Psychopathology is one of the most glorified types of personality disorders in the modern world. There is a curiosity in the idea of social differences between individuals. Psychopathology was one of the first types of personality disorders to be discovered. (Millan et al, 1998) This finding of psychopathology allowed for an explanation of individuals with emotional tendencies that were different from societal norms. This new founding explanation has allowed the idea of psychopathology to be analyzed in depth by the world. We can see this in our world today through popular media outlets such as the news or in film. There has been labels put onto individuals with psychopathic characteristics that make society, in turn, become romanticized to the idea of psychopaths. (Keesler, 2017) The fiction that is created from the disorder makes people believe that most psychopaths are murderous and criminals. Names such as Ted Bundy and Jeffery Dahmer are highly recognizable as they are profound psychopathic serial killers. The idea of psychopathology should state that all psychopaths should be criminals as they have improper emotional regulation and lack of understanding for others. However, there are psychopaths that live in society that do not commit crimes and live without issues. There is a need to understand the differences in individuals who commit murder and violent crimes compared to the individuals who are normal citizens. Why is it that some individuals are driven to murder and others not? The difference between these individuals that are psychopaths, stems from genetic and environmental differences that occur in individuals during adolescence and childhood that can either allow for positive protective factors to take hold or negative risk factors that turn some of these individuals into serial killers and violent offenders. There are differences in brain structure from individual to individual that show differences in executive functions. Along with biological differences, there are emotional differences that stem from childhood experiences that can shape an individual in different ways that can lead to a life of crime, or a life free of crime.
Psychopathology is a socially devastating disorder defined by a constellation of affective, interpersonal, and behavioral characteristics, including egocentricity; impulsivity; irresponsibility; shallow emotions; lack of empathy, guilt, or remorse; pathological lying; manipulativeness; and the persistent violation of social norms and expectations. (Cleckley, 1976) This definition of psychopathology is what leads us to believe that psychopaths are normally violent. They don’t follow societal norms and have improper emotional regulation. These characteristics are a poor baseline to start out with in regards to living a proper non-criminal life. As many of these characteristics promote an unhealthy and possibly violent lifestyle, there is however the ability for these individuals to not become violent and live successful lives. There can be many different types of career paths with those diagnosed in the psychopathology domain.
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There is a high prevalence of psychopathic individuals in society. In the United States, psychopaths are estimated to make up one percent of the population. (Raine, 2001) This is a lot of individuals that are walking around with a different idea of what emotion is in comparison to the other ninety-nine percent of the population. Of this one percent, not all are criminals. The psychopathic literature can now differentiate between the two different types of psychopathy in calling them either “Successful” or “Unsuccessful” individuals. (Sifferd, 2013) The successful are individuals that are able to live a life without crime and or negative actions. They are stable enough to live in society as a normal person but with different emotional regulations and tendencies. The unsuccessful individuals are those who commit crimes and are a detriment to society due to their lack of understanding of the same emotional processes.
The psychopathic brain has many differences in its structure compared to that of normal individuals. It is important to understand the difference in the brain of a psychopath versus a normal individual. A study was done by Motzkin et al, using functional magnetic resonance imaging that allowed them to see the difference in brain structure between normal and psychopathic test subjects. They found that the main difference in the brain was that of the path between the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and amygdala, as well as the vmPFC and the medial parietal cortex. (Motzkins et al, 2011) These areas of the brain are responsible for the processing of negative stimuli. (Brogaard, 2012) These pathways have reduced connectivity and create the lack of empathy that psychopaths have. They are unable to process negative emotion the same way a normal person does and they are unable to create a response from the negative action. This is why psychopaths lack emotion as their brain structure does not allow for proper emotional regulation in both these pathways. However, psychopaths may miss the negative emotions and fail to react but they can still feel pain. Psychopaths may not feel embarrassed, sad or nervous. (Brogaard, 2012) This lack of emotion leads psychopaths to a lack of understanding in what crimes they are committing. This however cannot be completely explained as there is no conclusion to whether or not this is due to a genetic difference in brain structure or the ability of the environment to influence the neurons in this pathway. This adds to the literature on nature vs nurture in the aspect of psychopathology.
