Fearlessness and Loathing: Emotions in Youths with Psychopathic Traits

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Fearlessness and Loathing Emotions in Youths
with Psychopathic Traits

• Dr. Luna C. Muñoz
• University of Central Lancashire

ESRC Festival of Social Science, 11 March 2009
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Famous psychopaths
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Adult Psychopathy

• Factor 1

• Factor 2

• Glibness/ superficial charm
• Egocentricity/ grandiose sense of self-worth
• Pathological lying/ deception
• Conning/ lack of sincerity
• Lack of remorse/ guilt
• Lack of affect and emotional depth
• Callous/ lack of empathy
• Failure to accept responsibility for actions
• Drug or alcohol use not direct cause of AB

• Proneness to boredom
• Parasitic lifestyle
• Short-tempered/poor behavioral controls
• Early behavior problems
• Lack of realistic long-term plans
• Impulsivity
• Irresponsible behavior as parent
• Frequent marital relationships
• Juvenile delinquency
• Poor probation or parole risk
• Many types of offenses

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Adult Psychopathy

• Factor 1

• Factor 2

• Glibness/ superficial charm
• Egocentricity/ grandiose sense of self-worth
• Pathological lying/ deception
• Conning/ lack of sincerity
• Lack of remorse/ guilt
• Lack of affect and emotional depth
• Callous/ lack of empathy
• Failure to accept responsibility for actions
• Drug or alcohol use not direct cause of AB

• Proneness to boredom
• Parasitic lifestyle
• Short-tempered/poor behavioral controls
• Early behavior problems
• Lack of realistic long-term plans
• Impulsivity
• Irresponsible behavior as parent
• Frequent marital relationships
• Juvenile delinquency
• Poor probation or parole risk
• Many types of offenses

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Why think about these traits in children?
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Conduct Problem Behavior

• Disobeying the rules
• Violating others' rights
• Fighting
• Stealing
• Breaking things on purpose

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Conduct Problems Can Be Normative
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Conduct Problem Behavior

• Disobeying the rules
• Violating others' rights
• Fighting
• Stealing
• Breaking things on purpose

Most children grow out of using these antisocial
behaviours
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Why do conduct problems decrease with age?
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The Role of Emotions
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Fearfulness and Easy Socialisation

• A rise in anxiety/arousal when experiencing a
  punishment from parents shows that this child
  experiences punishment as something negative

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Relation between arousal and processing of the
message
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Prosocial Behaviours

• Most children, as they get older, learn to use
  more prosocial methods to deal with frustration
  and conflict
• Sharing
• Compromise
• Seeking adult help
• Walking away
• Emotion regulation

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Stability of Conduct Problems

• Some children continue to have conduct problems,
  which affects them more than other kids
• Why?

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Subtyping Conduct Problems in Children History

• Conduct Disorder
• a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior
• violates the rights of others or
• violates major age appropriate societal norms or
  rules.
• four main groupings
• aggressive conduct that threatens physical harm
  to other people or animals
• nonaggressive conduct that causes property loss
  or damage
• deceitfulness and theft
• serious violations of rules

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Subtyping Antisocial Behavior in Children History

• Conduct Disorder
• Childhood Onset
• show severe antisocial and aggressive behaviors
  before age 10
• Adolescent Onset
• do NOT show severe conduct problems before age 10

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Subtyping Antisocial Behavior in Children History

• Aggressive Behavior (by Quay, 1976)
• Undersocialized aggressive vs. socialized
  aggressive
• Psychopathic traits

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Adult Psychopathy

• Factor 1

• Factor 2

• Glibness/ superficial charm
• Egocentricity/ grandiose sense of self-worth
• Pathological lying/ deception
• Conning/ lack of sincerity
• Lack of remorse/ guilt
• Lack of affect and emotional depth
• Callous/ lack of empathy
• Failure to accept responsibility for actions
• Drug or alcohol use not direct cause of AB

