Antisocial Personality Disorder

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Antisocial Personality Disorder
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Personality Traits

• characteristic ways of thinking, feeling, and
  behaving that are stable across time and across
  situations
• considered to be a disorder when
• traits are inflexible and maladaptive
• cause significant functional impairment and/or
  distress

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A Diagnostic Question

• Are people with personality disorders
  qualitatively different from people without?
• OR
• Are people with personality disorders individuals
  who have extreme versions of otherwise normal
  personality traits?

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The Answer

• Personality disorders are probably best thought
  of as extreme positions on one or more
  personality dimensions

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Course

• thought to originate in childhood and continue
  into adulthood
• believed to be relatively stable, difficult to
  treat

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Lack of Research

• for many personality disorders, there is
  relatively little empirical research on the
  causes and treatments

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Some Examples

• Paranoid personality disorder
• pervasive pattern of distrust and suspiciousness
  of others such that their motives are interpreted
  as malevolent
• Narcissistic personality disorder
• pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for
  admiration, and lack of empathy

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Antisocial Personality Disorder

• pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation
  of the rights of others since age 15

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DSM-IV-TR criteria

• at least 3 sx
• failure to conform to social norms with respect
  to lawful behavior (repeated arrests)
• deceitfulness (repeated lying, use of aliases,
  conning)
• impulsivity, failure to plan ahead
• irritability and aggressiveness (repeated fights)
• reckless disregard for safety of others
• consistent irresponsibility (no steady
  employment, doesnt honor financial obligations)
• lack of remorse (indifferent to or rationalizes
  having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from others)

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DSM-IV-TR (continued)

• must be at least 18
• evidence of conduct disorder prior to age 15
• violation of basic rights of others and major
  social rules
• aggression toward people and/or animals
• destruction of property
• deceitfulness or theft
• serious violation of rules (stays out all night,
  truant)

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Prevalence

• community samples
• males 3
• females 1
• clinical settings
• 3 - 30, depending upon characteristics of
  population sampled
• higher prevalence rates are found in substance
  abuse treatment settings and prison

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Causes Biological

• genetics
• family, adoption, and twin studies show evidence
  of a genetic link
• examples
• offspring of felons raised by adoptive families
  show higher rates of arrests and antisocial
  personality disorder than controls
• concordance rates for criminality are 55 for MZ
  twins and 13 for DZ twins

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But what do they inherit?

• underarousal hypothesis
• psychopaths have abnormally low levels of
  cortical arousal
• engage in antisocial and risk-taking behaviors to
  increase level of arousal
• evidence
• longitudinal study found that future criminals
  had lower skin conductance activity, lower heart
  rate, and more slow-frequency brain wave activity

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• fearlessness hypothesis
• psychopaths have a higher threshold for
  experiencing fear than most people
• evidence
• psychopaths are less likely to develop a
  classically conditioned fear response

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Psychological and Social Influences

• oversensitivity to reward
• will persist in efforts to achieve goal, even
  when goal is no longer attainable
• inconsistent parental discipline
• giving in to problem behavior and poor monitoring
• other environmental influences
• low SES, stress, and degree of mutual trust and
  solidarity in neighborhood linked to antisocial
  behaviors

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Treatment

• prognosis for adults is poor
• best strategy is to intervene with high risk
  children
• teach parents to use behavioral management
  principles to reduce problem behavior and
  increase prosocial behavior
• research suggests such programs reduce antisocial
  behavior

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A Philosophical Debate

• Lykken (1982) has argued that the assumptions of
  the legal system and psychology/psychiatry differ
• Legal system
• assumes the existence of free will
• belief that, with rare exceptions, humans are
  capable of freely choosing their actions

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A Philosophical Debate (continued)

• Psychiatry/psychology
• based on determinism
• belief that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
  have potentially identifiable causes (such as
  biological or environmental factors) that can be
  explained in terms of scientific principles

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Ramifications for Legal System

• Lykken (1982)
• legal system wants to know if person should be
  held responsible for his/her crime
• in order to be held responsible, person must have
  freely chosen the act
• it is logically contradictory to ask
  psychiatry/psychology experts to distinguish
  individuals who are responsible for their crimes
  from individuals who are not

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Lykken (1982) continued

• because psychiatry/psychology view all behaviors,
  thoughts, and feelings as determined, these
  disciplines cannot provide a meaningful answer as
  to whether a person should be held responsible