Jim Noblin
14 min readMay 31, 2016

Neurological Psychopaths and PCL-R Psychopaths

The first and second parts below (And it is long) describe opinions based on PCL-R comparisons of criminality with mostly APD.

PCL-R vs. APD

First.

“The concept and actual term psychopathy is no longer in and of itself an actual clinical diagnosis but rather refers to a specific cluster of traits and behaviors used to describe an individual in terms of pervasive dominating personality traits and behaviors (Gunn, J., and Wells, R. (1999).The antisocial personality disorder: strategies for psychotherapy. Chapter 18. In Forensic Psychotherapy:Crime, Psychodynamics and the Offender Patient. Philadelphia, PA: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.; Hare, R.D.(1993). Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us. New York: The Guilford Press Inc.).

The terms psychopathy, antisocial personality, and sociopathy have periodically been used interchangeably, which has resulted in a degree of conceptual difficulty………… Identifying and examining the core personality and behavioral components of psychopathy at first glance appears to be a rather straight forward task. By identifying and describing some of the psychopathy basics, specifically the personality, behavioral, and affective characteristics classified psychopathic, one can better appreciate the complexities of such topics. ……….

The future of terms and concepts like antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy, and sociopathy used to describe aberrant behavior remains unclear. Most would agree that various types of aberrant behavior can be difficult to understand, especially if that behavior appears to be chosen of one’s freewill or is not related to some type of brain disease.” (Psychopathy, Antisocial Personality & Sociopathy: The Basics: A History Review, pp. 16, Paula M. MacKenzie, PsyD, MSEd, Copyright © The Forensic Examiner 2014) http://www.theforensicexaminer.c...

CRIMINALS

Cluster 1: Secondary psychopaths:

Members of this group (29.5% of the full sample) were characterized by more severe alcohol and drug problems and higher anxiety than all other clusters, as well as the highest PCL-R Factor 2 scores (though only significantly higher than those of Cluster 2).Their Factor 1 and IM-P scores were average relative to other clusters………..

Individuals in this cluster were older (mean age ¼ 28.9 years) than individuals in Clusters 2 and 4. The cluster was composed of 46.6% African-Americans and 51.7% Caucasians. …………..

Cluster 3: Primary psychopaths:

This group (17.0% of the sample) was comprised of men characterized by higher scores on PCL-R Factor 1 and on the IM-P than men in other clusters. In contrast, their scores on Factor 2 of the PCL-R were average. They were also distinguished from those in the other cluster with high psychopathy factor scores (Cluster 1) by a less severe pattern of alcohol and drug-related problems and by lower anxiety………..

The mean age of individuals in this cluster was 26.3 years. The group was comprised of 60.6% African-Americans and 39.4% Caucasians. Individuals in this cluster were distinguished by the greatest number of charges for violent offences relative to the other three groups and by greater criminal versatility and more incarcerations than individuals in the two non-psychopathic clusters………….

Cluster 4: Criminals with features of psychopathy.

Members of this cluster (26.0% of the sample) were the only participants characterized by neither alcohol abuse nor dependence. They were also characterized by less severe drug problems than men in Cluster 1 and lower IM-P scores than men in Clusters 1 and 3.Their scores on PCL-R Factor 1 were lower than those of men in Cluster 3, but their scores on both factors were higher than those of men in Cluster 2.They also exhibited the lowest anxiety scores although not significantly lower than those of most other clusters……….

Individuals in this group were younger than individuals in other clusters (mean age ¼ 23.69 years), but only significantly younger than members of Cluster 1. This cluster included the highest proportion of African-American (67.3%) and Latino individuals (9.6%), with only 23.1% of the members being Caucasian. Although cluster members were characterized by fewer incarcerations and less criminal versatility than individuals in the primary psychopathy cluster, they had, in spite of their young age, been charged with a number of violent offences relatively similar to those in the secondary psychopath cluster. They were also characterized by more childhood CD symptoms than were individuals in the non-psychopathic cluster and significantly more CD symptoms than individuals in the primary psychopathic cluster………..

The current findings also raise some important implications for treatment of subtypes of criminal offenders. It is possible that the psychopaths who have been considered to be notoriously recalcitrant to treatment could be more akin to the primary psychopaths that we identified in our study. In contrast, secondary psychopaths could be more amenable to treatment. For example, as noted by Salekin (2002), the presence of anxiety is considered a positive prognostic sign for treatment efficacy. However, as revealed by Salekin’s meta-analysis of treatment studies of psychopathy, only four studies to date have utilized the PCL-R criteria for operationalizing psychopathy. Therefore, the research on the amenability of PCL-R-classified psychopaths to treatment is still nascent and it would be informative for future studies to explore the response to treatment in primary and secondary psychopaths.” (Psychopathy versus psychopathies in classifying criminal offenders- Jasmin Vassileva Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois, Chicago. David S. Kosson Department of Psychology, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. Carolyn Abramowitz National Addiction Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, UK and Patricia Conrod. Legal and Criminological Psychology (2005), 10, 27–43 ,2005 The British Psychological Society.https://www.researchgate.net/pro...

Second.

“Psychopathy and APD have often been considered synonymous with each other with some individuals considering them to be the same diagnosis but with different names (e.g.,Blackburn, R. (1998). Psychopathy and personality disorder: Implications of interpersonaltheory. In D. J. Cooke, A. E. Forth, & R. D. Hare (Eds.), Psychopathy: Theory, research,and implications for society (pp. 269–301). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.; Stout, M. (2005). The sociopath next door: The ruthless versus the rest of us. New York:Broadway books.). There are however, key differences between the two constructs. As Hare (Hare, R.D. (1993) Without conscience: The disturbing world of the psychopaths among us.New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.) suggests, criminal behavior is central to the construct of APD, whereas psychopathy is a set of personality traits that can lead to criminality. This view is supported by Cleckley (Cleckley, H. (1941). The mask of sanity: an attempt to reinterpret the so-called psychopathic personality. Oxford, UK: Mosby.) who consider the main advantage (Internet Journal of Criminology ©2014 ISSN 2045 6743 (Online)Peer-reviewed academic criminology articles in a free acces online criminology journal) of a diagnosis of psychopathy over that of APD is that it not only takes into account an individual’s behavior but also their personality. Moran (1999), argues that too much inference is required to study an individual’s personality and that this can lead to low inter-rater reliability when it is measured. Despite this, there is no evidence of low interrate reliability associated with the PCL-R, one of the primary measures of psychopathy(Hare, 1991)<<<Isn’t that clever, no proof indicates no proof not//. Given that psychopathy itself can be understood as a collection of personality traits such as remorselessness, callousness, deceitfulness, egocentricity, failure to form close emotional bonds, low anxiety proneness, superficial charm andexternalisation of blame (Lillienfeld, 1998), it is clear to see why the examination of personality traits is so important in the study of psychopathy. APD itself has received a certain amount of criticism for its potential for overinclusiveness (Lilienfeld, 1994). Figures indicate that 50–80% of incarcerated individuals typically qualify for a diagnosis of APD, when we compare this to psychopathy the figures are much lower, 15–30% (Hart & Hare, 1997). These figures would suggest that these conditions therefore are not mutually exclusive a view which is supported by the fact that well-validated measures of psychopathy correlate to a lesser degree with APD than would be expected of measures of the same construct (Hare, 2003). So whilst there is a link between psychopathy and APD, this is not strong enough to suggest that these terms should be held synonymous with each other. Rather, APD should be better seen as a diagnostic expression of criminality due to exclusive emphasis on antisocial, criminal and (to a lesser extent) violent behavior, whereas psychopathy presents a much more complex condition which takes into account personality traits and behaviors, some of which can predispose individuals to acts of antisociality. The fact that these are not central to construct of psychopathy however, shows a clear distinction between psychopathy and APD.” DOES SECONDARY PSYCHOPATHY EXIST? EXPLORING CONCEPTUALISATIONS OF PSYCHOPATHY AND EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF A SECONDARY VARIANT by Christopher Thomas Gowlett, Internet Journal of Criminology ©2014ISSN 2045 6743 (Online) Gowlett_Does_Secondary_Psychopathy_Exist_IJC_Jan_2014.pdf

And a few more nails……….”As a result, the diagnosis of ASPD is something that the “majority of criminals easily meet”. Hare goes further to say that the percentage of incarcerated criminals that meet the requirements of ASPD is somewhere between 80 and 85 percent, whereas only about 20% of these criminals would qualify for a diagnosis of what Hare’s scale considers to be a psychopath. Psychopathy Checklist.

