Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) represents a controversial diagnoses which has gone through many revisions over the past 25 years and is scheduled to be revised again for the DSM IV. A comprehensive survey was composed of APD criteria from the DSM II, DSM III, DSM III-R, PCL-R, Psychopathic Personality Disorder, and Dyssocial Personality Disorder. The survey was completed by 321 forensic psychiatrists based on which criteria they believed to be the most prototypical of antisocial personality. The results identified four factors: irresponsibility, unstable self image, and unstable relationships; manipulation and lack of guilt; aggressive behavior; and nonviolent juvenile delinquency. A diagnostic set composed of the most prototypical criteria was proposed for the DSM IV diagnosis of APD.

Social concern about deviant, delinquent and disorderly behaviour has a long history in the UK. Propelled by the New Labour government’s Crime and Disorder Act 1998, the ‘antisocial behaviour agenda’ reframed the problem and constructed a punitive solution (Newburn, 2007). While in recent years Scottish policy has diverged from the punitive rhetoric established in Westminster, the ‘antisocial’ individual continues to be conceptualised as part of a disruptive minority that fails to conform to societal norms of behaviour. This antisocial minority has, invariably, come to be associated with young people and, in particular, young people from ‘disadvantaged’ socio-economic circumstances. While there is a growing body of empirical research on this topic, most has focused on young people’s relationship to antisocial behaviour in terms of their role as victim or as perpetrator. Alternatively, studies have evaluated how young people experience specific policy interventions. The principal aim of this doctoral research is to shift away from attempting to explain why young people become involved in antisocial behaviour and instead explore the diverse ways they define, experience and relate to it. Its gaze, therefore, is upon young people’s everyday interactions with antisocial behaviour and, in so doing, seeks to produce a more rounded understanding of young lives. The research was based within ‘Robbiestoun’ (a pseudonym): a predominantly social housing estate in the suburbs of a Scottish city and, as such, was able to situate young people’s experiences of antisocial behaviour alongside their experiences of living in a ‘disadvantaged’ socio-economic place. It employed participatory ethnographic methods to engage with a range of young people across multiple research sites. The empirical analysis found that understandings of what is, and is not, normal behaviour were fundamental to young people’s relationship with the antisocial. Social and physical disorder was a regular occurrence, and for many, it was an established, even normal, part of everyday life. Nonetheless, young people were aware of external categorisations of Robbiestoun and its residents as ‘abnormal’, an identity which most young people resisted and challenged. Young people’s behaviour in public spaces was similarly contested. Professionals (and many adults) had clear ideas about what constituted normal, social behaviour and these frequently conflicted with those held by young people. Such conflict was most evident for those young people actively engaged in criminal and antisocial acts. Not only was antisocial was a label these groups identified with, but they also rationalised their involvement in antisocial behaviour as an expected, and indeed necessary, part of growing up in Robbiestoun. The research revealed that young people utilised a range of strategies, techniques and rationales which enabled them to navigate the area’s ‘abnormal’ identity and ‘get on’ with ‘normal’ life. Such tactics were not universal across Robbiestoun, but rather varied according to young people’s own behavioural standards and social norms. The research concludes by arguing that the different relationships young people have to antisocial behaviour were, in fact, expressions of economic inequality, poverty and material disadvantage. This is an important point, but one not adequately addressed by policy makers. Rather than pursuing policy objectives based on the pursuit of ‘correct’ social values and norms, it is contended that more attention must be given the role of local norms in shaping young people’s definitions of, and relationships to, antisocial behaviour. Only then can a more rounded understanding of everyday lives in a disadvantaged place be developed and, in turn, workable solutions be found and delivered.

No description available.

