This paper examines Robert D. Hare's influential book "Without a Conscience," which challenges common misconceptions about psychopaths as violent criminals. The paper discusses Hare's definition of psychopathy as a personality disorder characterized by lack of conscience despite awareness of right and wrong, analyzes key psychopathic traits including manipulativeness and impulsivity, explores neurobiological and genetic theories of psychopathy, and reviews forensic psychology assessment scales—particularly the PCL-R—used to identify and predict reoffending risk. The paper emphasizes that many psychopaths operate undetected in society and that not all psychopaths are violent, though those with higher psychopathy scores show greater risk for violence and reoffending.
Most people would be terrified as well as perhaps intrigued by the word psychopath, and they visualize images of cold-blooded and remorseless murderers or offenders as depicted in television and films. However, Dr. Robert D. Hare, arguably the most well-known researcher of psychopathy, describes such people as those who essentially suffer from a personality disorder but are very aware of the results of their actions and have the sense of right and wrong. Such people are often hardly distinguishable in common life and seem to be just like anyone else in society until their cruel side emerges.
Hare discusses these aspects of dual consciousness, cruelty, and violence of psychopaths—knowing very well the consequences of their actions—in his book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Amongst Us. The book describes, with real-life examples of patients and offenders that Hare met and interviewed during his professional years, the traits and characteristics of psychopaths. Many consider this book to be a self-help resource that can be used to identify and understand psychopaths.
The book is of value to the general public and would help verify suspicions about individuals being psychopathic based on characteristics of psychopaths as described by Hare, such as people who "have no real feelings or conscience" and are "relentless users" who always devise tricks to manipulate others. The book also delves into the scientific causes of psychopathic behavior and the ways to measure psychopathic behavior through forensic science.
Hare describes a majority of psychopaths as people who might not have committed any real crime in the eyes of the law during their entire lives, yet they cannot be trusted. There is always a lurking fear about what such people can do when they are identified as psychopaths. Hare calls such persons "social predators" that mingle in society with outward normal behavior but only to hide their true nature.
Hare suggests using his Psychology Checklist to identify and discover true psychopaths in society. Hare claims that this checklist can serve as a tool for predicting the probability of criminals who are most likely to reoffend. He contradicts the common notion that the concept of antisocial personality disorder or conduct disorder for children cannot be used to describe psychopaths. Instead, he suggests identification of psychopaths according to stricter criteria that he advocates in his checklist.
Hare describes the characteristics of typical psychopaths as being absolutely self-centered persons who often tend to be impulsive. Such persons have a tendency to lie about many things, even everyday mundane issues, with the sole aim of manipulating other people for personal gains. Often they resort to violence to get what they want or, in extreme cases, to derive pleasure from violence. Hare claims that psychopaths often indulge in reckless activities that amount to law-breaking and land them behind bars. Despite all these traits and characteristics, psychopaths are often described as charming and manipulative. This charm is used by psychopaths to deceive people and also to impress authorities to get early paroles.
Hare raises important questions at this juncture about whether psychopaths are merely calculating or impulsive and act on instincts. Another critical aspect is explaining the absence of conscience among psychopaths. Hare's inquiry has made him certain that psychopaths do not feel any great sympathy for the persons they cause hurt or injury to. He raises the question about whether such people are driven by the lack of having any "bad" feeling or whether non-sympathy is a personality disorder.
Hare observes that most of the psychopaths he interviewed were not in the habit of breaking the law and had probably never done so during their entire lives. However, such persons never let go a chance to bend and twist situations for personal gains. They do this to manipulate people around them so that their "grand" plan can be achieved. The primary instinct among psychopaths is that they really want to dominate others and have their way.
Hare further claims that such people are found all around in society, hiding their true nature under the veil of charm and simplicity. He argues that a miniscule percentage of psychopaths actually get behind bars, as most live normal lives outwardly. He claims that such people would be more harmful to society than criminals, as they are allowed to roam free and cause harm to others. The book describes people with psychopathic criminal records and violence but also people who appear normal yet have traits of psychopathic behavior concealed within them. He suggests that such people could manifest their psychopathic traits at any moment and yet not be acutely identifiable as psychopaths.
There are several schools of thought about the reasons for psychopathic behavior. Hare claims that some are genetic, whereas others are non-genetic.
Hare suggests the Arousal theory, where he ascribes psychopathic behavior among people to the low level of autonomic and cortical arousal and a high rate of activity in comparison to non-psychopathic people. The theory attributes psychopathic behavior to a constant state of arousal among such people and their tendency to seek stimulation, which, according to Hare, explains why psychopaths do not react to conditions or stimuli that would be considered stressful, exciting, or frightening for non-psychopaths. This necessitates a greater intensity and variety of stimuli that would tend to increase the arousal level among them.
The theory is based on the assumption that a certain level is considered functionally optimum for non-psychopathic individuals in reaction to sensory stimulus. Hence, when the arousal falls below the normal functionally optimum level, stimulation-seeking behaviors occur to raise the arousal level. Since the functionally optimum arousal level in psychopaths is higher than in normal people, they need greater sensory stimulus to reach the optimum level.
The neurobiological theory of psychopathy suggests that such individuals are essentially different biologically from normal people. Hare appears to partially subscribe to this theory, which claims that the complex brain structure in psychopaths is different and they do not show appropriate neural differentiation between abstract and concrete stimuli. Studies, according to Hare, suggested a moderate relation between genes and genetic influence on psychopathic behavior. While being uncorrelated with each other, fearless dominance and impulsive antisociality were also found to be linked genetically to a moderate degree. He also mentions the studied fact that while development of psychopathic behavior is influenced by genetic factors, surrounding environmental factors influence some of the specific traits that psychopaths develop over time that dominate their behavior.
Other studies have linked psychopathic behavior to high levels of testosterone together with low levels of cortisol and serotonin. Studies seem to suggest that the combination of these three hormones heightens psychopathic behavior. The hormones have been attributed to the reduction of fear, sensitivity to rewards, and behavior related to approaching situations. Some studies, suggested by Hare, have shown the relation between testosterone and antisocial or aggressive behavior, while other studies suggest that testosterone alone does not cause aggressive behavior. Hence, there seems to be a lack of conclusive proof that could be definitively linked to psychopathic behavior. However, there is experimental proof enough to suggest a link between biochemicals and psychopathic behavior. Other studies have also been carried out to link psychopathic behavior to the ratio between HVA, a dopamine metabolite, and 5-HIAA, a serotonin metabolite.
Forensic psychology is used to measure psychopathic behavior. Researchers have developed several methods and models to measure and link psychopathic behavior for forensic purposes. The measures are often used to ascertain the chances of a criminal committing an offense once again. Hare states that such measures are used by law enforcement agencies to rate chances of paroles and to keep a watch on individuals who have the most chances of reoffending.
One of the first scales to measure psychopathy was the PPI, which has a list of 163 items subdivided into eight subscales. This scale is used to measure the personality traits that are associated with psychopathic behavior in an individual. However, this scale is unable to measure the antisocial behavior in psychopaths. Another drawback of this scale is the propensity of psychopaths to lie, as lying is one of the major characteristics of psychopathic behavior; hence, the scores in this scale need to be viewed with presumptions and decreases reliability.
The APQ scale measures psychopathic behavior and traits on a scale measured from 150 items divided into eight subgroups. This essentially measures the influence of emotional dysfunction, impulse control, and deviant beliefs about self and others among other personality traits in an individual.
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