• Proneness to boredom
• Parasitic lifestyle
• Short-tempered/poor behavioral controls
• Early behavior problems
• Lack of realistic long-term plans
• Impulsivity
• Irresponsible behavior as parent
• Frequent marital relationships
• Juvenile delinquency
• Poor probation or parole risk
• Many types of offenses

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Adult Psychopathy

• Factor 1

• Factor 2

ADOLESCENTS Identity-formation Egocentri
c Autonomy Short-sighted Emotional Mood
swings Immature morals Risk-taking Juvenile
delinquency Perceived invulnerability

• Glibness/ superficial charm
• Egocentricity/ grandiose sense of self-worth
• Pathological lying/ deception
• Conning/ lack of sincerity
• Lack of remorse/ guilt
• Lack of affect and emotional depth
• Callous/ lack of empathy
• Failure to accept responsibility for actions
• Drug or alcohol use not direct cause of AB

• Proneness to boredom
• Parasitic lifestyle
• Short-tempered/poor behavioral controls
• Early behavior problems
• Lack of realistic long-term plans
• Impulsivity
• Irresponsible behavior as parent
• Frequent marital relationships
• Juvenile delinquency
• Poor probation or parole risk
• Many types of offenses

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Subtyping Antisocial Behavior in Children
Problems?

• Developmentally normal adolescent behavior?
• Qualitatively different from others?

YES
NO
All forms of psychopathology show the same
developmental changes
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Subtyping Conduct Problems in Children
Callous-Unemotional Traits

• Conduct Disorder

Childhood-onset
Adolescent-onset
Callous-Unemotional Traits
Impulsive High Emotional Arousal/ Emotion
Dysregulation
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Callous-Unemotional Traits

• Affective factor of Psychopathy

• CU traits

• Callous/ lacks empathy for others
• Lacks remorse or guilt
• Fails to accept responsibility for own actions
• Shallow affect

• Is unconcerned about the feelings of others
• Does not feel bad or guilty
• Is unconcerned about schoolwork
• Does not show emotions
• Fails to keep promises
• Does not keep the same friends

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Conduct Problems with/without Callous-Unemotional
Traits
With Callous-Unemotional Traits
Without Callous-Unemotional Traits
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Callous-Unemotional Traits/ Psychopathy in
Adulthood - Similarities

• Children with CU show more serious offending
• A particularly violent form of criminal behavior
• They also are more likely to recidivate
• Poor treatment progress
• Related to emotional processing deficits

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Callous-Unemotional Traits
Conduct Problems
Conduct Problems
CU
More Severe Aggression and Antisocial Behaviour
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Conduct Problems with CU

• More serious and more aggressive antisocial
  behavior
• Genetic
• Preference for dangerous, novel, and exciting
  activities
• Reward-dominant
• Emphasize positive aspects of aggression
• Less distressed by their impact upon others
• Reduced emotional reactivity

Conduct Problems
CU
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Conduct Problems without CU

• Higher rates of attention problems
• Less aggressive more reactive forms of
  aggression
• Intellectual deficits
• Ineffective parenting practices poor
  monitoring, supervision and use of harsh /
  inconsistent discipline
• Emotion regulation problems
• More anxiety more reactive to distress of
  others
• Reactive to negative emotional stimuli

Conduct Problems
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What can be done?

• Early versus late interventions?
• Who?
• Emotion?
• Empathy?
• Motivations?
• Cognitions?

Conduct Problems
CU
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What can be done?

• Earlier interventions
• Not parent discipline techniques
• Not emotion
• Probably not empathy- could possibly hurt
• YES, teaching parents to reinforce / reward
  prosocial behaviors
• Maybe can change their views about the use of
  other ways to get what they want

Conduct Problems
CU
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What can be done?

• Early versus late interventions?
• Who?
• Emotion?
• Empathy?
• Motivations?
• Cognitions?

Conduct Problems
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What can be done?