The comparison between successful and non-successful psychopaths stems from the idea of executive function and the ability of an individual to combat the disorder in different ways then violence. (Gao, 2010) In a study done by Yu Gao et al, they looked at the difference between psychopathic offenders and non-offenders. They compared five different sources: community samples, individuals from employment agencies, college students, industrial psychopaths, and serial killers. (Gao, 2010) These individuals that are being tested are individuals that are considered to have the proper criteria of a psychopath but however do not commit crimes. They break up the comparison into three sections: brain/central nervous system, psychophysiological/autonomic nervous system, and cognition. The biggest difference in brain structure is that of reduced prefrontal and amygdala volumes as well as hippocampal abnormalities. (Gao, 2010) This difference in the fear pathway of the brain creates a brain that has a highly reduced ability of executive function in decision making and the picking up of social cues. This lack of decision-making can lead to frustration in psychopathic individuals that could possibly lead them to promote violence to solve problems in their lives. Along with this lack of function, there is a deficit in the ability for some psychopaths to get an anticipatory heart rate response and this characterizes the unsuccessful psychopaths clearly. (Gao, 2010) The lack of decision-making and physiological response this could be the direct relation to why antisocial behaviors turn into psychopathic tendencies that then could project future instances of crime. In the brain of a successful psychopath, something different was found. They found that functions of the amygdala and hippocampus were not altered and they showed high executive function and decision making. In addition, they show to have intact fear conditioning while being hypersensitive to somatic markers. (Gao, 2010) This ability to be a psychopath but still have high levels of functioning creates a different kind of individual. They use their high ability of functioning to get ahead of others. This could be considered pure manipulation by instance of intelligence. This leads them down the path of nonviolence and to be considered a successful psychopath.
There is a few comparisons between the two groups that allow us to see why they are still both to be considered psychopaths, violent or not. There was seen to be a true lack of empathy towards others in both groups. (Gao, 2010) This lack of empathy is the hearty of psychopathy as that’s the core aspect. This lack of empathy, with the addition of the aspect of executive function, creates the two pathways of psychopaths. Successful psychopaths are to be seen as more intelligent and know the power they can have without resorting to violence. While unsuccessful psychopaths are unable to put the lack of empathy into context to properly execute what they want in a certain situations which can lead to violent behavior that can lead to murder.
Genetically, psychopathic diagnoses are shown to be sixty percent heritable. (Brogaard, 2012) This was found out in the Minnesota twin’s study, where they compared twins to see genetic variance. This number however is not highly recommended to be as true as mutations and environmental interactions can alter the brain's structure and function. The differences in brain structure can be seen as genetic reasoning for psychopathology but there is an incidence environmental interaction that is important to look at when comparing successful and non-successful psychopaths.
As modern science progresses, there is a constant battle between nature and nurture. Which factors attribute to a certain disorder, either that of genetics or that of environmental stimuli. They both only tell half the story as they are both heavily involved in the creation of each individual. The main environmental experience that affects individuals in psychopathy is that of abuse. There are three main types of abuse: physical, emotional, and sexual. There can be an argument for the connection between abuse and violent offenses. The brain at a young age is moldable in a way that these experiences of abuse change an individual’s mindset that can create the decisions they make later in life. In a Swedish longitudinal study done by Lang et al, they used an adult psychopathy checklist to compare abuse and neglect to future violent offending. They found that subjects with high victimization in childhood exerted significantly more violence compared to the subjects of low victimization who had non or minor instances of violence later in life. (Lang, 2002) This promotes the general idea that early victimization can be correlated with violence in psychopathic individuals. The risk factor of abuse can be said to be correlated with that of violence. Individuals that have a stable home are set up with more protective factors that can lead an individual to direct his social inadequacies in a way that does not turn violent.
