deviant characteristics regarding impulsivity, lack of remorse and antisocial. Psychopathic crimes - Psychopaths make up a small proportion of the population but account for a large proportion of all crimes committed. Psychopathic offenses commonly target strangers, and are often vindictive, opportunistic, predatory, calculated, instrumental and callous. Common criminal behaviors of psychopath - Criminal psychopaths start their criminal careers young, commit or engage in a greater variety of crime, more persistence, violent, and more likely to re-offend. Psychopathic traits are linked with delinquency and aggression, not anxiety and depression. Psychopath murders - Psychopaths committing this sort of crimes have multiple victims, stranger victims, male victims, and tend to deny responsibility. Psychopathic homicide is often more instrumental than non-psychopathic. Psychopathy treatments - Up to now, treatments have not worked well with psychopaths. The rate of psychopathic violence recidivism is high. However, psychopathic sex offenders who showed positive-gain in treatment were found less likely to re-offend. Public views toward psychopathic criminals - People are more likely to support death penalty for adult psychopathic offenders, but were less likely for psychopathic juveniles. Non-criminal Psychopaths - One study found 5% of their sample are corporate professionals who met the criteria for psychopathy. These people tend to have poor management, poor performance appraisals, better creativity, stronger communication skills, and are less likely to be team players. Victims of psychopaths - One study looked at psychopaths in heterosexual relationships and found that the normal spouses were victimized, lied to, isolated, emotionally and economically abused. The psychopathic spouses tend to have multiple infidelities and mistreat their children. Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1993, 2003) - A 20-traits scale of two factors used to access psychopathy in adults Hare's Psychopathic interpersonal, affective traits - Glibness/superficial charm Grandiose sense of self-worth Pathological lying Conning/manipulative Lack of remorse or guilt Shallow; genuine emotion is short-lived Egocentric Callousness; lack of empathy Irresponsibility Hare's Psychopathic unstable and socially deviant traits - Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom Parasitic lifestyle Poor behavioral control Lack of realistic long-term goals Impulsive Juvenile delinquency Early behavior problems Revocation of conditional release Psychopathic assessment using the Hare's checklist - Based on traits of the two factors, scores given range from 0 to 40, wherein 30 or higher is a psychopath. Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) - A personality disorder characterized by behaviors that violate the rights of others. Additional symptoms to psychopathy include Irritability and Recklessness.