the response modulation hypothesis

[ethernight]

Whereas most people automatically anticipate the consequences of their actions, automatically feel shame for unkind deeds, automatically understand why they should persist in the face of frustration, automatically distrust propositions that seem too good to be true, and are automatically aware of their commitments to others, psychopaths may only

Comments

[yoak]

Is that hypothesizes to be true or is it definitional?

[yoak]

"hypothesized" even.

[ethernight]

Well, there is a lot of disagreement about the definition of psychopathy. The two competing perspectives seem to be: psychopathy is a misnomer and is in fact the same as antisocial personality disorder; and that psychopathy is a distinct disorder, a subset of people exhibiting with antisocial behavior. I follow the second way of thinking.

The closest thing you're going to get to a clear definition of psychopathy is found in the factor analysis in Hare's PCL-R. (There are other variants to the two factor model listed here, but it will serve for the purpose of this conversation