Low Psychopathy Group Research Articles

Variants of psychopathy in Chinese male offenders: A latent profile analysis in a large prison sample

The current study aimed to identify meaningful subtypes of psychopathic traits among male offenders. A Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) based on the scores of the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale was performed in a large sample of Chinese male prisoners (N = 3375, M age = 36.03, SD = 9.50). Results of the LPA revealed the existence of four profiles: “moderate psychopathy group” (59.5%); “low psychopathy group” (19.5%); “high psychopathy-moderate callousness group” (14.7%); and “low psychopathy-high callousness group” (6.3%). Using the modified Bolck-Croon-Hagenaars (BCH) and categorical distal variable (DCAT) methods, we found that these profiles differed on multiple outcome variables including risk for recidivism, anxiety, depression, reactive aggression and proactive aggression. Overall, findings indicate that the variants of psychopathy found in western incarcerated populations could largely be generalized to the non-western populations, and for the first time suggest that a special profile with low total psychopathy but high callousness traits might exist among male offenders.

The Characteristics of Moral Judgment of Psychopaths: The Mediating Effect of the Deontological Tendency.

PurposeMany studies explore the relationship between moral judgment and psychopathy in western culture, but the mechanism underlying this relationship remains unclear. By far, no research about this topic in the background of Chinese culture exists. In the current study, we adopt one of the creative process-dissociation approaches to explore the relationship between the psychopath and moral judgment.MethodsAdopt the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathic Scale, the Chinese version of Interpersonal Reactivity and Process-dissociation approach to explore the relationship between the psychopath and moral judgment.ResultsTraditional utilitarian moral score of the high psychopathy group are significantly higher than that of low psychopathy group (t= 2.97, p<0.05), people with high psychopathy utilitarian tendency U factor score and people with low psychopathy have no significant difference (F= 0.85, p = 0.36).ConclusionIndividuals with high psychopathy tend to make fewer deontological moral judgments because of their decreased deontological tendencies rather than their increased utilitarian tendencies. They may make more acceptance choices not to increase the well-being of the majority of people, but because of their increased acceptance of hurting others in the moral dilemma.

Are Prisoners More Psychopathic than Non-forensic Populations? Profiling Psychopathic Traits among Prisoners, Community Adults, University Students, and Adolescents

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to compare prisoners (n = 772), community adults (n = 1201), university students (n = 2080), and adolescents (n = 472) on four sets of psychopathic traits (affective responsiveness, cognitive responsiveness, interpersonal manipulation, and egocentricity), using a psychopathy measure which does not index criminal/antisocial behavior – the Psychopathic Personality Traits Scale. Another aim was to examine patterns of co-occurrence between psychopathic personality traits among offending and non-offending populations. ANOVA results indicated significant differences between the four groups on all PPTS dimensions. Adolescents demonstrated greater deficits in affective and cognitive responsiveness than the remaining groups of participants. Prisoners had elevated deficits in cognitive responsiveness, compared with university students and community adults. University students scored higher on interpersonal manipulation than adolescents and prisoners, and higher on egocentricity than community adults and prisoners. Latent profile analysis revealed four distinct classes of psychopathic traits among all samples, although not all classes were qualitatively equivalent across samples. Low psychopathy groups were identified for all samples. There were clear high psychopathy groups for prisoners and university students, with approximately 7% of prisoners and students belonging in the groups. This finding indicates that past research could have over-estimated the prevalence of psychopathy in forensic populations due to inclusion of criminal behavior items in psychopathy assessment.

Speech of young offenders as a function of their psychopathic tendencies.

The purpose of this study was to analyse young psychopathic offenders' speech compared with controls and to determine whether it was dissimilar. An examination of two subsets of disfluencies in speech was conducted (i.e., filled pauses and discourse markers) to explore their disfluent language. Transcripts of Psychopathy Checklist-Revised Youth Version (PCL:YV) interviews from a sample of young offenders were analysed using Wmatrix software (Rayson, 2003, 2008). The young offenders were divided into a high psychopathy group (HP; n = 13) and a low psychopathy group (LP; n = 13). HP participants included more words relating to basic needs (i.e., money, sex) in their speech than their counterparts, but not fewer words relating to social needs (i.e., family, kin), which could reflect viewing the world in a more unemotional and instrumental way by HP individuals compared with LP participants. HP participants had fewer total disfluencies and filled pauses (i.e., uh, um) in their speech than LP participants. However, the usage of discourse markers (i.e., I mean, you know, like) was similar for HP and LP participants. Like adult psychopaths, the young offenders with higher psychopathic tendencies tended to use more basic needs words in their speech. Reduced filled pause use, which has been found to be related to individual's self-consciousness, may reflect less self-monitoring in psychopaths when they are engaging in secondary tasks (i.e., tasks that will not offer rewards). These findings provide further support that individual differences can be reflected by characteristics in speech. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Latent profile analysis of psychopathic traits among homicide, general violent, property, and white-collar offenders