A review of the construct of psychopathy suggested that procedures for assessing the disorder should take into account its two-facet structure, its chronicity, its association with criminality, and its association with deceitfulness. A review of the five most popular assessment procedures currently in use indicated that none of them was completely satisfactory; the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) appeared to be superior to the other measures in most respects, but it was not well-suited for use outside of forensic settings. It was therefore decided to develop anew scale, based on the PCL-R, that would be suitable for both forensic and nonforensic settings. Pilot testing resulted in a 12-item symptom construct rating scale, named the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV). The PCL:SV was validated in 11 samples (N = 586) from forensic/nonpsychiatric, forensic/psychiatric, civil/psychiatric, and civil/nonpsychiatric settings. Results indicated that the PCL:SV had good internal consistency, interrater reliability, and temporal stability. The scale also appeared to have a two-factor structure, at least in samples with an appreciable base rate of psychopathy. The PCL:SV was highly correlated with other psychopathy-related measures, including the PCL-R, antisocial personality disorder symptom counts, and several self-report scales. It also had a pattern of convergent and discriminant validities that was consistent with both theory and previous research that used the PCL-R. It was concluded that the PCL:SV holds considerable promise as a measure of psychopathy; areas requiring further research were identified.

Moffitt (1993) proposed two trajectories for the development of criminal behaviour; one was life-course-persistent offenders with long histories of developmental and behavioural problems and the other was normally developing adolescence-limited offenders who engaged in criminal behaviour for a brief period during the teen years. Moffitt suggested that adolescence-limited offenders mimicked the behaviour of their life-course-persistent contemporaries in order to access the trappings of adulthood, a sign of the “maturity gap” that is hypothesised to occur between physical maturity and social acceptance into adult roles. Consistent with this, Bukowskiet al. (2000) found support for an increased attractiveness of antisocial peers during the adolescent years. The goal of the present study was to examine how young adolescents believe others would view different kinds of behaviour. Subjects from a longitudinal study on low socioeconomic families in Christchurch, NZ, completed a questionnaire where they indicated what they believed others would think if they engaged in pro-social, unconventional, and antisocial behaviours. Adolescents rated how they thought parents, same-sex peers, and attractive opposite-sex peers would perceive the different behaviours, and also indicated how they would perceive the same behaviours in an opposite-sex peer. Results showed that, overall, the sample did not think others would approve of antisocial behaviour, and that they would not approve of antisocial behaviour in an opposite-sex friend. However, differences in perceived approval were found when comparisons were made between boys and girls, and across variations in parenting styles of the adolescent’s caregivers. Differences were also found across indicators of different developmental trajectories, such that those youth who are probably on the life-course persistent trajectory expected less disapproval of antisocial behaviour in others than youth who are probably not on that trajectory. These results are partially consistent with Moffitt’s theory.

No description available.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 50 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 31-37).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2007. / Title from title screen (site viewed Oct. 10, 2007). PDF text: viii, 75, p. : ill. UMI publication number: AAT 3259074. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University

A review of the construct of psychopathy suggested that procedures for assessing the disorder should take into account its two-facet structure, its chronicity, its association with criminality, and its association with deceitfulness. A review of the five most popular assessment procedures currently in use indicated that none of them was completely satisfactory; the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) appeared to be superior to the other measures in most respects, but it was not well-suited for use outside of forensic settings. It was therefore decided to develop anew scale, based on the PCL-R, that would be suitable for both forensic and nonforensic settings. Pilot testing resulted in a 12-item symptom construct rating scale, named the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV). The PCL:SV was validated in 11 samples (N = 586) from forensic/nonpsychiatric, forensic/psychiatric, civil/psychiatric, and civil/nonpsychiatric settings. Results indicated that the PCL:SV had good internal consistency, interrater reliability, and temporal stability. The scale also appeared to have a two-factor structure, at least in samples with an appreciable base rate of psychopathy. The PCL:SV was highly correlated with other psychopathy-related measures, including the PCL-R, antisocial personality disorder symptom counts, and several self-report scales. It also had a pattern of convergent and discriminant validities that was consistent with both theory and previous research that used the PCL-R. It was concluded that the PCL:SV holds considerable promise as a measure of psychopathy; areas requiring further research were identified. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate