hello so today I’m going to be talking
about what psychopathy is the term and
what we’re doing about it
here at Juniata College so I’ll begin by
saying in the fall of 2016 our lab in
the psychology department under
Professor Rebecca Weldon was attempting
to ascertain some of these features
underlying psychopathy and how they
relate to student populations we found
consistent with a hypothesis called the
distressed specific hypothesis which
we’ll talk about in a little bit that
participants who were higher in
psychopathy which is this this empathic
deficit were slower in recognizing the
fearful faces of other people and I’m
gonna discuss the implications of this
now in the fall of this school year
we wanted to try something else we
wanted to question the impossible the
fact is that there are very few
treatments for psychopathy and we wanted
to see if we could alter this effect
this delay in recognizing the fearful
faces of other people by priming empathy
or something like empathy in those
think in order to understand what I mean
by psychopathy we should discuss how the
term has been sensationalized in the
media so in pop culture in Hollywood
there is this thing that has been coined
the elite psychopath so I’ll tell you a
bit about what that is but first I think
I should give some examples such
characters as Hannibal Lecter Patrick
Bateman from American Psycho or the most
recent television adaptation of Sherlock
Holmes all of these could qualify as
this elite psychopath caricature and
it’s problematic in a number of ways
these characters are anti heroes at the
core so you are invited to empathize
with these with these protagonistic
characters who never really do show
empathy themselves or to other people
and so of course we want to emulate
these characters but as a matter of fact
they do show some of the qualities of
psychopathy they are they are cold
calculating apathetic they’re
sophisticated but there are also some
things that we don’t really see as often
in actual psychopathy
they are one step ahead of the
competition always they are
Machiavellian masterminds and that’s not
something we really see so I’m going to
talk about how psychopathy has been
characterized in the field of psychology
and that those components will be
differences in action and differences in
the brain also I think it’s important to
note that in the dsm-5 which is a
terminology manual for psychology
antisocial personality disorder has been
considered synonymous with psychopathy
while it shares some common symptom
ology we will be considering psychopathy
in accordance with a different set of
features and facets that set it apart
ever so slightly with antisocial
personality disorder but I should start
by saying in antisocial personality
disorder we see symptoms like aggression
outward aggression that can be
generalized this impulsiveness
sensation-seeking behavior recklessness
and an association with criminal
behavior so let’s talk about some of
these there’s a lack of guilt or remorse
there’s a lack of emotional expression
these symptoms are affective or
emotional processing differences our
study focused mainly on these so people
who are high in psychopathy will tend to
be callous a bit like the pop culture
representation they will lack emotional
expression so they won’t be expressing
emotions to other people there’s also a
lack of pro-social emotional response
which means in day-to-day interaction
when someone is showing distress you are
expected to behave in a certain way they
don’t do this there are also differences
that are interpersonal in nature
they manipulate other people they use
them as a means to an end and there is
grandiosity as well or an exaggerated
sense of self-importance this is also
seen in psychopathy and people who are
high in psychopathy there’s a last piece
and that piece is sensation-seeking
and impulsivity this is not so much seen
in the elite psychopathy caricature
people who are high in psychopathy will
act impulsively they will act they will
seek sensation and they will not duly
consider risk versus reward and so often
they will commit criminal acts and
when they seek sensation they have to
calculate this risk versus reward
they have to actively weigh the risk
versus the reward in order to make the
action but we don’t really see this in
people who are high in psychopathy and
then of course there is that aggression
pieces generalized aggression so people
who are high in psychopathy have
difficulty determining victims versus
victimless crimes and so when they
commit these crimes they do not duly
consider the potential impact this might
have on another person so let’s talk
about some of the brain differences we
see in psychopathy mainly we will talk
about the amygdala which is an area of
the brain near the centre of the brain
and there is less activation and people
higher in psychopathy in this region
when they are looking at the emotions of
other feet of other people specifically
distress emotions and that’s important
because when they’re not processing the
distress of other people perhaps you are
not also feeling the guilt and remorse
that a normal person would typically
experience when they can tell those
so when there’s less activation in
people who are high in psychopathy this
area of the brain the amygdala involved
in emotion processing again shows less
activation so what’s the importance of
studying psychopathy well there is this
linkage between psychopathy and crime if
you look at the literature on
psychopathy you will find that most
