Hawaii Forensic Psychology

Jennifer Skeem and her col­leagues have chal­lenged the sta­tus quo in recent con­tro­verises con­cern­ing the def­i­n­i­tion and mea­sure­ment of psy­chopa­thy. Is psy­chopa­thy a uni­tary entity (a global syn­drome with a dis­crete under­ly­ing cause) or rather is it a con­fig­u­ra­tion of sev­eral dis­tin­guish­able but inter­sect­ing trait dimensions? Is psy­chopa­thy syn­ony­mous with crim­i­nal behav­ior? Is there a positive-adjustment type of psy­cho­pathic per­son­al­ity? Can anx­ious, emo­tion­ally reac­tive indi­vid­u­als be clas­si­fied as psychopathic?

In a superb mono­graph length, com­perehsive review of psy­chopa­thy, Skeem and her col­leagues update the field and chal­le­nege sim­plis­tic notions of psy­chopa­thy.  They advance a “tri­archic” model that empha­sizes three dis­tinct observ­able char­ac­tertis­tics: bold­ness (or fear­less dom­i­nance), meaness, and dis­in­hi­bi­tion. They note vari­ants in the expres­sion of psy­cho­pathic per­son­al­ity fea­tures, devel­op­men­tal fac­tors in psychoapthy, impact of the tri­archic model on assess­ment tools and treatment.

Bottom line–Skeem and her col­leagues issue a “chal­lenge to the com­mon assump­tions that under­pin mod­ern appli­ca­tions of psy­chopa­thy mea­sures and to call for cau­tions in their use.” Further, they note that Factor 2 (antisocial/disinhibited con­duct), not Factor 1 (callousness/lack of empathy) carries most of the pre­dic­tive power of the PCL-R. They chal­le­nege the notion that indi­vid­u­als clas­si­fied as “psy­chopaths” are hope­less cases.

Source: Skeem, J., Polaschek, D., Patrick, C., & Lillienfeld, S. (2011). Psychoapthic per­son­al­ity: Bridging the gap between sci­en­tific evi­dence and pub­lic pol­icy. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 12(3), 95–162.