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Tyson Pavao

DR. Chad Johnson

Psychopathy

Psychopathy is a disorder that has been examined throughout the history of Psychology,

and because of that, its definition has changed along with its practice. Psychopathy is a

psychological condition where one shows lack of sympathy towards others and expresses no

remorse. There is an inner drive in them to perform in immoral as well as antisocial behaviors

that benefits their urge for a short-term gain. Besides the general population, Psychopaths do not

experience fear when it comes to criminal activity and are said to be insensitive to punishment.

To put it in a better prospective, Psychopaths are individuals who prey on those who can fulfill

their high. There are many factors that play into psychopathy but not one specific factor has

been discovered. Nature vs. Nurture is a key question to ask yourself when you are researching

Psychopathy. Ones development from childhood can play a major role In his or her life when

characterizing Psychopathy. Its an on going research topic that has been studied as early as the

18th century.

Psychopathy is a concept that has been discussed and studied from as early as the 18th

century where doctors as well as philosophers engaged in arguments that concerned free will and

whether or not certain transgressors are able to understand the consequences of their actions. A

man named Philippe Pinel noted that a few of his patients were engaging in compulsive and self-

damaging acts, even though they were aware of the acts that they were doing. He was one of the

first to recognize that madness can still exist with reason. But before he had argued that this was

a legitimate psychological entity, it was universally seen as a disorder in the mind because they

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had related the two concepts of mind and reason, and it was Pinel who started the belief that “one

could be insane (manie) without confusion of mind” (Millon 4).

As the late 19th century and early 20th century began to roll in, German Psychiatrists

began to focus more toward observational research where one named J.L Koch proposed that the

term “Moral Insanity” be replaced with “Psychopathic inferiority”. He believed that there was a

physical basis that existed because of these impairments. Later as several others put their work

into the Psychopathic research, it was separated into seven different classes: the excitable, the

unstable, the impulsive, the eccentric, the liars and swindlers, the antisocial, and the quarrelsome.

Psychopathy is still an ongoing topic of research with new findings and methods of practice. It

has a long history of clinical research that validates both its psychodynamic and neurological

point of view.

As stated before, Psychopaths reflect those of no morality. When discussing morality,

there are two types of theories that must be discussed, psychoanalytical and social learning

theory. Both reflect how morality is transferred to an individual. The idea of conscience

development also comes up with morality during the early stages of childhood. Conscience is

formed through a process called induction where the parent helps the child notice others feelings

and how their mistreatment towards others can cause a certain emotion to appear. So for

example, the parent would explain to the child in ways that they are able to comprehend, how

their actions are effecting ones emotion. With instilling this into children in their beginning

stages, they are able to successfully build a stronger moral identity as they hit adolescents. But

when heavy discipline begin to take place as well as lack of love, children begin to get frustrated,

and eventually lead to lack of empathy and interfere with prosocial responding. As you begin to

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read more into morality, you can see how nurture would play a major role in Psychopathy

especially at a social aspect.

In the social learning theory, theorist believes that children are able to behave morally

through modeling, and their parents or primary caregivers are the ones that they model. Children

observe the adult as they perform appropriate behavior. As the children begin to imitate their

action, the parent would compliment the child’s behavior by saying something like “good job,

you are so kind” to their child which increases their tendencies of moral acts which is called

reinforcement. It is best to instill these traits in the early years. Those who are around caring

parents, often behave appropriately even when the adult is not present. Both theories are

reflected towards nurture and are signs that show that without proper nurturing in the early ages,

a child is much more vulnerable to show Psychopathic traits. It seems that the primary caregiver

holds the responsibility in choosing to raise someone with or without morals. But that still doesn

clear the answer on whether psychopathy is driven my nature or nurture.

Is it something that is effect by the environment or a feature of upbringing? The question

still remains a mystery but a great source to look at in determining whether it’s a cause of nature

or nurture is “The Minnesota Twin Study”. In this study, it was found that psychopathy is 60

percent heritable. One can assume that if genetics is a key factor in psychopathy, then there

would be abnormality in the brain, which is a psychopathic trait. A study was done at University

of Wisconsin, Madison where brain scans were done on criminal psychopaths. There were also

findings in the brain that helped researchers understand more about psychopaths and what in

their trigger their emotionless state.

