Psychopathology and the Possible Path of Violence

PSYC 8012 - Psychopathology

University of Cincinnati

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.

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.