Studies show that psychopaths do not react negatively to words about violence. Imaging studies show that they have reduced activity in prefrontal cortex and a smaller prefrontal cortex, which may impair their ability to control impulsive behavior

Psychopaths and violence

- Fearlessness model
- Low arousal model
- Response modulation model
- Integrated emotion systems model

Theoretical Models for Causes of Psychopathy

Salekin, R. T. (2019). Psychopathy and therapeutic pessimism clinical lore or clinical reality? Clinical Forensic Psychology and Law, 257–290. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351161565-14 

Psychopathy and therapeutic pessimism clinical lore or clinical reality?

Beliefs that psychopathic individuals are immune or too challenging to treat continue to spread pessimistic views on the effectiveness of treatments for psychopathy. However, there is little scientific basis for this belief, and effective psychotherapy treatments for psychopathic individuals exist. 

Psychopathy Interventions

Similar to sociopathy, this condition is a lack of empathy and understanding of others. Emotions may not be experienced much at all in these individuals. However, the emphasis relies more on manipulative behavior. True social connections may not be possible, only feigned. Though manipulative and unempathetic, these individuals can be seen as charming to others and capable of maintaining a relatively normal life. Unlike the sociopath, they tend to be more risk-averse and caring about themselves. 

University of Rochester

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Tulane University

Marked by the consistent lack of regard for the rights of others and social norms. Often, people with this disorder can be deceitful and lacking remorse. Modern diagnoses consider this disorder to be related to psychopathy and sociopathy. To be diagnosed with ASPD, someone must be older than 18. 
- Sociopathy
- Psychopathy

Antisocial Personality Disorder

The dark tetrad is a collection of “dark personality” traits, including psychopathy, everyday sadism, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. High scores in these traits is associated with a statistically higher likelihood of not only engaging in cruel behavior, but also committing violent crimes (i.e. murder).

The Dark Tetrad

Psychopathy is a neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by impaired emotional responses, lack of empathy, and poor behavioral controls, which most often leads to antisocial deviance and criminal behavior.  It is commonly defined by using three main categories: interpersonal, affective, and behavioral traits.

Psychopathy

Haley, L. D. (n.d.). Psychopathy vs Sociopathy. Mental Health America of Eastern Missouri. https://www.mha-em.org/im-looking-for/mental-health-knowledge-base/conditions/127-psychopathy-vs-sociopathy. 

Sociopathy vs Psychopathy citation

Casarella, J. (2020, March 9). Antisocial Personality Disorder: Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment. WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/antisocial-personality-disorder-overview. 

ASPD citation

A condition of failing to understand the feelings of others and empathize. Associated traits include manipulative behavior and aggression, with a particular emphasis on aggression and lack of ability to lead a normal life due to impulsive behaviors. Researchers tend to believe this condition is mostly environmentally triggered, and the affected individual is capable of forming social connections with similar individuals. 

Sociopathy

Additional definition of psychopathy

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5), ASPD is classified as a cluster B-disorder alongside with borderline, narcissistic, and histrionic disorders. People with these conditions struggle with interpersonal skills, having unpredictable and emotional interactions with others.

ASPD in the DSM 5

In order for a person to fit the diagnostic criteria for ASPD they must have been previously diagnosed with conduct disorder (CD) by the age of  fifteen. Hence, ASPD is the only personality disorder that cannot be diagnosed before 18 and during childhood.

Age of diagnosis for ASPD

Studies found that substance abuse is positively correlated with ASPD. Meanwhile, lower IQs and reading levels have a negative correlation with ASPD.

Substance abuse and IQ correlations in ASPD

As of currently, there aren't any successful treatment methods to treat ASPD directly. However, some strategies can be helpful. For example, treating conduct disorder during childhood is considered the most effective in minimizing ASPD behaviors. Additionally, medications and hospitalization can be used to treat symptoms associated with co-occurring conditions. Meanwhile, hospitalization is not worthwhile to treat ASPD directly because it is very expensive, can disrupt other patients, and is just not effective. It is also important to note that most people with ASPD are noncompliant with therapy, making managing it hard.

Treating ASPD

Crime is common amongst people with ASPD, with a peak in the late teens. Additionally, the younger ASPD populace tends to commit more serious crimes. It was also found that longer periods of imprisonment contribute to higher remission rates.

