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<H3>The Predator's Gaze</H3>
<H2>Scientists explore the frightening world of psychopaths</H2>
<P><STRONG>Bruce Bower</STRONG></P>
<P>Derry Mainwaring-Knight holds a special place in the annals of con artistry.
Fresh out of an English prison in 1984 after serving time for a rape conviction,
Mainwaring-Knight convinced a church rector to enlist in his battle against the
spread of devil worshippers. The articulate, ingratiating ex-convict offered to
start an organization that would purchase and destroy artifacts linked to
satanism and black magic. </P>
<P>
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<P class=caption>New studies are delving into the nature and roots of
psychopathy. This personality disorder characterizes a substantial
minority of criminal offenders, including serial killers such as Ted
Bundy. This photo was taken in a Florida courtroom in 1979, during his
trial for the murder of two women.<BR><SPAN
style="COLOR: rgb(102,102,102); FONT-STYLE: normal">Corbis</SPAN></P></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></P>
<P>Within a few months, the dazzled rector had emptied his own pockets and
obtained money for Mainwaring-Knight's campaign from many devout church members,
including prominent politicians and businesspeople. Mainwaring-Knight collected
nearly $400,000 as well as a Rolls-Royce automobile. He spent the money on
himself and his girlfriends. </P>
<P>In 1986, the satanic bubble burst. Mainwaring-Knight was hauled into court on
19 counts of fraud. Denying any wrongdoing, he argued that he had no need to
trick people out of their money since he made a great living running a
prostitution ring. After his conviction, his mother revealed that he had also
duped her out of a large sum of cash. </P>
<P>Mainwaring-Knight wasn't just a con man. By all accounts, he had a
psychopathic personality. <STRONG><FONT color=#0000ff>Psychopaths lack a
conscience and are incapable of experiencing empathy, guilt, or
loyalty.</FONT></STRONG> Descriptions of psychopaths callously manipulating,
intimidating, or harming others go back hundreds of years. </P>
<P>Psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley wrote <I>The Mask of Sanity</I> (1941, Mosby), a
classic textbook on psychopathy. Cleckley portrayed psychopaths as superficially
charming, intelligent people who don't feel deep emotions and lie about almost
everything because they neither understand nor care about others. </P>
<P>Two conditions—sociopathy and antisocial personality disorder—often get
confused with psychopathy. Sociopathy refers to criminal attitudes and behaviors
viewed as normal in certain groups, such as street gangs. Sociopaths have a
sense of right and wrong that is based on the values of their criminal group.
</P>
<P>Antisocial personality disorder, an official psychiatric ailment, is a
diagnosis applied to people who commit a broad range of aggressive and criminal
acts. Some qualify as psychopaths, but many don't. </P>
<P>Although psychiatrists don't currently label psychopathy as a formal
personality disorder, a wave of new research has yielded insights into how
psychopaths think and suggested biological and temperamental roots of this
condition. </P>
<P>These findings have not only sparked debate among researchers but also
attracted widespread interest among lawyers and judges. Courts in the United
States and other countries increasingly rely on psychopathy measures to make
sentencing judgments. New studies suggest that being labeled a psychopath
increases the likelihood that an offender will be locked up indefinitely or even
executed. </P>
<P>The jury is still out on the psychopathy's usefulness in law. But the
condition deserves intense scientific scrutiny, says psychologist Joseph P.
Newman of the University of Wisconsin&@150;Madison. Much new research
appears in <I>The Psychopath: Theory, Research, and Practice</I> (2007, H. Hervé
and J. Yuille, eds., Lawrence Erlbaum). </P>
<P>"Psychopathy rivals any mental disorder in its negative consequences for the
person who has it," Newman contends. </P>
<P></P>
<H2>Stone-cold killers</H2>
<P>In 2002, psychologist Stephen Porter of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova
Scotia, interviewed 125 men who were serving time in two Canadian prisons for
murder. The 34 men with high scores on a psychopathy test gave him a surprise.
Despite many investigators' assumption that psychopathic criminals lack
self-control and often act impulsively, most of the psychopathic Canadian
killers had planned the ruthless, cold-blooded murders that they had committed.
</P>
<P>One psychopathic offender murdered his ex-girlfriend to stop her from
interfering with his new relationship. Another psychopathic inmate arranged and
committed the murder of his wife to cash in her life insurance policy. </P>
<P>In contrast, a large majority of the nonpsychopathic prisoners had killed
someone in the heat of the moment or upon reaching an emotional breaking point.
</P>
<P>Porter measured psychopathy using a tool called the Psychopathy
Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). This clinical-rating scale, devised by psychologist
Robert D. Hare of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, has served as
the gold standard of psychopathy tests for about 20 years. </P>
<P>In this approach, a psychologist or psychiatrist interviews a person and
reviews his or her criminal record. The rater then judges whether any of 20
psychopathy-related traits applies to that person. <STRONG><FONT
color=#0000ff>These traits include being superficial, acting grandiosely, lying
frequently, showing no remorse, lacking empathy, refusing to accept
responsibility for misdeeds, behaving impulsively, and having committed many
crimes. </FONT></STRONG></P>
<P>PCL-R scores range from 0 to 40. Most people in the general population score
no more than 5 on this test. Hare estimates that 1 percent scores at least 30.