participants are inmates this is not a
coincidence it is far more prevalent in
prison populations it’s been estimated
anywhere from fifty to eighty percent of
inmates could qualify for some symptom
ology and psychopathy that is above the
norm outside of prison populations a
much less percentage could be considered
high in psychopathy it has been
estimated anywhere from one point three
to six point eight five percent of men
in the general population mainly the
United States could qualify as having
some symptom ology associated with
psychopathy
whereas in women it is 0.8 percent so
considerably less could be considered to
qualify for the symptoms of psychopathy
it is also important to study
psychopathy because at this time
treatments for psychopathy have been
largely unsuccessful
is because treatments like cognitive and
behavioral strategies require some kind
of agency or willingness to change in
participants or patients people who are
high in psychopathy unsurprisingly seem
to lack this agency and willingness to
change and so the treatments are largely
unsuccessful so what is being done well
currently our lab here at here at
Juniata College is working on this
distressed specific hypothesis which is
that the affective symptoms the
emotional processing symptoms of
psychology are of psychopathy I’m sorry
could be could be responsible for this
deficit in processing the distress
emotions in other people so we thought
what if we could prime them for a
congruent emotion and maybe that could
maybe alter this effect this delay in
processing the emotions of other people
so we use something called the
autobiographical emotional memory task
which challenges a participant to recall
a time in their in their life where they
felt a specific emotion we used fear so
our participants recall the time in
their life where they experienced fear
and because of this it may be that fear
becomes more salient it’s more
accessible it’s more easy to recognize
in other people so if we could take
participants people who are high in
psychopathy and prime them for this fear
they may subsequently be better able to
recognize that fear in other people and
if our findings support this it may be
that priming for a congruent emotion
could be a way through exposure to
condition an empathic response and
people who would otherwise lack such a
response in other words we could foster
empathy in Psychopaths and this would be
groundbreaking because incarceration in
our country is at an all-time high and
if we could somehow minimize this
through through developing strategies to
address people who had psychopathic
symptoms before criminal behaviors can
begin to manifest we might be able to
deal with the current dilemma that is
psychopathy in our country thank you [Applause]
about what psychopathy is the term and
what we’re doing about it
here at Juniata College so I’ll begin by
saying in the fall of 2016 our lab in
the psychology department under
Professor Rebecca Weldon was attempting
to ascertain some of these features
underlying psychopathy and how they
relate to student populations we found
consistent with a hypothesis called the
distressed specific hypothesis which
we’ll talk about in a little bit that
participants who were higher in
psychopathy which is this this empathic
deficit were slower in recognizing the
fearful faces of other people and I’m
gonna discuss the implications of this
now in the fall of this school year
we wanted to try something else we
wanted to question the impossible the
fact is that there are very few
treatments for psychopathy and we wanted
to see if we could alter this effect
this delay in recognizing the fearful
faces of other people by priming empathy
or something like empathy in those
think in order to understand what I mean
by psychopathy we should discuss how the
term has been sensationalized in the
media so in pop culture in Hollywood
there is this thing that has been coined
the elite psychopath so I’ll tell you a
bit about what that is but first I think
I should give some examples such
characters as Hannibal Lecter Patrick
Bateman from American Psycho or the most
recent television adaptation of Sherlock
Holmes all of these could qualify as
this elite psychopath caricature and
it’s problematic in a number of ways
these characters are anti heroes at the
core so you are invited to empathize
with these with these protagonistic
characters who never really do show
empathy themselves or to other people
and so of course we want to emulate
these characters but as a matter of fact
they do show some of the qualities of
psychopathy they are they are cold
calculating apathetic they’re
sophisticated but there are also some
things that we don’t really see as often
in actual psychopathy
they are one step ahead of the
competition always they are
Machiavellian masterminds and that’s not
something we really see so I’m going to
talk about how psychopathy has been
characterized in the field of psychology
and that those components will be
differences in action and differences in
the brain also I think it’s important to
note that in the dsm-5 which is a
terminology manual for psychology
antisocial personality disorder has been
considered synonymous with psychopathy
while it shares some common symptom
ology we will be considering psychopathy
in accordance with a different set of
features and facets that set it apart
ever so slightly with antisocial
personality disorder but I should start
by saying in antisocial personality
disorder we see symptoms like aggression
outward aggression that can be
