Psychopathy Exam | Already Passed

Psychopathy - a multifaceted personality disorder Psychopathology - Study of mental illness - branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders Psychopathy, age and sentencing - Last 3 years in his class: - the youth receive lower sentences than adults - sentences for psychopaths are HIGHER than non-psychopaths BUT: - there was an increase in the number of the ones that chose the hospital option (more for youth) Resiliency - Psychological hardiness consists of the 3 interrelated dimensions of commitment, control, and challenge - traits of both psychopathy and psychological hardiness seem to act as resiliency factors in relation to anxiety (PCL-R, F1) Theophrastus (student of Aristotle) - 2 of his personality types correspond to current conception of psychopathy: "The man without moral feeling" "The unscrupulous man" Kulangeta (Inuit in Alaska) - - Repeatedly lies and cheats and steals things and does not go hunting ; takes sexual advantages of women Pinel (1801) - - "Mans Sans Delire" (madness without delirium) - Observed profound deficits in emotion but no apparent reasoning/intellectual dysfunction - psychiatric condition associated primarily with amorality rather than psychosis Hervey Cleckley - - modern conceptualization of psychopathy (heavily founded on his clinical observations) - lack of emotion was at the core of the disorder - proposed the different characteristics defining the disorder (affective/interpersonal AND behavioural in nature) "Mask of Sanity" - - Hervey Cleckley - psychopaths have an outward appearance of normalcy masking an unemotional, callous life and propensity toward deception - Porter and woodworth describe is as a high level of dangerousness masked by an adept social artistry First Impressions - - Fowler, Lilienfeld, Patrick; 2009 - 5, 10, 20 seconds - close to a 100 max inmates - video or audio - rate on psychopathy F1/F2 Results: - 5 and 10 seconds: success on picking up on something espesh F1 traits - Success declines at 20 sec - psychopath starts duping you between 10 and 20 seconds Clifford Olsen - - Canadian serial killer - known for deception, manipulation, pathological lying - arrested 94 times - managed to cut a deal with crown to pay his family $ if he let them know the locations of the bodies of his victims - Views himself as the 'ultimate serial killer' #grandiosity Dr. Semrau - Gave Olsen 38/40 on PCL-R (THE HIGHEST) Picton - - lacks emotions but also inappropriate reaction to the situations - He wanted to make it the BIG 5-0 - He giggled, was bored and detached, described mundane incident - Dismay from people in the courtroom Scott Lilienfeld - - 2 studies of undergrads and one study of adults - asked to fill out a questionnaire regarding heroic acts (even as minor as breaking up a fight) Results of Lilienfeld's study - - From the one undergrad and the only adult study, psychopathic trait fearless dominance (boldness) was linked with greater heroism and altruism toward strangers - In the other undergrad study, ppl who had higher levels of impulsive antisociality (marked by aggressiveness and antisocial behaviour) were also more likely to report heroism 2004 Soderstrom et al. study - - examined the usefulness of variety of clinical and personality assessment tools to identify individuals at risk for aggression and repeated violent criminality - in their sample of 100 subjects, it was found PCL-r WAS "SUPERIOR" to all DSM-IV definitions of personality disorder in identifying traits that were linked to violence Psychopathy Checklist- Revised (PCL-R) - - 20 items measure - uses scale of 0 (does not apply) to 2 (definitely applies) for each item - semi-structured interview tool than a questionnaire - Score of 30 or greater than was sufficient enough to diagnose the person with psychopathy - Recently, a score of 25 has been shown to be sensitive