It has been increasingly thought that child psychopathology is etiologically heterogeneous and cannot be attributed to a singular cause. (Mash, 2014) This creates the complications that arise from the competition of genetics and the environment. Both of these play an important role in the accumulation of psychopathology in certain individuals. Parenting strategies and the addition of anti-social characteristics combine with brain abnormalities to be able to form an individual in a way that attributes to violent nature. If parenting strategies are in theory positive, this can set up the child to combat the psychopathic characteristics to be able to live a successful life.
Genetics and environmental influences are however not subject to their own domain. They interact together to be able to create the individual. For example, those with a specific variant of the enzyme monoamine oxidase-A gene are more prone to displaying violent behavior if they has an abusive upbringing. (Davies, 2018) This interaction between a genetic and environment conceptualizes the need to study both areas. This would suggest that a child who is deemed to be a psychopath may in fact not resort to violence in instances of abuse if the specific variant is not present. This can then explain the relationship between genetics and environment because of the ability for our body to be born with this specific variant versus not. (MAO) activity in platelets has been associated with novelty-seeking and risk-taking behavior. (Millon et al, 1998) This could be a genetic explanation for some psychopathic individuals that engage heavily with their environment in risky behaviors that can lead to antisocial tendencies and violent offending.
In a normal individual the ability to regulate our emotions and compare them with others is regulatory. Normal individuals understand the consequences of their actions and the affect it has on others. In subjects of psychopathology, this emotional regulation of one’s self is impaired. They are unable to understand emotion properly enough to be able to make proper decisions. There brain structure is different than normal subjects as the vmPFC to amygdala pathway plays an important role in fear monitoring behavior. The difference in brain structure allows psychopathic individuals to think and feel differently. However, not all psychopaths are violent offenders and there is differences in the same brain structures that lead them down two paths of either being successful or unsuccessful. Along with the brain structure differences between psychopathic individuals, there are environmental influences that can shape an individual during childhood such as abuse. The risk factor of abuse can lead to individuals of psychopathy to resort to violence in more instances then their counterparts who were not abused. This constant interaction between environment and genetics can be used to create the answer for why some psychopaths are violent offenders. In the instance of violent offending in psychopaths, it can be said that there is a difference between successful and non-successful individuals. There is a direct change in cortical pathways in the brain that promote executive function and decision-making in successful individuals that allow them to not resort to violence because of their higher intellect. The variance of MAO can show the balance between genetics and environment. The reason that some psychopathic individuals commit violent acts of crimes can be moderately associated to multiple aspects of brain anatomy, genes, abuse, and other environmental stimuli that all act together to promote antisocial behaviors that lead to a difference in executive decision-making and in turn can create a violent psychopath.
References
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- Cleckley, H. (1941). The mask of sanity; an attempt to reinterpret the so-called psychopathic personality.
- Raine, A., Sanmartín, J., & Sanmartín, J. (Eds.). (2001). Violence and psychopathy. Springer Science & Business Media.
- Sifferd, K. L., & Hirstein, W. (2013). On the criminal culpability of successful and unsuccessful psychopaths. Neuroethics, 6(1), 129-140.
- Keesler, M. E., & DeMatteo, D. (2017). How media exposure relates to laypersons’ understanding of psychopathy. Journal of forensic sciences, 62(6), 1522-1533.
- Motzkin, J. C., Newman, J. P., Kiehl, K. A., & Koenigs, M. (2011). Reduced prefrontal connectivity in psychopathy. Journal of Neuroscience, 31(48), 17348-17357.
- Mash, E. J., & Barkley, R. A. (Eds.). (2014). Child psychopathology. Guilford Publications.
- Gao, Y., & Raine, A. (2010). Successful and unsuccessful psychopaths: A neurobiological model. Behavioral sciences & the law, 28(2), 194-210.
- Brogaard, B. (2012). The making of a serial killer. Psychology Today.
- Lang, S., Af Klinteberg, B., & Alm, P. O. (2002). Adult psychopathy and violent behavior in males with early neglect and abuse. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 106, 93-100.
- Davies, N. From Abused Child to Investigating Nature.
- Hare, R. D. (1998). Psychopaths and their nature: Implications for the mental health and criminal justice systems. Psychopathy: Antisocial, criminal, and violent behavior, 188-212.
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