generalized this impulsiveness
sensation-seeking behavior recklessness
and an association with criminal
behavior so let’s talk about some of
these there’s a lack of guilt or remorse
there’s a lack of emotional expression
these symptoms are affective or
emotional processing differences our
study focused mainly on these so people
who are high in psychopathy will tend to
be callous a bit like the pop culture
representation they will lack emotional
expression so they won’t be expressing
emotions to other people there’s also a
lack of pro-social emotional response
which means in day-to-day interaction
when someone is showing distress you are
expected to behave in a certain way they
don’t do this there are also differences
that are interpersonal in nature
they manipulate other people they use
them as a means to an end and there is
grandiosity as well or an exaggerated
sense of self-importance this is also
seen in psychopathy and people who are
high in psychopathy there’s a last piece
and that piece is sensation-seeking
and impulsivity this is not so much seen
in the elite psychopathy caricature
people who are high in psychopathy will
act impulsively they will act they will
seek sensation and they will not duly
consider risk versus reward and so often
they will commit criminal acts and
when they seek sensation they have to
calculate this risk versus reward
they have to actively weigh the risk
versus the reward in order to make the
action but we don’t really see this in
people who are high in psychopathy and
then of course there is that aggression
pieces generalized aggression so people
who are high in psychopathy have
difficulty determining victims versus
victimless crimes and so when they
commit these crimes they do not duly
consider the potential impact this might
have on another person so let’s talk
about some of the brain differences we
see in psychopathy mainly we will talk
about the amygdala which is an area of
the brain near the centre of the brain
and there is less activation and people
higher in psychopathy in this region
when they are looking at the emotions of
other feet of other people specifically
distress emotions and that’s important
because when they’re not processing the
distress of other people perhaps you are
not also feeling the guilt and remorse
that a normal person would typically
experience when they can tell those
so when there’s less activation in
people who are high in psychopathy this
area of the brain the amygdala involved
in emotion processing again shows less
activation so what’s the importance of
studying psychopathy well there is this
linkage between psychopathy and crime if
you look at the literature on
psychopathy you will find that most
participants are inmates this is not a
coincidence it is far more prevalent in
prison populations it’s been estimated
anywhere from fifty to eighty percent of
inmates could qualify for some symptom
ology and psychopathy that is above the
norm outside of prison populations a
much less percentage could be considered
high in psychopathy it has been
estimated anywhere from one point three
to six point eight five percent of men
in the general population mainly the
United States could qualify as having
some symptom ology associated with
psychopathy
whereas in women it is 0.8 percent so
considerably less could be considered to
qualify for the symptoms of psychopathy
it is also important to study
psychopathy because at this time
treatments for psychopathy have been
largely unsuccessful
is because treatments like cognitive and
behavioral strategies require some kind
of agency or willingness to change in
participants or patients people who are
high in psychopathy unsurprisingly seem
to lack this agency and willingness to
change and so the treatments are largely
unsuccessful so what is being done well
currently our lab here at here at
Juniata College is working on this
distressed specific hypothesis which is
that the affective symptoms the
emotional processing symptoms of
psychology are of psychopathy I’m sorry
could be could be responsible for this
deficit in processing the distress
emotions in other people so we thought
what if we could prime them for a
congruent emotion and maybe that could
maybe alter this effect this delay in
processing the emotions of other people
so we use something called the
autobiographical emotional memory task
which challenges a participant to recall
a time in their in their life where they
felt a specific emotion we used fear so
our participants recall the time in
their life where they experienced fear
and because of this it may be that fear
becomes more salient it’s more
accessible it’s more easy to recognize
in other people so if we could take
participants people who are high in
psychopathy and prime them for this fear
they may subsequently be better able to
recognize that fear in other people and
if our findings support this it may be
that priming for a congruent emotion
could be a way through exposure to
condition an empathic response and
people who would otherwise lack such a
response in other words we could foster
empathy in Psychopaths and this would be
groundbreaking because incarceration in
our country is at an all-time high and
if we could somehow minimize this
through through developing strategies to
address people who had psychopathic
symptoms before criminal behaviors can
begin to manifest we might be able to
deal with the current dilemma that is
psychopathy in our country thank you [Applause]
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