Crime and ASPD

As people with ASPD age, they become less troublesome which can be a positive factor for their families and friends, for example. However, it is common for them to face other mental health challenges and disorders which can make it difficult for those around them as well. Additionally, after improving later on in life, it can be challenging to find jobs, continue their education, and reclaim their prior prospects.

Additional challenges faced by those with ASPD and their families

Even though ASPD has been studied for a long time, a treatment has not been established yet. With that, it can be useful to prevent harm due to it in the first place. However, ways to do that have also not been determined. Many of those with ASPD do not get evaluations or treatment for it because they probably don't know they have it or do not see their symptoms as an issue. Most only get help for co-occurring mental disorders or due to a court order after inflicting harm. Hence, it can be hard to prevent issues that arise due to one's ASPD because a diagnosis often comes later in life.

Lack of preventative measures for ASPD

Psychopathy and sociopathy are considered to be more extreme forms of ASPD. Despite ASPD, psychopathy, and sociopathy being frequently mixed up and used interchangeably, there are distinct differences between them that are often not clearly defined.  One distinction between the three conditions is that an ASPD diagnosis focuses a lot on  behavior. Sociopathy and psychopathy diagnoses also focus on these behaviors but also consider an individual's level of callousness, unemotional mindset, and lack of remorse. Furthermore, psychopaths and sociopaths exhibit more extreme interpersonal and behavioral characteristics. Additionally, psychopaths and sociopaths are more likely to demonstrate more severe criminal behavior, tend to cause more severe harm to others, and to not respond to any form of treatment.

Differences Between ASPD, Psychopathy, and Sociopathy:

Antisocial personality disorder is estimated to affect about 3.6% of the general population. The disorder exhibits a significant gender disparity, being three times more common in men than in women. This ratio corresponds to prevalence rates of approximately 6% among men and 2% among women.

Prevalence and Gender Differences in ASPD

Research from family, twin, and adoption studies indicates that both genetic predispositions and environmental circumstances contribute to the development of antisocial personality disorder and related behaviors. Adoption studies, in particular, highlight a crucial interaction between these factors, demonstrating that genetic vulnerability combined with an adverse environment significantly increases the likelihood of developing antisocial behaviors.

Genetic and Environmental Influences on ASPD

References for ASPD

Within the field of psychology, several researchers have investigated the supposed relationship between male and female individuals with ASPD

Gender Differences in ASPD

- Narcissists are grandiose self-promoters who continually crave attention.
- Machiavellians are master manipulators. At least one of them has cheated you out of something valuable, a fact that you may not have realized until it was too late.
- An everyday sadist has tried to hurt you, verbally or physically, for pure enjoyment (e.g. workplace bullies and internet trolls).
- A psychopath will be the most malevolent; they may have caused you serious harm in an impulsive fit of callous thrill-seeking.

Profiling the Dark Tetrad

The common feature in the dark tetrad is callousness (i.e. a lack of empathy toward others). However, since each trait has different features, they each have different outcomes to their version of callousness.

What Ties the Dark Personality Traits Together?

Dark personalities succeed in getting ahead but fail at getting along. With regard to the Big Five traits, dark personalities score low on agreeableness and conscientiousness.

Links with Broader Models of Personality

Narcissism is a personality trait characterized by an inflated self-concept of one’s own worth, a strong sense of entitlement, and a tendency to act selfishly. Narcissism is a spectrum with those at the highest end classified as having narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).

Narcissism

Everyday sadism, also known as nonsexual, subclinical sadism, reflects cruelty in everyday life. People of this category experience pleasure from others' physical or psychological pain as they go about daily life. For example, these people might like watching violent movies, seeing a fight outside of a bar, or watching someone mess up a presentation at work. Beyond this, everyday sadists also enjoy doing things to elicit suffering, such as emotional manipulation.

Everyday Sadism

Higher scores in the darker traits are more likely to stalk their partners, have problematic phone and internet use, engage in trolling behaviors online, find media violence funny, have antisocial use of dating apps, and distribute intimate images of other people without consent. Sadism predicts adverse online behavior better than the other dark personality traits, such as cybertrolling, cyberstalking, cyberviolence and cyberbullying.

