Hare Psychopathy Checklist - define, person, people, used, personality, score, traits, Definition, Purpose

The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) is a diagnostic tool used to rate a person's psychopathic or antisocial tendencies. People who are psychopathic prey ruthlessly on others using charm, deceit, violence or other methods that allow them to get with they want.

The symptoms of psychopathy include: lack of a conscience or sense of guilt, lack of empathy, egocentricity, pathological lying, repeated violations of social norms, disregard for the law, shallow emotions, and a history of victimising others.

There place in society

Unfortunately the most successful psychopaths can be found in all walks of life but they are particularly prevalent in Politics and the Armed Forces, Senior Executive and Managing Director level roles in corporate organisations or as much lauded, business entrepreneurs. 

The very nature of the psychopath gives them the advantage over their more empathetic, thoughtful and co-operative competitors. Read through this article and see if you can recognise anyone in your organisation or in the public view.

The Hare PCL-R

Originally designed to assess people accused or convicted of crimes, the PCL-R consists of a 20-item symptom rating scale that allows qualified examiners to compare a subject's degree of psychopathy with that of a prototypical psychopath. 

It is accepted by many in the field as the best method for determining the presence and extent of psychopathy in a person.

The Hare checklist is still used to diagnose members of the original population for which it was developed— adult males in prisons, criminal psychiatric hospitals, and awaiting psychiatric evaluations or trial in other correctional and detention facilities. 

Recent experience suggests that the PCL-R may also be used effectively to diagnose sex offenders as well as female and adolescent offenders.

Description

The Hare PCL-R contains two parts, a semi-structured interview and a review of the subject's file records and history. During the evaluation, the clinician scores 20 items that measure central elements of the psychopathic character. 

The items cover the nature of the subject's interpersonal relationships; his or her affective or emotional involvement; responses to other people and to situations; evidence of social deviance; and lifestyle. 

The material thus covers two key aspects that help define the psychopath: selfish and unfeeling victimisation of other people, and an unstable and antisocial lifestyle.

The twenty traits assessed by the PCL-R score are:

• glib and superficial charm
• grandiose (exaggeratedly high) estimation of self
• need for stimulation
• pathological lying
• cunning and manipulativeness
• lack of remorse or guilt
• shallow affect (superficial emotional responsiveness)
• callousness and lack of empathy
• parasitic lifestyle
• poor behavioral controls
• sexual promiscuity
• early behavior problems
• lack of realistic long-term goals
• impulsivity
• irresponsibility
• failure to accept responsibility for own actions
• many short-term marital relationships
• juvenile delinquency
• revocation of conditional release
• criminal versatility

The interview portion of the evaluation covers the subject's background, including such items as work and educational history; marital and family status; and criminal background. 

Because psychopaths lie frequently and easily, the information they provide must be confirmed by a review of the documents in the subject's case history. 

Read more: Hare Psychopathy Checklist - define, person, people, used, personality, score, traits, Definition, Purpose

Economic status, genetics together influence psychopathic traits

Researchers studying the genetic roots of antisocial behavior report that children with one variant of a serotonin transporter gene are more likely to exhibit psychopathic traits if they also grow up poor.

The study, the first to identify a specific gene associated with psychopathic tendencies in youth, appears this month in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

People with psychopathic traits generally are more callous and unemotional than their peers, said University of Illinois psychology professor Edelyn Verona, whose graduate student Naomi Sadeh led the study.

“Those with psychopathic traits tend to be less attached to others, even if they have relationships with them,” Verona said. “They are less reactive to emotional things in the lab. They are charming and grandiose at times. They’re better at conning and manipulating others, and they have low levels of empathy and remorse.”

Although psychopathy is considered abnormal, these traits may be useful in certain circumstances, Verona said.

“For example, these folks tend to have less anxiety and are less prone to depression,” she said, qualities that might be useful in dangerous or unstable environments. In most cases, their cognitive abilities are also intact.

Studies of psychopathy often focus on those in prison for violent crimes, but most people who commit such crimes are not psychopathic, Verona said.

Unlike the detached, methodical psychopath, violent offenders are often highly emotional and impulsive, and their cognitive abilities are sometimes impaired.

Early research on psychopathy sometimes confused these two “subtypes,” Verona said. “But our research suggests that offenders are very heterogeneous in terms of causal factors,” she said. “That means that although they end up in similar places, they don’t get there through the same pathway.”

The new research focused on two variants of the serotonin transporter protein gene. This gene codes for a protein that transports serotonin from the synapse into presynaptic neurons. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that regulates mood, sleep and other functions including memory and learning.

The two variants, or alleles, of the serotonin transporter protein gene differ in length. The longer allele produces more of the transporter protein, which researchers suspect results in more serotonin being shuttled out of the synapse. How this affects brain function is unclear, however; less serotonin in the synapse could mean less — or more — serotonin in the brain.

Previous studies have found that those who are highly impulsive and aggressive tend to have less brain serotonin than their peers, while people with psychopathic traits generally have higher brain serotonin levels.

Other research has found an association between the highly impulsive personality type and the shorter allele on the serotonin transport protein gene.

Economic status, genetics together influence psychopathic traits — Science Blog