Transcript Psychopaths: Emotional & Behavior Responses

Psychopaths: Emotional &
Behavior Responses
Profiling Psychopathology
Dr. Kline
FSU-PC
I. What is psychopathy? (review)
Core features
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Psychopaths lack remorse
Poverty of emotions (positive & negative)
Psychopaths are:
Superficially charming
Pathological liars & cheaters
Impulsive; sensations seekers
Manipulative, will change story to fit facts
Less responsive to fear/anxiety
Immoral
Usually diagnosed in men
II. What is the fundamental distinction
between APD & psychopathy???

“Lack of remorse,” is needed for a
diagnosis of psychopathy, but not for
Antisocial Personality disorder.
Prevalence of psychopathy:
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Affects approximately 1% of the general
population (Hare, 1991).
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Approximately 15-25% of incarcerated
offenders meet criteria for psychopathy.
III. Historical Perspective of Clinical
description of Psychopathy:
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Pinel, a physician in the 1700s, noticed that some of his
patients were impulsive & self-destructive. These
patients were aware of the irrationality of their acts &
their reasoning abilities were intact.

He called this illness, manie sans delire (insanity
without delirium)
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Benjamin Rush also reported cases of individuals who
were clear in their thought processes, yet engaged in
morally-deficient behavior. He coined the term
“psychopathic” to describe these folks.
Historical perspectives contd.
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In 1941 Cleckley wrote, “The Mask of Sanity,” in
which he provided not only a comprehensive description
of psychopathy, but a method for assessing it.
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His description of psychopathy was made on the basis of
observations of caucasian, middle-class male inpatients
in a psychiatric institution. This concept is still stable
today.
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Note: Cleckley focused on the psychopaths personality
traits (poor judgment, impulsivity, lack of guilt or
remorse, inability to learn from punishment, blaming
others, etc.) and not on the patient’s criminal history.
Hart & Hare (1998)’s summary of
Cleckley’s psychopath:

“Interpersonally, psychopaths are
grandiose, arrogant, callous, superficial,
and manipulative; affectively, they are
short-tempered, unable to form strong
emotional bonds with others, and lacking in
empathy, guilt or remorse; and
behaviorally, they are irresponsible,
impulsive, and prone to violate social and
legal norms and expectations. (p.25)”
Hare’s contribution:
Hare developed the Psychopathy Checklist
in 1980 & then revised it in 1991. This
checklist is the goal standard that is used
today to assess psychopathy in both
criminal & non-criminal populations.
Hare based his checklist largely on Cleckley’s
original criteria for psychopathy.
IV. Items on the Psychopathy ChecklistRevised (PCL-R)
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Factor 1Interpersonal//Affective
Factor 2Social Deviance
Superficial charm
Grandiosity
Pathological lying
Lack or remorse/guilt
Manipulative
Shallow affect
Callousness/lacksEmpathy
Failure to accept one’s
Responsibilities
Need for stimulation
easily bored
parasitic lifestyle
poor behavioral controls
early behavioral problems
lack of realistic long-term goals
Impulsivity
Irresponsibility
Juvenile delinquency
Rating system of Psychopathy Checklist
(PCL-R)
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The PCL-R (Hare, 1991) consists of 20 items.

A 3-point scale is used to score items:
 0=item does not apply
 1=item applies somewhat
 2=item definitely applies

Scores range from 0 to 40. A score of 30 or
greater indicates psychopathy.
V. Do psychopaths experience emotions
like non-psychopathic individuals??

No!!! According to several studies (Hare,
1978; Siddle & Trasler, 1981; Kiehl, Hare,
McDonald, & Brink, 1999; Patrick, 1994).
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Psychopaths produce overt facial & verbal
responses that are consistent with socially
appropriate emotions, but produce
autonomic activity that is incongruent with
their overt behavioral responses!!!
“The Mirror Has Two Faces”

In other words, psychopaths can produce normal facial
expressions & reactions to emotional events, but their
bodily sensations don’t match their facial expressions.
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(E.g., When psychopaths anticipate receiving electric
shocks, they produce an anxious facial expression
consistent with fear or anxiety, but show reduced
galvanic skin responses (sweating) in response to
receiving shocks. Normal individuals sweat more, not
less when anticipating being shocked.)
VI. Studying emotion in psychopaths
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A. Startle Blink studies—
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The startle blink (eye blink) response is a good nonverbal indicator of emotional state.
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Magnitude (strength) of the startle blink changes with
emotional state.
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Startle increases for a negative emotional state &
decreases for a positive emotional state (e.g., you may
be more likely to be startled after watching a horror
movie, than when watching a comedy).
Patrick (1994) Startle blink study on
psychopaths
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Subjects: 4 groups of prisoners selected with Hare
checklist participated.
Group 1: nonpsychopaths (low on antisocial
behavior & emotional detachment)
 Group 2: Detached white collar offenders (high
only on emotional detachment)
 Group 3: Antisocial offenders (high only on
antisocial behavior)
 Group 4: Psychopaths (high on both factors).
Experimental Paradigm-Patrick’s study
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Baseline condition- prisoners were presented with a
visual cue, and sometimes a blast of loud noise.
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Experimental condition - Ss experienced the visual
cue & were told that when it disappeared the loud
noise would occur.
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Results: Both psychopaths & detached offenders
showed much smaller increases in their startle
responses, indicating that less fear had been
aroused.
B. Facial Affect Recognition studies in
psychopaths
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Kosson, Suchy, Mayer, & Libby (2002) examined the
accuracy with which psychopaths & nonpsychopaths classify facial expressions based on six
specific emotions: fear, anger, disgust, happiness,
sadness, and surprise.
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Psychopaths (n=34) & non-psychopaths (N=33) were
presented with 30 adult male & female caucasian
faces each representing a specific emotion (5 slides
for each of the 6 emotions) & required to press a
button on a key pad signaling which emotion the face
depicted.
Results of study
1. Psychopaths’ accuracy in classifying the
“disgust” faces was significantly impaired
compared to the non-psychopaths. This effect was
not found for the other emotions in this study.
2. These results indicate the psychopaths exhibit
deficits in non-verbal emotional processing,
specifically in recognizing a particular emotion
from faces.
C. Skin conductance Studies
 Do
psychopaths show less empathy for
distress of others?
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Yes!!! Blair & coworkers (1997), examined skin
conductance of psychopaths & controls (men) to
slides of varying images.
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Ss were shown threatening (guns, knives),
neutral (lamp, chair), & distress-provoking
(crying person) slides.
Results of Blair’s study
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1. Both psychopaths and non-psychopaths
showed same skin conductance responses to the
threatening & neutral slides.
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2. Interestingly, psychopaths were less responsive
to the distress slides.
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This suggests psychopaths are impaired in or lack
the ability to empathize with others.
VII. Do psychopaths show neurological
differences in processing of emotional
information compared to normal people?
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Yes!!! Kiehl, Smith, Hare, Mendrek,
Forster, Brink, & Liddle (2001) measured
functional MRI in psychopaths and normals
while they read emotionally-ladden words.
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Overall, psychopaths showed less affectrelated brain activity compared to baseline
conditions than did non-psychopaths.
Kiehl et al., (2001) results contd.
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Criminal psychopaths showed less
activation in the anterior cingulate cortex,
posterior cingulate, left inferior frontal
gyrus, amygdala, hippocampus, and frontal
cortex.
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Neural processing of non-affect related
information, was not different for the
psychopaths and non-psychopaths.