PurposeThe aim of this study was to identify meaningful subtypes of psychopathic traits among prisoners. Another aim was to estimate the association between psychopathy class membership and type of offending (homicide, general violent, property, and white-collar offences). MethodsA systematically selected representative sample of 1126 adult male prisoners completed a personality-based self-report measure of psychopathy, the Psychopathic Personality Traits Scale (PPTS). ResultsLatent profile analysis revealed five distinct classes of psychopathic traits: a “high psychopathy group” (7.1%)”, a “moderate psychopathy group” (10.8%), a “high interpersonal manipulation group” (20.8%), a “moderate affective/cognitive responsiveness group” (16.8%), and a “low psychopathy group” (44.6%). Multinominal logistic regression showed that general violent offenders were most likely to belong in the high psychopathy group, whereas property and white-collar criminals were most likely to be the members of the high interpersonal manipulation group. ConclusionsFindings suggest that most inmates, even those detained in maximum and medium security units, do not meet the diagnostic criteria for psychopathy. The significance of the present findings is discussed in relation to past and future research as well as clinical practice.

Endogenous attention modulates early selective attention in psychopathy: An ERP investigation.

Psychopathic individuals are prone to act on urges without adequate consideration of future consequences or the rights of other individuals. One interpretation of this behavior is that it reflects abnormal selective attention (i.e., a failure to process information that is incongruent with their primary focus of attention; Hiatt, Schmitt, & Newman, Neuropsychology, 18, 50-59, 2004). Unfortunately, it is unclear whether this selective attention abnormality reflects top-down endogenous influences, such as the strength or specificity of attention focus (i.e., top-down set) apart from other, more exogenous (bottom-up), effects on attention. To explore this question, we used an early visual event-related potential (N2pc) in combination with a modified visual search task designed to assess the effect of early endogenous (i.e., top-down) attention on the processing of set-congruent information. The task was administered to a sample of 70 incarcerated adult males, who were assigned to high, intermediate, and low psychopathy groups using Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (Hare, 2003). Based on the assumption that their failure to process set-incongruent information reflects the exaggerated effects of endogenous attention, we predicted that participants with high psychopathy scores would show an exaggerated N2pc response to set-congruent information. The results supported the hypothesis and provide novel electrophysiological evidence that psychopathy is associated with exaggerated endogenous attention effects during early stages of processing. Further research is needed to examine the implications of this finding for the well-established failure of psychopathic individuals to process set-incongruent information and inhibit inappropriate responses.

The posteromedial region of the default mode network shows attenuated task-induced deactivation in psychopathic prisoners.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder with symptoms that include lack of empathy or remorse, antisocial behavior, and excessive self-focus. Previous neuroimaging studies have linked psychopathy to dysfunction in the default mode network (DMN), a brain network that deactivates during externally focused tasks and is more engaged during self-referential processing. Specifically, the DMN has been found to remain relatively active in individuals with psychopathic tendencies during externally focused tasks, suggesting a failure to properly deactivate. However, the exact extent and nature of task-induced DMN dysfunction is poorly understood, including (a) the degree to which specific DMN subregions are affected in criminal psychopaths, and (b) how activity in these subregions relates to affective/interpersonal and antisocial/lifestyle traits of psychopathy. We performed a group independent component analysis to assess DMN activation during a Go/NoGo task in a group of 22 high-psychopathy and 22 low-psychopathy prisoners. The identified group-level DMN was parcellated into 6 subregions, and group differences in task-induced activity were examined. In general, DMN subregions failed to deactivate beneath baseline in the high-psychopathy group. A group comparison with the low-psychopathy group localized this attenuated task-induced deactivation to the posteromedial cortical (mPC) region of the DMN. Moreover, multiple regression analyses revealed that activity in the mPC was associated with affective/interpersonal traits of psychopathy. These findings suggest that attenuated deactivation of the mPC subregion of the DMN is intrinsic to psychopathy, and is a pattern that may be more associated with affective psychopathic traits, including lack of concern for others.

The Relationship Between Comorbid Psychiatric Illnesses and Psychopathy Levels On Male Individuals with Antisocial Personality Disorder in the Turkish Community

Introduction The studies investigating antisocial personality disorder are mostly applied to subjects in prison.) In the literature, it is shown that 50% – 75 % of the prisoners are diagnosed as ASPD, and only 15% -25% of the patients can be defined “psychopathic”. Comorbidity rates may change in different populations. Objective In this study, we aimed to investigate comorbid disorders in a Turkish patient sample with the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) who are not in prison and we investigated its relationship with psychopathy levels. Methods 140 male subjects were included in the study. None of them had been in the prison on admission. They all had the diagnoses of ASPD according to DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV) diagnostic criteria. Socio-demographic data form, Structured Clinical Interview for DSM- Axis 1 Disorders and Axis 2 Disorders (SCID-I, SCID-II), and Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) were applied. Results Most commonly seen comorbid disorders were as follows: substance use disorders (66,9%), alcohol use disorders (65,4%) and adjustment disorders (36,4%). In the high psychopathy group 'Current and Lifetime Alcohol and Substance Use Disorder” and 'Generalized Anxiety Disorder” were detected significantly more than those of the low psychopathy group. Conclusion This study supplies important epidemiological data about ASPD comorbidity. Of note, none of the subjects were in the prison during the study. Psychopathy also seems like a predictor in comorbid situations.

