Presented by: Michelle M., Jennifer C., Ellen Y.

Introduction Characteristics: Deceitful Selfish Manipulative Irresponsible Impulsive Aggressive Lacking concern for others or remorse for their actions

Introduction Estimated less than 1% of general population Approximately 11% of forensic psychiatric population Approximately 23% of the correctional population Thought to be a discrete nature, not on a continuum

Introduction High scoring psychopaths Extensive and versatile criminal history More apt for recidivism Scores for psychopathy consistently and positively associated with self-reported use of sexual coercion and aggression

Introduction Crime differences between psychopaths and non- psychopaths Often more goal oriented More often involve weapons and violence More often involve non-kin and stranger victims More often involve male victims

Introduction Psychopaths vs. non-psychopaths behavior in the laboratory Show little tolerance or delay More perseverance when punished Less control over dominant responses Less affected by the consequences of their actions

Introduction Psychopaths vs. non-psychopaths physiological responses in the laboratory Less reactive when exposed to cues of distress or startling stimuli Don’t show different behavioral and electrocortical reactions to emotional and to neural verbal information Show less cerebral lateralization Differ on contemporaneous measures of cerebral activity when processing verbal information

Psychopathy as psychopathology Development disturbed Behaviorally, emotionally, physiologically and cognitively impaired Therapy designed to attempt to increase empathy, responsibility and understanding Therapy associated with higher recidivism when released

Psychopathy as psychopathology Possible causes: Deleterious genes obstetrical problems Neurological injury Poor childhood environment Failure to bond with primary caregiver

Psychopathy as “Special Design” Behavioral, emotional, cognitive and neuropsychological attributes not deficits Characteristics are a “set of organized, functional, and specialized phenotypic features that formed a viable reproductive social strategy in human evolutionary history” ESS maintained by frequency-dependent selection

Developmental Instability Obstetrical problems Difficulties during pregnancy, labor, delivery or post delivery, and atypical outcomes of pregnancy Problems associated with: Low intelligence, and many psychopathological problems

Study One 800 male offenders assessed/treated in a max-security psychiatric hospital between 1970 and 1983 Virtually all had committed a violent offense ranging from assaults to multiple homicides

Study One Characteristics of the participants Age at index offense: 27.9 years Lived with both natural parents until age 16: 40% No. prior admissions: 1.2 Parental criminal history: 7% Parental psychiatric history: 14% parental history of alcohol abuse: 36% Meet DSM-III criteria for schizophrenia: 22%

Study One - Methods Coded all participants using a 20-item Psychopathy Checklist-Revised 20 item checklist of traits Ex: glibness/superficial charm, grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, lack of remorse/guilt Scored based on clinical records High reliability and predictive validity Either scored as 0 (not present), 1, or 2 (definitely present) Score over 25 most likely a psychopath

Study One - Methods Also scored obstetrical problems of participants Gave subject a point for each indicator Prevalence's were low Few offenders received more than a single point Most received none: 69%

Study One - Results Average PCL-R score was 16 (range = 0 to 40) of entire sample Average obstetrical problem score was 0.28 (range = 0 to 4) Because schizophrenia has been linked to obstetrical problems, removed all participants diagnosed with schizophrenia

Study One - Results Obstetrical problem items and their prevalence among the 800 offenders

Study One - Results Mean values of obstetrical problems scale Nonpsychopaths: PCL-R of 0 to 24, n = 643 Psychopaths: PCL-R of 25 – 40, n = 157

Study One - Results Suggests that while many mental disorders are related to obstetrical problems, psychopathy is not Schulsinger (1972) reported that psychopaths did not differ from matched controls (no mental disorder) on composite measure of obstetrical complications

Study 2 Measuring fluctuating asymmetry (FA) of psychopathic offenders, non-psychopathic offenders, and non-offenders FA- deviation from perfect bilateral symmetry

Low FA associated with high phenotypic quality (Malyon & Healy, 1994; Manning, Kourkouakis, & Brodie, 1997; Manning & Pickup, 1998; Mùller, 1990) Low FA human males use more direct intrasexual competitive tactics and report more sexual partners, an earlier are at first intercourse and more offspring than high FA men (Simpson, Gangestad, Christensen, & Leck, 1999; Thornhill & Gangestad, 1994; Waynforth, 1998) High FA is related to schizophrenia (Mellor, 1992), developmental delay, mental retardation (Naugler & Ludman, 1996), birth prematurity (Livshits & Kobyliansky, 1991) and left handedness (Yeo, Gangestad, & Daniel, 1993).

Subjects Offenders: 38 men who’ve been charged with violent crimes +2 who were civilly committed due to concerns All patients at a max. security psychiatric hosp. 80% not completed HS 85% were single Non-offenders: 31 men recruited among the hospital staff 6.5% not completed HS 29% were single

Measures & Procedures Left and right side of 10 bilateral traits measured by two trained researchers Lengths of ears, third, fourth, ad fifth digits, and widths of ears, hands, wrists, elbows, feet, and ankles PCL-R obtained for offenders 4 features showed statistically significant right-based directional asymmetry (DA) Wrist, foot, ear width, and fourth finger length 1 feature showed statistically significant left-based DA Elbow width

Results Non-offenders had a lower FA than nonpsychopathic offenders, with psychopathic offenders scoring in the middle Correlation between FA and PCL-R scores nonsignificant 5 offenders that met most stringent criterion for id of psychopathy had lowest asymmetry values among offenders

Discussion Evidence shows that psychopathic offenders show less evidence of developmental instability Special design received more support, but was not completely supported Low FA associated with high mating effort and aggression

Problems All offenders were patients at a maximum-security hospital Most has serious psychiatric diagnoses Schizophrenia Co-morbid disorders (mental and physical)

Future Research Study with less individuals with major mental disorders More from correctional facilities and men in the community More developmental research Behavioral and molecular genetic studies Longitudinal studies of psychopathic and non- psychopathic children