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Psychoneuroendocrinology May 2018Parentification refers to parents bestowing adult-like roles on children within families, and studies have linked parentification to individual differences in risk and...
Parentification refers to parents bestowing adult-like roles on children within families, and studies have linked parentification to individual differences in risk and resilience. The depth of our understanding of the pathways that translate parentification into risk for negative developmental outcomes remains shallow. This study examined whether parentification has a contextual effect moderating the expression of links between testosterone and antisocial behavior. Eighty-three participants (M age = 21.37 years, SD = 1.87; 48% Black; 60% female) were interviewed initially and one year later. Audio Computer Assisted Self-Interview methods were used to measure parentification and antisocial behavior. Saliva was sampled on multiple occasions and later assayed for testosterone. Results revealed, for both sexes, testosterone was positively associated with antisocial behavior at baseline and at follow-up when participants scored low on perceived benefits of parentification. This relationship became weaker as levels of perceived benefits of parentification increased. At the highest levels of perceived benefits of parentification, testosterone and antisocial behavior were inversely related. The findings suggest a potentially important role for perceptions of parentification as a moderator for the expression of hormone-behavior relationships and are discussed in terms of implications for the biosocial model of the family.
Topics: Adaptation, Psychological; Adult; Adverse Childhood Experiences; Antisocial Personality Disorder; Female; Humans; Male; Parent-Child Relations; Parenting; Parents; Saliva; Testosterone; Young Adult
PubMed: 29505951
DOI: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2018.02.023 -
International Journal of Offender... Nov 2022A prevailing view among researchers and mental health clinicians is that symptoms of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD)/psychopathy decrease as affected individuals...
A prevailing view among researchers and mental health clinicians is that symptoms of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD)/psychopathy decrease as affected individuals reach middle age. In the current investigation, informants were surveyed about the behavior of individuals who they believed showed traits of ASPD/psychopathy and were over the age of 50. A final sample of 1,215 respondents rated the index individuals according to the ASPD/psychopathy traits derived from the pre-publication first draft of the , revealing high endorsement of traits associated with ASPD. Survey respondents reported their observations that individuals who met a threshold for putative ASPD/psychopathy continued to engage in antisocial behavior after age 50, and as a result the respondents endured significant harm, including material losses, financial losses, and various self-reported mental health problems. Those who knew the index individuals both before and after the age of 50 were specifically asked whether there was a change in the individual's engagement in manipulation, deceit, and antisocial behavior; 93% of respondents reported that the behavior was just as bad or worse after age 50. Other researchers have suggested that the DSM diagnostic criteria do not accurately describe ASPD/psychopathy symptoms and behavior in older adults, and that the disorder remains stable, but its manifestation changes with age. This study supports those conclusions.
Topics: Aged; Antisocial Personality Disorder; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; Humans; Middle Aged; Spiperone; Surveys and Questionnaires
PubMed: 34989271
DOI: 10.1177/0306624X211067089 -
Trauma, Violence & Abuse Apr 2020The MacDonald triad posits that animal cruelty, fire setting, and bed wetting in childhood is indicative of later aggressive and violent behavior in adults. Researchers... (Review)
Review
The MacDonald triad posits that animal cruelty, fire setting, and bed wetting in childhood is indicative of later aggressive and violent behavior in adults. Researchers refer to this phenomenon as a precursor to later antisocial behaviors including serial and sexual murder; while practitioners cite the triad in clinical formulations and risk assessments. However, there is yet to be a critical review and consolidation of the literature that establishes whether there is empirical support. This article explores the validity of the triad. We conducted a narrative review of the relevant studies examining the MacDonald triad and its individual constituents. There is evidence that any one of the triad behaviors could predict future violent offending, but it is very rare to find all three behaviors together as predictors. Thus, the empirical research on the MacDonald triad does not fully substantiate its premise. Rather, it would appear that the triad, or its individual constituents, is better used as an indicator of dysfunctional home environments, or poor coping skills in children. Future research is needed with robust and rigorous methodologies (e.g., adequate control groups, longitudinal designs) to fully establish the MacDonald triad's validity. Finally, further consideration is needed as to whether the triad behaviors are more indicative of other problematic outcomes (e.g., maladaptive coping to life stressors).
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Aggression; Animal Welfare; Antisocial Personality Disorder; Child; Child, Preschool; Conduct Disorder; Enuresis; Female; Firesetting Behavior; Homicide; Humans; Male; Stress, Psychological
PubMed: 29631500
DOI: 10.1177/1524838018764164 -
Psychiatry Research Nov 2018Deficiencies in empathic functioning are considered a core characteristic of violent behavior. Enhancing empathy in aggressive populations may thus represent a promising...
