Term Paper on "Psychopath Female Offenders"

Term Paper 13 pages (4025 words) Sources: 8 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Psychopathic Female Offenders

Female Psychopathy - Offenders in Perspective

INTRODUCTION what is psychopathy; Robert Hare; PCL-R

THESIS STATEMENT good deal of research is available on male psychopaths, but not females

SUMMARY (LITERATURE REVIEW)

Varied research available on psychopathy, women, girls, specific cases

CONCLUSION there are examples of scholarship on the subject of women offenders who are psychopathic - but much more needs to be done.

Internet articles, journals, books and online magazines in bibliography

While psychopaths make up just 1% of the general population, they're penetrating the boardroom and now represent 3.5% of executives..."

Paul Babiak and Robert Hare, Psychology Today

Before reviewing available literature on female psychopathic offenders, it is germane to look into psychopathic behaviors and the psychopathic mind, per se. Dr. Robert Hare is professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia (Canada), and considered an expert on the "nature and implications" of psychopathy (Ramsland, 2005), according to an article in Court TV Crime Library. Hare sits on the Research Board of the FBI's Child Abduction and Serial Murder Investigative Resources Center (CASMIRC), along with other prestigious assignments, and has authored books on the subject of psychopathic behaviors (among men and women).

Writing about Hare in the Court TV Web site, Katherine Ramsland quotes Hare as saying that if one percent of the American population is psychopathic, "we need to pay attention." What are the traits of a psychopath, according to Hare's research? They "lack remorse or empathy," they have "shallow emotions" and are "manipulative"; a psychopath is egocentric, adept at lying, exhibits "glibness," "low frustration tolerance" and has "episodic relationships." And in general, a psychopath is "persistently in violation of social norms" and lives a "parasitic lifestyle."

And there's much more research available on psychopathy in general through Hare's years of work, including information on his PCL-R formula ("Psychopathy Checklist-Revised"), which he uses to determine if a certain personality (adolescents, women, men) can be considered on the road to psychopathy, or is perhaps already a psychopath. In fact, PCL-R is likely the most widely-used test in the world when it comes to testing for psychopathic personality traits.

Too many people believe that "psychopaths are essentially killers or convicts," Ramsland writes, paraphrasing Hare. "The general public has not been educated to see beyond the social stereotypes" to be able to grasp the notion that psychopaths can also be "entrepreneurs, politicians, CEOs" among other "traditional" successful individuals. And though being a psychopath doesn't necessarily mean a person will be an offender, the classic psychopathic person tends to "exploit people and leave them depleted...much worse for the encounter," Ramsland explains. The psychopath is a "treacherous" employee, a "conniving business [person]," an "immoral official" who uses position and influence to "victimize people and enrich themselves."

Hare believes that there are perhaps more than two million psychopaths in north American. And in his Psychology Today article ("Predators"), Hare says that "everybody has met these people, been deceived and manipulated by them...[and] their hallmark is a stunning lack of conscience," albeit they can be "amusing and entertaining conversationalists, ready with a clever comeback... [and can] cast themselves in a good light." They can also have a "narcissistic and grossly inflated view of their own self-worth and importance," Hare continues in Psychology Today.

One female psychopath that Hare interviewed was asked if it was easy for her to lie, and she replied, "I'm the best. I think it's because I sometimes admit to something bad about myself. They think, well, if she's admitting to that she must be telling the truth about the rest."

In his book, Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, Hare offers "A Survival Guide" which is excerpted in the Psychology Today piece. "Know who you are dealing with," he suggests, admitting that everyone can be conned. Try not to be influenced by "props" (the smile, the literate narrative, the "captivating body language"), he offers; "Don't wear blinders" (go into relationships with your eyes wide open); "Keep your guard up in high-risk situations" (singles bars, cruises, foreign airports); and above all, "Know yourself" (be "extremely wary of anyone zeroing in..." On your weak spots).