Researchers typically use scores of 30 and above to indicate psychopathy, as
Porter did. </P>
<P>The average PCL-R scores for men and women in prisons are 22 and 19,
respectively. About 15 percent of male offenders and 10 percent of female
offenders score 30 or more. </P>
<P>Among psychopaths who kill, a thrill-seeking temperament and sadistic
interests form a toxic brew, Porter says. Famous sexual murderers such as Ted
Bundy and Albert DeSalvo, who was known as the Boston Strangler, targeted a wide
array of victims to fend off boredom, he says. </P>
<P>Psychopaths plan murders with special care because the stakes are so high,
Porter argues. Even their impulsive, nonhomicidal offenses, such as robberies
and assaults, reflect not an inability to control behavior so much as a lack of
interest in controlling it, he suggests. </P>
<P>In interviews with 50 additional men imprisoned for murder, Porter found that
psychopaths not only committed the bulk of premeditated homicides but also tried
to explain them away as being provoked by others. The men often failed to
mention incriminating details contained in police records. </P>
<P>Psychopathic murderers contacted by Porter preferred "hands-on" weapons, such
as knives, rather than guns, and they often applied torture, mutilation, or
other forms of extreme violence to their victims. </P>
<P>Not all psychopaths resort to violence, however. Highly intelligent people
with psychopathic personalities find fertile, nonviolent opportunities in
conning and manipulating others, in Porter's view. </P>
<P>There's currently a bull market in corporate psychopaths, according to
psychologist Paul Babiak of HRBackOffice, an industrial-consulting firm in
Hopewell Junction, N.Y. Organizations undergoing major changes, such as
downsizing or mergers, provide a chaotic atmosphere that savvy psychopaths
exploit, Babiak holds. They cozy up to a firm's power brokers, manipulate
coworkers, and intimidate underlings on their way up the corporate ladder,
stealing everything possible along the way. </P>
<P>In today's rapidly changing business world, "increased corporate rewards for
risk taking and nonconformity can offer the psychopath faster career movement
than before," Babiak says. </P>
<P></P>
<H2>No fear</H2>
<P>While looming as public threats, psychopaths also stand as scientific
mysteries. </P>
<P>
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<P class=caption>NABBED. "Boston Strangler" Albert DeSalvo, shown just
after his capture on Feb. 25, 1967, displayed <STRONG><FONT
color=#0000ff>cardinal signs of psychopathy: callous manipulation of
others, a need for thrills, and a lack of guilt and
empathy.<BR></FONT></STRONG><SPAN
style="COLOR: rgb(102,102,102); FONT-STYLE: normal">Associated
Press</SPAN></P></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></P>
<P>Evolutionary psychologists regard psychopathy as an inherited personality
style that has evolved because glib, deceitful individuals—as a minority within
a larger population of trusting folk—often reproduce with much success. </P>
<P>Other investigators, such as neuroscientist R.J.R. Blair of the National
Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Bethesda, Md., regard psychopathy as the
result of a still-unspecified genetic disorder. The inherited defect interferes
with the workings of the brain's emotion system, which is centered in the
amygdala, a structure especially concerned with perceiving dangerous situations.
</P>
<P>People with psychopathy don't modify behaviors for which they're punished and
don't learn to avoid actions that harm others, Blair proposes in the September
<I>Cognition</I>. As a result, they fail to develop a moral sense, in his view.
</P>
<P>Blair's theory fits with previous observations that psychopaths have
difficulty learning to avoid punishments, show weak physiological responses to
threats, and don't often recognize sadness or fear in others. </P>
<P>Newman takes a different approach. He views psychopathic personalities as the
product of an attention deficit. Psychopaths focus well on their explicit goals
but ignore incidental information that provides perspective and guides behavior,
Newman holds. Most other people, as they take action, unconsciously consult such
information, for instance, rules of conduct in social settings and nonverbal
signs of discomfort in those around them. </P>
<P>Furthermore, because psychopaths ignore peripheral information that provides
context and meaning to daily situations, Newman argues, they don't appreciate
music, art, or other endeavors that require depth of feeling. </P>
<P>In one set of studies that Newman directed, psychopathic and nonpsychopathic
prisoners viewed a series of mislabeled images, such as a drawing of a pig along
with the word <I>dog</I>. Nonpsychopathic participants found these images
confusing, taking considerable time to name the objects and read the labels.
