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Hello.

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So, today, I'm going to be talking
about what psychopathy is, the term,

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and what we're doing about it
here at Juniata College.

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So, I'll begin by saying
in the fall of 2016,

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our lab in the Psychology Department,
under Professor Rebecca Weldon,

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was attempting to ascertain some
of these features underlying psychopathy

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and how they relate
to student populations.

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We found, consistent with the hypothesis
called the distress-specific hypothesis,

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which I'll talk about in a little bit,

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that participants who were
higher in psychopathy,

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which is this empathic deficit,

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were slower in recognizing
the fearful faces of other people,

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and I'm going to discuss
the implications of this.

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Now, in the fall of this school year,

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we wanted to try something else,
we wanted to question the impossible.

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The fact is that there are
very few treatments for psychopathy,

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and we wanted to see
if we could alter this effect,

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this delay in recognizing
the fearful faces of other people,

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by priming empathy,
or something like empathy,

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in those people who were
higher in psychopathy.

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I think in order to understand
what I mean by "psychopathy,"

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we should discuss how the term
has been sensationalized in the media.

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So, in pop culture in Hollywood,

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there is this thing that has been coined
the "elite psychopath."

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So, I'll tell you a bit
about what that is,

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but first, I think I should give
some examples.

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Such characters as Hannibal Lecter,
Patrick Bateman from American Psycho,

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or the most recent television
adaptation of Sherlock Holmes,

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all of these could qualify
as this elite psychopath caricature,

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and it's problematic in a number of ways.

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These characters are
antiheroes at the core.

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So you are invited to empathize
with these protagonistic characters

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who never really do show
empathy to other people.

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And so, of course, we want
to emulate these characters.

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But as a matter of fact,

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they do show some
of the qualities of psychopathy.

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They are cold, calculating, apathetic,
they're sophisticated,

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but they're also some things
that we don't really see as often

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in actual psychopathy.

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They're one step ahead
of the competition, always,

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they are Machiavellian masterminds,

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and that's not something we really see.

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So I'm going to talk about how
psychopathy has been characterized

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in the field of psychology,

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and those components will be differences
in action and differences in the brain.

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Also, I think it's important
to note that in the DSM-5,

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which is a terminology manual
for Psychology,

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antisocial personality disorder has been
considered synonymous with psychopathy.

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While it shares some common symptomology,

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we will be considering psychopathy

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in accordance with a different set
of features and facets

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that set it apart ever so slightly
with antisocial personality disorder.

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But I should start by saying
in antisocial personality disorder,

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we see symptoms like aggression,
outward aggression,

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that can be generalized,

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this impulsiveness,
sensation-seeking behavior,

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recklessness and association
with criminal behavior.

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So let's talk about some of these.

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There's a lack of guilt or remorse.

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There's a lack of emotional expression.

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These symptoms are affective
or emotional processing differences.

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Our study focused mainly on these.

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So people who are high in psychopathy
will tend to be callous,

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a bit like the pop culture representation.

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They will lack emotional expression,

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so they won't be expressing
emotions to other people.

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There's also a lack
of prosocial emotional response,

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which means in day to day interaction,
when someone is showing distress,

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you are expected
to behave in a certain way;

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they don't do this.

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There are also differences
that are interpersonal in nature.

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They manipulate other people,
they use them as a means to an end.

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And there is grandiosity as well,

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or an exaggerated sense
of self-importance.

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This is also seen in psychopathy,
in people who are high in psychopathy.

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There's a last piece, and that piece is
sensation seeking and impulsivity.

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This is not so much seen
in the elite psychopath caricature.

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People who are high in psychopathy
will act impulsively,

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they will seek sensation and they will not
duly consider risk versus reward.

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And so, often, they will
commit criminal acts

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and subsequently be incarcerated.

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When they seek sensation,

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they have to calculate
this risk versus reward,

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they have to actively weigh the risk
versus reward in order to make the action,

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but we don't really see this
in people who are high in psychopathy.

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And of course there is
that aggression piece,

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this generalized aggression.

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So, people who are high in psychopathy
have difficulty determining

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victims versus victimless crimes.

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And so, when they commit these crimes,

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they do not duly consider the potential
impact this might have on another person.

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So let's talk about some of the brain
differences we see in psychopathy.

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Mainly, we'll talk about the amygdala,

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which is an area of the brain
near the center of the brain,

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and there's less activation in people
higher in psychopathy, in this region,

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when they are looking
at the emotions of other people,

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specifically distress emotions.

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And that's important

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because when you're not processing
the distress of other people,

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perhaps you're not also feeling
the guilt and remorse

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that a normal person
would typically experience

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when they can tell those people
are experiencing those emotions.

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So, when there's less activation in people
who are high in psychopathy,

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this area of the brain, the amygdala,
involved in emotional processing,

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again shows less activation.

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So, what's the importance
of studying psychopathy?

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Well, there is this linkage
between psychopathy and crime.

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If you look at the literature
on psychopathy,

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you will find that most
participants are inmates.

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This is not a coincidence.

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It is far more prevalent
in prison populations.

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It's been estimated anywhere
from 50% to 80% of inmates could qualify

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for some symptomology in psychopathy
that is above the norm.

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Outside of prison populations,

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a much less percentage could be
considered high in psychopathy.

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It has been estimated anywhere from 1.3%
to 6.85% of men in the general population,

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mainly in the United States,

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could qualify as having some symptomology
associated with psychopathy,

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whereas in women, it is 0.8%.

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So considerably less

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could be considered to qualify
for the symptoms of psychopathy.

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It is also important to study psychopathy
because at this time,

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treatments for psychopathy
have been largely unsuccessful.

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This is because treatments
like cognitive and behavioral strategies

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require some kind of agency
or willingness to change,

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in participants, or patients.

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People who are high
in psychopathy, unsurprisingly,

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seem to lack this agency
and willingness to change,

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and so the treatments
are largely unsuccessful.

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So what is being done?

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Well, currently, our lab,
here at Juniata College,

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is working on this
distress-specific hypothesis,

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which is that the affective symptoms,

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the emotional processing
symptoms of psychopathy,

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could be responsible for this deficit

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in processing the distress
emotions in other people.

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So we thought, "What if we could
prime them for a congruent emotion,

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and maybe that could,
maybe, alter this effect,

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this delay in processing
the emotions of other people?"

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So we used something called the
autobiographical emotional memory task,

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which challenges a participant
to recall a time in their life

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where they felt a specific emotion.

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We used fear.

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So our participants recalled a time
in their life where they experienced fear,

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and because of this,

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it may be that fear becomes
more salient, it's more accessible,

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it's more easy to recognize
in other people.

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So if we could take participants,
people who are high in psychopathy,

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and prime them for this fear,

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they may subsequently be better able
to recognize that fear in other people.

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And if our findings support this,

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it may be that priming
for a congruent emotion

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could be a way, through exposure,
to condition an empathic response

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in people who would otherwise
lack such a response.

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In other words, we could foster
empathy in psychopaths.

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And this would be groundbreaking

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because incarceration in our country
is at an all-time high,

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and if we could somehow minimize this

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through developing strategies to address
people who have psychopathic symptoms,

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before criminal behaviors
can begin to manifest,

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we might be able to deal

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with the current dilemma
that is psychopathy in our country.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)