THESIS STATEMENT

The reference material that is available on female offenders who can be diagnosed as suffering some degree of psychopathy is incomplete, but not inconclusive. Indeed, there is a great deal of research into psychopathic behaviors with regard to female inmates who have been analyzed and studied in institutional environments. But as to the next level of research - when does psychopathy begin in females (and in girls), and how and why does it plant its seed of antisocial and extreme behaviors - there is still much to be done. This paper will review the available research and data, will present the views and research of various experts, and will come to the conclusion that so much emphasis has been placed on studying males, women have been neglected in that regard.

SUMMARY OF LITERATURE AVAILABLE

An article in the journal Behavioral Sciences and the Law (Stand, et al., 2005) points out that the rate of female psychopathy in correctional populations is around 10-15%, as compared with male psychopathy in prison populations (25-30%). The article explains that there is substantial research suggesting that "the construct of psychopathy may differ in some aspects as a function of gender." Indeed, in addition to the basic math very different - more men psychopathic offenders than females, as percentages of the population at large - but that psychopathic traits, in particular "antisocial behavior," are found to be less common among female psychopaths.

The authors - Susanne Strand and Henrik Belfrage - take pains in this article to point out differences - sometimes dramatic differences and other times more subtle - between the male psychopath and the female psychopath. Strand and Belfrage allude to diverse studies, including a study of 66 female offenders in which there was a relationship between "sociopathy and hysteria," and another study (Lilienfeld and Hamburger et al. 1996) which argued that "there was a different pattern in psychopathy between men and women." Men's psychopathic behavior, the study showed, generally displayed "an antisocial pattern," while psychopaths tended more towards a "histrionic pattern."

The research that Lilienfeld, VanValkenburg, larntz, and Akiskal conducted, according to Strand's article, presents an argument that female psychopathy may have a substantial overlap with "somatization and histrionic personality disorder (HPD). Somatization Disorder, according to www.psychnet-uk.com, is "the appearance of physical symptoms or complaints for which they have no organic basis."

Somatization, meanwhile, is also known as "Briquet's Syndrome," and is a problem where the patient has "hypersensitivity to pain," and the patient may constantly complain about the following symptoms (albeit the attending doctor can find no cause for the disorder): pain in the back, head, related to menstruation or urination; gastrointestinal symptoms; "sexual symptoms (including indifference to sex...excessive menstrual bleeding...vomiting throughout all nine months of pregnancy); and pseudoneurological symptoms (impaired balance, trouble swallowing, hallucinations, retention of urine, double vision, deafness, seizures, amnesia), not all of which are linked to any kind of pain.

As to the definition of HPD, the Web site www.mentalhealth.compresents persons who suffer from this syndrome as being "uncomfortable..." not being the center of attention; as displaying "inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior" when interacting with others; considers relationship to be "more intimate" than they actually are; and also the person is "consistently using physical appearance to draw attention" to herself.

The authors admit that the "gender bias" in their preliminary review may be due to gender traits, in other words, research shows that "the histrionic personality is a caricature of femininity, which has developed under the influence of cultural forces where men are dominant." Some researchers argue that both the ASPD and the HPD "represent gender role stereotypes."

As far as "relational aggression," one of the traits of a psychopathic personality, it includes "gossiping, rumor spreading and similar behaviors" which are intended to harm another individual's reputation and social interactions; and the authors of this article suggest those traits are "more characteristic for women than for men in general." It should be recalled that the point of this journal research is to delineate the differences in character traits between female and male psychotic offenders.

A study of 103 psychopathic female offenders (Salekin et al.) - which employed Hare's PCL-R factor - found that women displayed more "sexual misbehavior and adult antisocial behavior" than psychopathic men did. The Salekin work also found that females had more "need for stimulation" and "impulsivity" then men when the comparison was made.

In Strand's study of females, a total of 129 females were researched - 83 women psychotics were researched "in vivo" and 46 from "file information" - and those were compared with 499 men who had been studied in vivo. Of the women, 31 were "long-term sentenced female offenders in the maximum-security institution Hinesberg" (in Sweden). The authors mentioned that they initially resisted using the 46 female assessments made from in vivo (from files), but since previous clinical assessments showed "the… READ MORE

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