Psychopathic volunteers completed these tasks much more quickly and barely
noticed the discrepancies between images and labels. </P>
<P>Newman suspects that this narrowing of attention in psychopaths jams their
mental radar for discerning other people's emotional reactions. In a study
slated to appear in <I>Psychological Science</I>, he and his coworkers report
examining people who had either a low or a high level of anxiety but weren't
psychopaths. Study participants who exhibited an almost anxietyfree personality,
which is one characteristic of psychopaths, showed no startle response—as
measured by pronounced eye-blinks—to sudden noises that clearly surprised
high-anxiety volunteers. In other words, the Wisconsin psychologist concludes,
psychopaths and others who rarely or never feel anxious simply don't notice
disturbing events or potential dangers in their surroundings and thus don't stop
to consider them. </P>
<P>Unburdened by anxiety, "psychopaths respond to whims," Newman says. "This
condition gets superimposed on a person's other characteristics, so a psychopath
who is predisposed to violence will be violent on a whim." </P>
<P></P>
<H2>Callous kids</H2>
<P>Psychologist Paul J. Frick of the University of New Orleans recalls a boy who
was recently referred to the mental health clinic where Frick works. The
10-year-old had trapped a cat and killed it by slowly slicing it with a knife.
The youngster calmly explained to Frick that he wanted to see how much he could
cut the animal before it died. </P>
<P>"He wasn't upset by the incident at all," Frick says. "He was a bit annoyed
about being brought to me, though." </P>
<P>The boy might be a future surgeon, but it's more likely that he's headed for
psychopathic pursuits, in Frick's view. The child's callousness and lack of
emotion, seen in a small proportion of children and teenagers, probably
foreshadow serious behavior problems, and perhaps even a psychopathic
personality, in adulthood. </P>
<P>In such children, Frick finds a lack of guilt, an unemotional demeanor,
little concern about others' feelings or about school, a refusal to keep
promises, and difficulty forming lasting friendships. </P>
<P>Although about 1 in 100 kids displays such traits, nobody knows how many of
them will grow up to become psychopaths. In a 2003 study, Frick's team tracked
98 children who began the study in grades 3, 4, 6, or 7. Children initially
identified by their parents as callous and unemotional tended to continue to be
regarded that way over the 4 years of observation. </P>
<P>Only a few children who started out as extremely callous and unfeeling became
less so during the study. Environmental factors, such as high-quality parenting
and living in a wealthy family, appeared to stimulate such improvement, Frick
says. </P>
<P>A 2005 study of 3,682 identical and fraternal twin pairs at age 7, coauthored
by the NIMH's Blair, identified a strong genetic contribution to callous,
unemotional personality. Frick suspects that children who fit this description
are born with a dispassionate temperament and tend not to notice or react to
others' distress or to signs of danger. </P>
<P>"Having this temperament makes it difficult, but not impossible, to develop
empathy and guilt," Frick proposes. </P>
<P>He and his coworkers find that for children as young as age 3 who display
callousness and lack of emotion, parents and teachers report frequent fights and
other serious behavior problems. </P>
<P>Researchers have had little success in devising effective treatment programs
for kids who seem to be on the road to psychopathy. However, psychologists David
J. Hawes and Mark R. Dadds, both of the University of New South Wales in Sydney,
Australia, last year described one promising approach. Parents of 56 boys, ages
4 to 9, referred to a clinic for behavior problems received a 10-week training
course. Hawes and Dadds found that the more callous and unemotional a boy was,
the more likely he was to respond well to rewards and encouragement from parents
for good behavior, but not to punishments for misbehavior. </P>
<P></P>
<H2>Courting trouble</H2>
<P>Psychologist John F. Edens of Southern Methodist University in Dallas has
watched with concern over the past decade as many of his colleagues have
testified in court with what he calls "overly zealous and empirically
questionable conclusions" about psychopathy. </P>
<P>Because psychopaths are presumed to be irredeemably dangerous and
untreatable, courts increasingly lean on psychological assessments to guide
decisions about whether to confine offenders for indeterminate periods or even
to execute them. </P>
<P>In the February <I>Professional Psychology: Research and Practice</I>, Edens
outlined the limitations of current knowledge about psychopathy. </P>
<P>Consider that psychologists working for the prosecution and the defense in
criminal cases often generate disparate psychopathy scores for the same
defendants, Edens says. To make matters more confusing, the incriminating score
of 30 or more on the PCL-R hasn't been rigorously linked to psychopathy. </P>
<P>Edens recommends that courtroom psychologists report a confidence range for
each psychopathy score assigned to a defendant. Scores of individuals given the
test under different conditions typically span 14 points, he says. </P>
<P>Moreover, although a high psychopathy score offers the strongest single
indication of whether a prisoner will be violent in the near future, it doesn't
doom an offender to a life of mayhem, Edens holds. For example, an inmate
scoring above 30 on the PCL-R may resort to violence in the weeks after release
from prison, he notes, but that score doesn't imply that he will be violent for
decades and therefore requires indefinite imprisonment. </P>
<P>It might be best to stop using the term <I>psychopath</I> in court, Edens
asserts, because the word carries a stigma that unduly sways juries. In studies
with college students, he finds that they associate word <I>psychopath</I> with
especially brutal, infamous murderers. In simulated court cases, participants
acting as jurors assigned the death penalty to two-thirds of murderers portrayed
in expert testimony as psychopaths, as opposed to roughly one-third of murderers
described as either psychotic or free of mental disorders. </P>
<P>"Evil and psychopathy are overlapping ideas," Edens says. "Many people do
evil things without being psychopathic." </P>
<P>Others, such as Derry Mainwaring-Knight, revel in psychopathy, doing evil by
claiming to fight evil. </P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>