They found that there was a decreased connectivity with the amygdala and the

ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). The amygdala is what’s responsible for processing

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negative stimuli and the vmPFC interprets the response from the amygdala. When the

connectivity between the two is low, the negative stimuli in the amygdala does not translate into

negative emotions, which fits well when picturing the kind of emotions psychopaths show. A

similar example to this concept is the case of Phineas Gage. He suffered an injury to his frontal

lobes that nearly changed the way he interacted with people. Fro

Though the Wisconsin, Madison study may have given good reason to think that brain

abnormality is structured in psychopaths DNA, there are still some who can argue the fact that

the study was only conducted on criminal psychopaths, and not all psychopaths are criminals.

Most are considered to be manipulative, aggressive, and impulsive, but these are traits that can

lead to criminal acts. Another thing that someone could argue about the Wisconsin, Madison

study is that it doesn’t show that the reduced connectivity between the amygdala and the vmPFC

is linked to psychopathy but instead with mental conditions that are associated with crime.

When we start to look into the cognitive aspect of psychopathy, I got my research from

the work of Sullivan and Leary who both focused their psychopathology as social interactions

rather than individualized behavior. They also believed that many of these people with

psychopathic symptoms, has had these from early interactions and has carried with them to their

adult life. So for example, someone with an extreme dominant style, is someone who has had

suffered severe injury to his left frontal lobe. What was described as a hard worker and

responsible changed to a selfish, and impatient person that no one wanted to work with.

Without much research and rather from just storybooks and tv shows, most of us can

come to a common agreement that psychopaths have many characteristics. Some observers

might see psychopaths as immature, impulsive, sly, and much other things. It has also been

observed that psychopaths have shown cruel and aggressive behaviors towards others and

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themselves. And because of that I have come across ten subtypes of psychopathy. These

subtypes include: The Unprincipled Psychopath, The Disingenuous Psychopath, The Risk-taking

Psychopath, The Covetous Psychopath, The Spineless Psychopath, The Explosive Psychopath,

The Abrasive Psychopath, The Malevolent Psychopath, The Tyrannical Psychopath, and The

Malignant Psychopath. Along with these subtypes, there is the Five-Factor model of Personality.

Psychopathy as well personality disorders showcase many personality traits and because

of that, it is seen to have connections with the five-factor model. Within the five-factor model

(FFM) are five domains of personality: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience,

antagonism versus agreeableness, and conscientiousness. When it comes to research with the

Five-Factor model and Psychopathy, many of the information is relied on self-report which can

be very difficult getting the most accurate result. Especially with psychopaths because they are

often inaccurate when reporting about their emotional state.

Social factors play a very small role in psychopathy, and research have trouble in linking

social factors to the development of psychopathic traits. It’s also difficult to link child abuse and

neglect to psychopathy but rather as a factor to psychopaths committing criminal acts. It has also

been suggested that abuse experience can be some kind of factor to psychopathic traits which

could be called as “Nurture”. But all in all it is very difficult to associate social factors to

psychopathic traits.

When I was doing my research on this topic, I was curious to see if there was anything

regarding females and male psychopaths. It’s commonly seen that there are majority male

psychopaths than there are females. As I began to read multiple articles on female and male

psychopaths the only thing that came out was that there are women psychopaths, just not as

much. The ratio between female and male in psychopathy leans more toward the males.

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Beginning this research on psychopathy was difficult for me mainly because I was

stumped with what to include in my paper. I was determined to write about this because I was

curious on the topic due to my obsession with the TV show “Criminal Minds”. I was fascinated

with how the brain and mind can guide someone to become a psychopath and commit criminal

acts. Most of the shows that o watch shows how the psychopath had a trouble childhood and

how social factors were the main cause of their actions. And because of that I had assumed that I

was going to read more about how psychopathy is created from environmental conditions.

Psychopathy is an ongoing topic where the definition is constantly changing as well as the

method of study. Before this research paper I was almost certain that those who are psychopaths

are criminals who commit crimes. It’s a topic that will only get more intense as technology

advances so that more instruments can be used when studying the brain and its abnormalities

with those of are psychopaths.