Deficiencies in empathic functioning are considered a core characteristic of violent behavior. Enhancing empathy in aggressive populations may thus represent a promising intervention target. Hence, the aims of the present work were two-fold: First, we wanted to thoroughly assess empathic competencies and second, we aimed to investigate effects of an empathy induction on experienced empathy levels and prosocial behavior in a sample of violent offenders relative to matched controls. Empathy was assessed using both self-report as well as objective measures. For the empathy induction, participants were presented with empathy inducing and control videos. To assess the effects of the empathy induction on behavior, participants played a dictator game indicative of prosocial behavior after every video. Violent offenders showed no systematic impairment in empathy measures. Despite lower shares in the dictator game across conditions, the empathy induction led to a substantial increase in prosocial behavior in both groups. Importantly, high psychopathy scores were distinctively associated with lower self-reported empathy levels, an attenuated affective responsiveness to the empathy induction, and less altruistic behavior. Treatment programs aiming to improve empathy should take individual characteristics into account and may be applied to distinctive subgroups rather than to violent offenders per se.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Altruism; Antisocial Personality Disorder; Criminals; Empathy; Humans; Male; Self Report; Violence; Young Adult
PubMed: 30208352
DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2018.08.035 -
International Journal of... May 2021Meta-analytic findings suggest that antisocial behavior, broadly defined, may relate to a Common Executive Function (EF) factor that captures covariance across response...
Meta-analytic findings suggest that antisocial behavior, broadly defined, may relate to a Common Executive Function (EF) factor that captures covariance across response inhibition, working memory updating, and mental set shifting tasks. However, it is unclear whether this common factor, which is isomorphic with individual differences in response inhibition, accounts for all of the EF variance in antisocial behavior and psychopathy, or if they also relate to updating- and shifting-specific abilities. Moreover, findings that antisocial behavior and lower cognitive ability are particularly associated with the psychopathy dimension reflecting impulsivity and irresponsibility, compared to the dimension reflecting affective-interpersonal functioning, raise the possibility that EF relates to the variance shared between the impulsive-irresponsible psychopathy dimension and antisocial personality disorder. We examined these questions in a young adult twin sample (N = 765) with measures of multiple EF latent variables, Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy (LSRP) Primary (affective-interpersonal) and Secondary (impulsive-irresponsible) scales, and antisocial personality disorder symptoms (ASPDsx). Phenotypically, higher ASPDsx and LSRP Secondary psychopathy, but not LSRP Primary psychopathy, were associated with lower Common EF. Moreover, both psychopathy dimensions were negatively correlated with Updating-Specific ability, which was unrelated to ASPDsx. Results from twin models indicated that the association between LSRP Secondary psychopathy and ASPDsx was due to both genetic and nonshared environmental influences; however, Common EF's association with ASPDsx was primarily genetic, whereas its association with LSRP Secondary psychopathy had a significant environmental component. Thus, the interrelations among these constructs may reflect heterogeneous etiological pathways.
Topics: Antisocial Personality Disorder; Executive Function; Humans; Self Report; Young Adult
PubMed: 30576766
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2018.12.007 -
Psychological Bulletin Jun 2016Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by interpersonal manipulation and callousness, and reckless and impulsive antisocial behavior. It is often seen as a... (Review)
Review
Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by interpersonal manipulation and callousness, and reckless and impulsive antisocial behavior. It is often seen as a disorder in which profound emotional disturbances lead to antisocial behavior. A lack of fear in particular has been proposed as an etiologically salient factor. In this review, we employ a conceptual model in which fear is parsed into separate subcomponents. Important historical conceptualizations of psychopathy, the neuroscientific and empirical evidence for fear deficits in psychopathy are compared against this model. The empirical evidence is also subjected to a meta-analysis. We conclude that most studies have used the term "fear" generically, amassing different methods and levels of measurement under the umbrella term "fear." Unlike earlier claims that psychopathy is related to general fearlessness, we show there is evidence that psychopathic individuals have deficits in threat detection and responsivity, but that the evidence for reduced subjective experience of fear in psychopathy is far less compelling. (PsycINFO Database Record
Topics: Amygdala; Antisocial Personality Disorder; Brain; Fear; Hippocampus; Humans; Prefrontal Cortex; Social Perception; Thalamus
PubMed: 26854867
DOI: 10.1037/bul0000040 -
Pediatrics Jan 2018Early pubertal timing in girls is one of the best-replicated antecedents of a range of mental health problems during adolescence, but few researchers have examined the...