This twenty percent, according to Hare, accounts for 50 percent of all the most serious crimes committed, including half of all serial and repeat rapists.

PCL-R Psychopathy vs. Primary Psychopathy

Third.

So now that we have indicated differences between APD (ASPD), Sociopathy (Secondary Psychopathy), and PCL-R Psychopathy then the assumption should be that PCL-R is psychopathy, right? After all the pop culture idiots must have something right somewhere.

YEAH RIGHT!!

Several types of statistical analyses have been performed to examine the latent structure of psychopathy using PCL-R scores, including factor analysis (Blackburn, Ronald and Coid, Jeremy W. (1998). Psychopathy and the dimensions of personality disorder in violent offenders. Personality and Individual Differences. 25(1): 129–145.doi:10.1016/s0191–8869(98)00027–0.doi:10.1016/S0191–8869(98)00027–0) and model based cluster analysis (Hicks, Brian M.; Markon, Kristian E.; Patrick, Christopher J.; Krueger, Robert F. and Newman, Joseph P. (2004). Identifying Psychopathy Subtypes on the Basis of Personality Structure.Psychological Assessment. 16(3): 276–288. doi:10.1037/1040–3590.16.3.276.doi:10.1037/1040–3590.16.3.276). However, dimensional and categorical assumptions are built into factor and cluster analyses, respectively. These tests do not determine whether a construct is categorical or dimensional (Walters et al., 2007 Psychological Assessment. 19(3): 330–339.doi:10.1037/1040–3590.19.3.330.doi:10.1037/1040–3590.19.3.330). On the other hand, taxometric analyses <<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/...>> were specifically designed to identify discrete versus dimensional structures. Taxometric studies of the PCL-R and related instruments have yielded mixed results, (Walters, Glenn D. et al. 2007, Psychological Assessment. 19(3): 330–339. doi:10.1037/1040–3590.19.3.330.doi:10.1037/1040–3590.19.3.330) rendering the latent structure of psychopathy yet undetermined.Kent Kiehl and Julia Lushing (2014), Scholarpedia, 9(5):30835. http://www.scholarpedia.org/arti...

But a favorite of mine is: “A study using the PCL-R to examine the relationship between antisocial behavior and suicide found that suicide history was strongly correlated to PCL-R factor 2 (reflecting antisocial deviance) and was not correlated to PCL-R factor 1 (reflecting affective functioning). Given that ASPD relates to factor 2, whereas psychopathy relates to both factors, this would confirm Hervey M. Cleckley’s assertion that psychopaths are relatively immune to suicide. People with ASPD, on the other hand, have a relatively high suicide rate.” Psychopathy Checklist

I can see the Hariots now screaming ‘see, see, factor 1 accurately depicts Primary Psychopaths”. Yeah….. if the PCL-R only incuded factor 1 then it would be closer. But it includes factor 2 which is unrelated to primary psychopaths.

And that favorite false statement of LOVEFRAUD: That psychopathy strongly indicate sexual re-offense rates. The PCL-R is sometimes used to assess risk of sexual (re)offending, with mixed results. Leam Craig, Kevin Browne, Anthony R. Beech (2008) Assessing Risk in Sex Offenders p. 117 John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 0–470–01898–4 Or are they correct and it does and the PCL-R is wrong…..pick your poison.

“In 2010 there was controversy after it emerged that Hare had threatened legal action that stopped publication of a peer-reviewed article on the PCL-R. Hare alleged the article quoted or paraphrased him incorrectly. The article eventually appeared three years later. It alleged that the checklist is wrongly viewed by many as the basic definition of psychopathy, yet it leaves out key factors, while also making criminality too central to the concept. The authors claimed this leads to problems in overdiagnosis and in the use of the checklist to secure convictions. Hare has since stated that he receives less than $35,000 a year from royalties associated with the checklist and its derivatives.” Minkel, JR (June 17, 2010). “Fear Review: Critique of Forensic Psychopathy Scale Delayed 3 Years by Threat of Lawsuit”. Scientific America. Psychopathy Checklist