The Relationship between Co morbid Psychiatric Illnesses and Psychopathy Levels on Male Individuals with Antisocial Personality Disorder in the Turkish Community

Objective: The studies investigating antisocial personality disorder are mostly applied to subjects in prison. In this study, we aimed to investigate comorbid disorders in a Turkish patient sample with the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) who are not in prison and we investigated its relationship with psychopathy levels. Method: 140 male subjects were included in the study. None of them had been in the prison on admission. They all had the diagnoses of ASPD according to DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV) diagnostic criteria. Socio-demographic data form, Structured Clinical Interview for DSM- Axis 1 Disorders and Axis 2 Disorders (SCID-I, SCID-II), and Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) were applied. Results: Most commonly seen comorbid disorders were as follows: substance use disorders (66,9%), alcohol use disorders (65,4%) and adjustment disorders (36,4%). In the high psychopathy group Current and Lifetime Alcohol and Substance Use Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder were detected significantly more than those of the low psychopathy group. Conclusion: This study supplies important epidemiological data about ASPD comorbidity. Of note, none of the subjects were in the prison during the study. Psychopathy also seems like a predictor in comorbid situations.

Differentiating Tower of Hanoi Performance: Interactive Effects of Psychopathic Tendencies, Impulsive Response Styles, and Modality

Previous research has demonstrated that performance on the computerized Tower of Hanoi is lower than performance on the manual Tower of Hanoi. The present study was conducted to elucidate potential factors that contribute to performance differences across modalities. Personality characteristics related to psychopathy and impulsive response styles were hypothesized to be correlates of poor performance on the computerized version of the Tower of Hanoi, which is a problem-solving task that requires working memory, planning, and inhibition. Eighty-four college students from a mid-sized university participated. Participants were grouped as low, middle, or high psychopathy based on their total scores on the Psychopathic Personality Inventory. A 2 (Modality) × 3 (Psychopathy) analysis of covariance, controlling for visuospatial working memory, yielded a significant interaction, in which the high psychopathy group did not differ in performance across modality, whereas the low and middle psychopathy groups performed more poorly on the computerized version. Subsequent analyses on reaction time and accuracy for the computerized modality indicated that a reflective, methodical approach to the computerized task was more productively utilized in the low psychopathy group, whereas the fast and accurate approach was more productively utilized in the high psychopathy group. These results suggest that individuals with elevated psychopathic tendencies within a normal population are not necessarily deficient in problem-solving performance on the Tower of Hanoi. Impulsive responding is associated with poor performance in the computerized version of the Tower of Hanoi, irrespective of psychopathic tendencies. Caution should be exercised in interpreting scores on the computerized Tower of Hanoi because the psychometric properties required for comparability with the manual version have not been sufficiently demonstrated.

The Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory and Psychopathy

We investigated the ability of the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI; Millon, 1993) to assess psychopathy as measured by the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991). Participants were 90 adolescents in an inpatient psychiatric unit. The MACI Substance Abuse Proneness (r =.47), Unruly (r =.43), and Submissive (r = -.42) scales correlated most strongly with the PCL-R. Using a discriminant function analysis, the Substance Abuse Proneness scale correctly distinguished between high- and low-psychopathy groups in 79% of cases. Using a rational approach, we developed a psychopathy content scale using 20 MACI items. This content scale correlated with the PCL-R (r =.60) and distinguished high- and low-psychopathy groups in 83% (k = .66) of cases (sensitivity = 85%, specificity = 81%).

Performance of criminal psychopaths on selected neuropsychological tests.

Screening batteries of standard neuropsychological tests were administered to 2 different samples (Ns = 90 and 167) of male prison inmates. Scores on the revised Psychopathy Checklist were used to divide inmates in each sample into high, moderate, and low psychopathy groups. There were no group differences in test performance in either of the samples, even when the effects of self-reported psychopathology and substance abuse were taken into account. The overall prevalence of both test-specific and global neuropsychological impairment was low and did not vary significantly across the 3 groups. The results provide no support for traditional brain-damage explanations of psychopathy.

Performance of criminal psychopaths on selected neuropsychological tests.

Screening batteries of standard neuropsychological tests were administered to 2 different samples (Ns = 90 and 167) of male prison inmates. Scores on the revised Psychopathy Checklist were used to divide inmates in each sample into high, moderate, and low psychopathy groups. There were no group differences in test performance in either of the samples, even when the effects of self-reported psychopathology and substance abuse were taken into account. The overall prevalence of both test-specific and global neuropsychological impairment was low and did not vary significantly across the 3 groups. The results provide no support for traditional brain-damage explanations of psychopathy.