BACKGROUND
Early pubertal timing in girls is one of the best-replicated antecedents of a range of mental health problems during adolescence, but few researchers have examined the duration of these effects.
METHODS
We leverage a nationally representative sample ( = 7802 women) managed prospectively from adolescence over a period of ∼14 years to examine associations of age at menarche with depressive symptoms and antisocial behaviors in adulthood.
RESULTS
Earlier ages at menarche were associated with higher rates of both depressive symptoms and antisocial behaviors in early-middle adulthood largely because difficulties that started in adolescence did not attenuate over time.
CONCLUSIONS
These findings indicate that the emotional sequelae of puberty extend further than documented in previous research, and suggest that earlier development may place girls on a life path from which it may be difficult to deviate. The American Academy of Pediatrics already provides guidelines for identifying and working with patients with early pubertal timing. Pediatricians and adolescent health care providers should also be attuned to early maturers' elevated mental health risk and sensitive to the potential duration of changes in mental health that begin at puberty.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Age of Onset; Antisocial Personality Disorder; Child; Databases, Factual; Depression; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Humans; Incidence; Longitudinal Studies; Menarche; Puberty; Retrospective Studies; Risk Assessment; Sexual Maturation; Time Factors; Young Adult
PubMed: 29279324
DOI: 10.1542/peds.2017-1703 -
NeuroImage. Clinical 2018Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by interpersonal and emotional abnormalities (e.g., lack of empathy and guilt) and antisocial behavior. Psychopathy...
BACKGROUND
Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by interpersonal and emotional abnormalities (e.g., lack of empathy and guilt) and antisocial behavior. Psychopathy has been associated with a number of structural brain abnormalities, most notably in orbital frontal and anterior/medial temporal regions, that may underlie psychopathic individuals' problematic behaviors. Past research evaluating cortical structure in psychopathy has considered thickness and volume, but to date no study has investigated differences in cortical gyrification, a measure of cortical complexity thought to reflect early neurodevelopmental cortical connectivity.
METHODS
We measured the local gyrification index (LGI) in a sample of 716 adult male inmates and performed a whole brain analysis assessing the relationship between LGI and total and factor scores on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R).
RESULTS
PCL-R scores were negatively associated with LGI measures within the right hemisphere in the midcingulate cortex (MCC) and adjacent regions of the superior frontal gyrus as well as lateral superior parietal cortex. Additionally, PCL-R Factor 1 scores (interpersonal/affective traits) predicted less LGI within the right MCC and adjacent dorsomedial frontal cortex and greater LGI in bilateral occipital cortex. Scores on PCL-R Factor 2, indicating impulsivity and antisocial behaviors, did not predict LGI in any regions.
CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest that psychopathy, particularly the interpersonal and affective traits, are associated with specific structural abnormalities that form during neurodevelopment and these abnormalities may underlie aberrant brain functioning in regions important in emotional processing and cognitive control.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Affect; Antisocial Personality Disorder; Brain Mapping; Cerebral Cortex; Criminals; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Impulsive Behavior; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Middle Aged; Personality; Prisoners; Young Adult
PubMed: 29946511
DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2018.06.007 -
Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience :... Oct 2016
Topics: Aggression; Antisocial Personality Disorder; Criminal Behavior; Genetic Predisposition to Disease; Humans; Neurosciences; Social Control, Formal
PubMed: 27768561
DOI: 10.1503/jpn.160147 -
Family Process Sep 2016Multisystemic therapy (MST) is an evidence-based treatment originally developed for youth with serious antisocial behavior who are at high risk for out-of-home placement... (Review)
Review
Multisystemic therapy (MST) is an evidence-based treatment originally developed for youth with serious antisocial behavior who are at high risk for out-of-home placement and their families; and subsequently adapted to address other challenging clinical problems experience by youths and their families. The social-ecological theoretical framework of MST is presented as well as its home-based model of treatment delivery, defining clinical intervention strategies, and ongoing quality assurance/quality improvement system. With more than 100 peer-reviewed outcome and implementation journal articles published as of January 2016, the majority by independent investigators, MST is one of the most extensively evaluated family based treatments. Outcome research has yielded almost uniformly favorable results for youths and families, and implementation research has demonstrated the importance of treatment and program fidelity in achieving such outcomes.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Antisocial Personality Disorder; Child; Conduct Disorder; Family Therapy; Female; Home Care Services; Humans; Male; Outcome Assessment, Health Care; Social Environment
PubMed: 27370172
DOI: 10.1111/famp.12232