YSK: Psychopathy is not just a lack of empathy
Why YSK: People often make the mistake of confusing psychopathy for solely a lack of empathy; a lot of people can lack empathy, subclinical or clinical narcissism, ASPD, and mere compartmentalization are usual culprits.
Psychopathy is a forensic construct founded on the seminal works of Cleckley and Hare. Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised is the gold standard for psychopathy testing in forensic psychology.
ASPD is the clinical proxy to psychopathy—though many people with ASPD do not meet the criteria for psychopathy since it is not solely observable behavioral traits.
A common understanding of psychopathy is that a psychopath is a person who merely lacks empathy, but that is focusing on only one of the core affective traits. In order to be considered a psychopath, a person must score over a 30 on the PCL-R which consists of impulsive-lifestyle factors, and a grandiose, self-centered interpersonal style. What is commonly referred to a psychopath—cold and calculated, the factor 1 psychopath, the successful psychopath—are subclinical presentations.
"It is noteworthy that Yang et al. (2005) as well as Raine et al. (2004), who distinguished between successful and unsuccessful psychopaths, found brain abnormalities (hippocampal and prefrontal) only in unsuccessful psychopaths. This is in line with a previous report from this research group on this sample of psychopaths: Ishikawa et al. (2001) reported that unsuccessful psychopaths had reduced autonomic stress reactivity and executive function deficits (measured with the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test) compared with controls, while successful psychopaths had heightened autonomic stress reactivity and better executive functioning. It is known that reduced autonomic and executive functioning is associated with structural damage of the prefrontal cortex (Damasio, 1994)"
(Weber et al., 2008)
Here's Hare's Psychopathy checklist, each criterion is scored with either a 0, 1, or a 2, and the administrator must be conservative with scoring according to the sub-criteria for each criterion:
Item 1: Glibness/superficial charm Item 2: Grandiose sense of self-worth Item 3: Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom Item 4: Pathological lying Item 5: Conning/manipulative Item 6: Lack of remorse or guilt Item 7: Shallow affect Item 8: Callous/lack of empathy Item 9: Parasitic lifestyle Item 10: Poor behavioral controls Item 11: Promiscuous sexual behavior Item 12: Early behavior problems Item 13: Lack of realistic, long-term goals Item 14: Impulsivity Item 15: Irresponsibility Item 16: Failure to accept responsibility for own actions Item 17: Many short-term marital relationships Item 18: Juvenile delinquency Item 19: Revocation of conditional release Item 20: Criminal versatility
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