“Some research suggests that ratings made using the PCL-R system depend on the personality of the person doing the rating, including how empathic they themselves are. One forensic researcher has suggested that future studies need to examine the class background, race and philosophical beliefs of raters because they may not be aware of enacting biased judgments of people whose section of society or individual lives they have no understanding of or empathy for.” Franklin, Karen (2011).”Psychopathy: A Rorschach test for psychologists?”. Witness.[self-published source?] Miller, A. K.; Rufino, K. A.; Boccaccini, M. T.; Jackson, R. L.; Murrie, D. C. (2011). “On Individual Differences in Person Perception: Raters’ Personality Traits Relate to Their Psychopathy Checklist-Revised Scoring Tendencies”.Assessment 18 (2): 253–60. doi:10.1177/1073191111402460.PMID 21393315. Psychopathy Checklist

Conclusion

The paper Hare was not only unable to respond too, but reduced him to a sociopathic frothing fit when it was finally published. (after his faux threats to sue everybody in sight to prevent its publication.) Psychological Assessment © 2010 American Psychological Association2010, Vol. 22, No. 2, 433– 445 https://www.researchgate.net/pro...

And of course I will bore you with my favorite part:

“The problems inherent in equating the structure of a measure with a model of psychopathy are visible at both the person and construct levels. First, because it frames criminality as central to psychopathy, the dominant two-factor model is underinclusive of some psychopathic people and overinclusive of some nonpsychopathic people (Lilienfeld, 1994). With respect to under inclusion, the framework of basic tendencies and characteristic adaptations is useful. Basic tendencies are underlying dispositions that, in combination with environmental forces, produce a variety of characteristic adaptations, or concrete habits, attitudes, and skills (Cattell,1957; McCrae & Costa, 2003). By assuming there is only one characteristic adaptation to psychopathic tendencies, the two factor model has established this as a literature on unsuccessful psychopathy. Given individual differences in talents and opportunities, psychopathic tendencies may be manifested in one individual’s criminality, in another individual’s heroism, and in still another’s worldly success (see Cleckley, 1976; Harkness & Lilienfeld,1997; Lilienfeld, 1998; Lykken, 1995). The business success of “snakes in suits” (Babiak & Hare, 2006) contradicts the notion that classic criminal behavior is central to psychopathy(Hare & Neumann, 2005). Hare (1996a) has long spoken of the psychopaths among us who infiltrate political, law enforcement, government, and other social structures: “Thanks to Hare, we now understand that the great majority of psychopaths are not violent criminals and never will be. Hundreds of thousands of psychopaths live and work and prey among us” (Hercz, 2001, ¶ 11). The two-factor model poorly identifies this “great majority of psychopaths”who escape contact with the legal system or simply express their psychopathic tendencies in a manner that does not conflict with the law.

By the same token, the two-factor model is potentially over inclusive in that it identifies individuals who are antisocial but not necessarily psychopathic. Criminal and violent behavior may be based on a host of factors other than psychopathic personality ROLE OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR IN PSYCHOPATHY 435 deviation (Blackburn, 1998), ranging from substance abuse to disadvantaged neighborhoods (Monahan et al., 2001). Perhaps because they include nonspecific indices of criminal behavior, PCL-R measures have been shown to identify a heterogeneous group of individuals as psychopathic (Brinkley, Newman, Widiger, &Lynam, 2004; B. M. Hicks, Markon, Patrick, Krueger, & Newman,2004; Skeem, Johansson, Andershed, Kerr, & Eno Louden, 2007). Ideally, a diagnostic tool would operationalize a disorder with a common etiology, pathology, course, and treatment response: It is problematic for a tool to yield “a heterogeneous group of people all called the same thing” (Follette & Houts, 1996, p. 1128). In summary, Hare et al. (1991) once noted that the criteria for antisocial personality disorder “define a diagnostic category that is at once too broad, encompassing criminals and antisocial persons who are psychologically heterogeneous, and too narrow, excluding those who have the personality structure of the psychopath but who have not exhibited . . . antisocial behaviors” (p. 393). We believe that similar problems apply to the two-factor model’s PCL–R criteria for psychopathy. Second, beyond the person level,the two-factor model also is under- and overrepresentative of the psychopathy construct itself, in the sense that it excludes some features that appear central to psychopathy (e.g., low trait anxiety) and includes others (e.g., criminal behavior) that are not. For example, of those identified as psychopathic by the PCL–R, only the subset that also possesses low trait anxiety manifests deficits inpassive avoidance learning (Arnett, Smith, & Newman, 1997;Newman & Schmitt, 1998), modulation of responses to emotional and neutral stimuli (Hiatt, Lorenz, & Newman, 2002; Lorenz &Newman, 2002; Newman, Schmitt, & Voss, 1997), and fear potentiated startle response (Sutton, Vitale, & Newman, 2002). Anxiety is positively associated with antisocial behavior (old Factor 2) and inversely associated with interpersonal and affective features of psychopathy (old Factor 1; B. M. Hicks & Patrick,2006; Patrick, 1994; Verona, Patrick, & Joiner, 2001; cf. Schmitt& Newman, 1999). These data suggest that the PCL–R’s omission of trait anxiety and inclusion of criminal features promote over diagnosis of psychopathy. Only a subset of individuals with high PCL–R scores shares potential pathological processes seen by some as the core of the disorder. In recognition of this fact, some scholars (e.g., Newman) have long supplemented the PCL–R with measures of anxiety to better isolate psychopathy.”