The Dark Tetrad and Online Behavior

People with higher scores in the Dark Tetrad might use aggression to deal with difficult situations and attain their goals. Dark Tetrad traits have consistently positive associations with aggressive behaviors. Psychopathy and sadism in particular have closer links with various types of aggression, including physical, verbal, between partners, prejudice, bullying, extremism, radicalization, contempt, workplace mistreatment, child corporal punishment, mild and moderate self-harm, and cheating.

The Dark Tetrad and Aggression

- The Dark Tetrad traits are linked to self-preservation and benefit seeking.
- People with higher scores in the traits are often motivated to seek power and control and to display success to receive social approval and esteem. For example, they might view social and romantic relationships as instrumental means of achieving social status. 
- Dark traits correlate with self-direction thoughts (i.e., less open to change), as well as a right-wing political ideology, conservativeness, conspiracist ideation and a competitive view of the world, selective extremism behavior.
- When facing moral dilemmas, the Dark Tetrad traits predict utilitarian decisions and sadism predicts minimizing causal responsibility for harm.
- Machiavellianism and sadism are associated with difficulties in teamwork.
- Psychopathy and sadism are associated with low task performance, and the Dark Tetrad, except narcissism, are associated with high counter-productive work.
- The Dark Tetrad traits are also associated with higher levels of advantageous and disadvantageous risk taking, malevolent creativity, lying and sinning, especially pride, greed, and lust, giving less importance to fairness attitudes and purity values, while tending to not to rely on supernatural beliefs.

The Dark Tetrad and Moral Beliefs/Behaviors

Machiavellianism refers to a duplicitous personality trait, especially in interpersonal style, characterized by a cynical disregard for morality and a focus on self-interest and personal gain.

Machiavellianism

Use of dispositional mindfulness in people exhibiting psychopathic tendencies including antisocial behavior has been shown to help decrease the chances of those traits increasing over time. Those using more mindfulness have had a tendency to have less increase in antisocial behavior.

Dispositional Mindfulness to Treat Psychopathy and Antisocial Behaviors

Defined as communication and behavior, including feelings and actions, between at least two people.

Interpersonal Traits

Defined as consistent or habitual behaviors, actions, and feelings of a person. These can be helpful to predict a person's actions.

Behavioral Traits

Defined as a person's normal amount of expressed emotion.

Affective Traits

Child psychopathy is difficult to define concretely; however, research shows there are two factors important in recognizing psychopathic tendencies in children:
- conduct problems (CP) and impulsivity
- callous-unemotional factor (CU)

Factors of Child Psychopathy

While they have similar tendencies, psychopathy and antisocial behavior these two things are not the same.  Psychopaths may have antisocial behaviors but people with antisocial behaviors may not classify as psychopaths by the DSM. 

Clarification Between Psychopathy and Antisocial Behavior

Research shows that crime is extremely common among psychopaths. In fact, psychopathy is the variable most highly correlated to being in prison. For instance, 16% of adult males currently in prison, jail, parole, or probation are psychopaths. Additionally, about 1,150,000 adult males in the United States meet the criteria for psychopathy and 93% of them are in prison, jail, parole, or probation.

The above data is as of 2011.

Crime and Psychopathy

Evidence suggests that an interactive model is the best way to explain how psychopathy develops. As of now, many scholars believe that those who become psychopaths have a genetic predisposition for it and when they are immersed in an unhealthy environment, the disorder blossoms.

Potential causes of psychopathy

Dr. Hare, a psychologist focused on the field of criminal psychology, published his Psychopathy Checklist in 1980. It is made up of three models that include different factors. Hence, his clinical definition of what traits a psychopath holds is described in this checklist, which many professionals use to diagnose such disorder.

Dr. Robert Hare's clinical definition of a psychopath

All psychopathy references are listed here.

Psychopathy References

Based on earlier studies, researchers used to believe that one of the many roots of psychopathy are defects in the brain’s frontal cortex — especially in areas associated with reasoning and executive control. For example, one study published by scholar Antonio Damasio and his colleagues found that some cases of lesions to areas of the frontal lobe led to psychopathic behaviors.

Neurological differences found in the brains of psychopaths based on static images

One highly debated question amongst psychologists is the extent to which individuals who fit the DSM-5's diagnostic criteria of a psychopath are responsible for their actions and understand the difference between right and wrong given the nature of their condition. A strong case can be made that they do understand the difference between right and wrong and thus can be held responsible for their actions. 

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