• Depends both early and late interventions
• Parent and child stop the coercive process
• Target emotion-regulation and anger management
• Empathy- could possibly help
• Again, they are reactive
• Target hostile attributional bias

Conduct Problems
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Origin of Conduct Problems

• Parenting
• Strong emotional reactions
• Thoughts that people's actions are hostile
• Inattention/ Impulsivity/ Hyperactivity
• Cognitive ability Intellectual deficits

Personality
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Research into the Conduct Problems of Children
with Callous-Unemotional Traits

• Parenting
• Not the CAUSE of their conduct problems
• Strong emotional reactions
• Children with CU and severe conduct problems
  experience less emotional reactivity
• Thoughts that people's actions are hostile
• They anticipate positive consequences for their
  aggression
• Inattention/ Impulsivity/ Hyperactivity
• Less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD
• Cognitive ability Intellectual deficits
• They have high intellectual ability

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Aggression
-cold-blooded -Tend to emphasize the positive
aspects of aggression -Associated with
criminality in adolescence and in adulthood

• -hot-headed
• -Thoughts that people's actions are hostile
• -Impulsive
• -Emotional dysregulation
• -Associated with provocation

Mixed Group
Proactive
Reactive
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Study with 100 Boys from a Detention Centre in
New Orleans, LA USA
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Study with 100 Boys from a Detention Centre in
New Orleans, LA USA

• Examined emotional reactivity and aggression
  using a competitive reaction-time task

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Competition

• Be faster than your opponent to hit the button
• If you win, you can give him a message and take
  points away from him
• If he wins, he will give you a message and take
  points away from you
• Points taken away were our measures of aggression

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When they lost
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Sympathetic Nervous System Increases heart
rate Constricts blood vessels Increases
sweating
Parasympathetic Nervous System Decreases
heart rate Dilates blood vessels
Palms sweat
Heart rate Increases
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Emotional Response When Angry
Palms sweat
Heart rate Increases
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Disconnect
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Callous-Unemotional Youths

• Keep cool as a cucumber and then plan their
  revenge

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Measures

• 100 juvenile delinquent boys filled out
• Questionnaire about proactive and reactive
  aggression
• Questionnaire about callous-unemotional traits
• Measured sweating from their skin

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Emotional Reactivity
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Emotional Reactivity
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Emotional Reactivity
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Premeditated aggression is without emotion when
youths have callous-unemotional traits
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Verbal Ability is Protective but only for Some
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Being emotionally uninvolved might make knowing
what emotion others are displaying difficult
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A Case for Fear
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Recent Investigation

• Boys from a community youth centre in Manchester

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How do we know fear differently for face and body
emotions?

• We know people are afraid by activating the parts
  of the brain that control movement

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If I did this, I would be afraid
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If one does not feel fear, then one cannot
recognise it in others
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Making a Move Toward Moving Pictures
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What should I find?

• As with static body postures, misidentification
  of moving body postures should relate to
  callous-unemotional traits and violent behaviour

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Summary

• Callous-unemotional traits are important in
  whether youths engage in problem behaviors
• Their low emotional reactivity makes it so that
  they experience negative things as not so
  negative
• Also, their lack of fear/anxiety makes it so that
  they are unaware of feelings of fear

Low reactivity and not knowing when others are
afraid may allow them to do bad things without
feeling bad
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Conduct Problems with/without Callous-Unemotional
Traits
Different development of conduct problems. Thus,
need a different approach to improve conduct
problem behaviours. Play to their need for
rewards!
With Callous-Unemotional Traits
Without Callous-Unemotional Traits
Youths who show problem behaviors without having
CU traits, can benefit from interventions that
target such factors as poor parenting, poor
emotion regulation, low intelligence, etc.
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Thank You

• For your attention!
• To my colleagues
• Ms. Kelly Harris Ms. Ruth Powell
• Dr. Chris Atherton
• Ms. Sally Andrews, Mr. Lloyd Gemson, Ms.
  Kayleigh Coates
• LMunoz_at_uclan.ac.uk