Conclusion Addendum

What you guys completely fail to understand is there is more than 1 kind of psychopath.

There is the PCL-R criminal psychopaths which I believe makes up to right at 20% of PCL-R psychopaths.The PCL-R make up just less than 1/3 of psychopaths. I am not a PCL-R psychopath. We non PCL-R psychopaths are substantially more than 1/4 of the wolves. Adding the wolves together, we make up just short of 3/5ths of psychopaths.

And the remaining neurological psychopaths are Dave Grossman’s Sheep Dogs. Dark Personality: How did Dave Grossman fail to become a giant in the field of psychopathy? Quoting extensively from Dr. Roy Swank and Dr. Walter Marchand’s 1946 study done for the U.S. Army regarding combat effectiveness of troops it was noted in every instance those who were still effective after 30 days of continuous combat were that 2% who had psychopathic tendencies. So why does Dave Grossman continuously refer to the 3% of Americans as psychopaths? Because the missing 1% are those psychopaths completely unsuitable for any military structure. And among them are the PCL-R criminal psychopaths. There were other psychopaths not even in the study, the ones who were in critical elements of industry and politicians. And this demonstrates why Cleckley stated that more than 4% of the American population were psychopaths.

But less than 20% of the PCL-R psychopaths are criminals. And there would be more than 300 psychopaths of every 10,000 of the population. The 20% is my crude estimate. The main weakness other than of course no real statistics, is my estimations are only slightly higher than prison incarceration. Based on 3+% psychopaths (remember Cleckley estimated over 4%) and a USA population of 318,000,000 people equals at least 9,540,000 psychopaths.

Using Hare’s 1% estimate there would be 3,180,000 PCL-R psychopaths. In 2008 for the year there were 2,418,352 total incarcerated in adult jail, prison, and Juvenile detention in the USA.. Reducing Mass Incarceration Requires Far-Reaching Reforms Of these 1,610,446 were in state and federal prison.and since it is estimated that just 20.6% of these imprisoned are PCL-R psychopaths.Psychopathy. This would add up to an estimated 331,752 incarcerated in prison psychopaths. 807,906 of the non prison are jail and juvenile. I take 14% of those to be PCL-R psychopaths (purely from nether regions, as there are no real numbers here) which would be 112,267 there. For a total of 444,019. That would be 15% of total PCL-R psychopaths imprisoned in 2008. There will be others on parole, probation etc… and some will not be under wraps, so I don’t think my 20% is off by that much.

But the most important point made here is psychopathy is far more complicated and strange relative to most neurotypicals than pop culture or Robert Hare and his disciples describe. Psychopaths are not cuddly but not all of them are a threat to society. And because most psychopaths not incarcerated have learned that being revealed is not a positive life occurrence. So until they are recognized as merely having a different brain structure and not as universally criminal it does not behoove the average non criminal psychopath to risk exposure.

Jim Noblin

No the dog is not mine. I admit I am non-christian, a psychopath, pushy, empiricist, shockingly blunt.