Murder and Psychopathy

Psychopathy

Mental disorder that involves ASB, low empathy and remorse, and impulsive and egotistical characteristics
Diagnostic tools…
DSM
Hare Psychopathy Checklist (revised PCL-R)
All have differences in the criteria for diagnosing psychopathy

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Psychopath = innate, biological basis, no capacity to feel remorse, guilt or empathy
Sociopath = can be result of environmental factors e.g. poverty, negligence, exposure to extreme violent behaviour, lack empathy, guilt and remorse towards most people, however will feel attachments towards others
Both have lower inhibitory capacity
Violence tends to come after a prolonged exposure to aggression, through observation and/or being involved

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Factors that can predict these behaviours…
Low resting heart rate
Farrington 1997 discovered that boys with low heart rate were more likely to become violent offenders if they had a bad relationship with their parents, and if they come from a large family
Raine 1993, Raine and Buchsbaum 1996, Henry and Moffitt 1997 all did reviews on brain imaging studies on violent and psychopathic populations
Discovered that violent offenders have functioning deficits to the anterior regions of the brain, particularly the frontal area
Frontal deficits to the brain, prefrontal cortex is responsible for higher level functioning, like social behaviour and self-control
Early health factors: complications at birth, physical anomalies, malnutrition

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Desensitisation to violence
Decrease in the psychological and physiological reaction to witnessing and engaging gin aggression and violence
Exposure to violence desensitises individuals
When the above is paired with acting aggressively the individual becomes capable of more extreme acts as time goes on

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