Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-111).

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Psychopathy and alexithymia are disorders with many conceptual similarities. For example, Factor 1 of the Psychopathy Checklist - Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991) contains items like shallow affect and lack of empathy, which seem to map on to the construct of alexithymia. Additionally, both psychopaths and alexithymics display striking differences from others in their use of language, especially affective language. The two areas of interest in the present study were (a) occurrence and co—occurrence of psychopathy and alexithymia in a sample of female inmates, and (b) the relationship between affective language and these two disorders. Psychopathy and alexithymia were assessed in 37 women offenders incarcerated in a Burnaby Correctional Centre, using the PCL-R and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale ( TAS; Taylor, Ryan & Bagby, 1985). Each subject was presented with a short written scenario designed to elicit an emotional response, and asked to describe the feelings of the characters in the story. Their taped responses were analyzed for measures of affect. Base rates of both disorders were comparable to those in similar samples, ( 30% of the inmates were diagnosed as psychopathic; 33% as alexithymic) but the coxnorbidity rate was only 8%. There was a significant correlation between alexithymia scores and PCL—R Factor 2 scores — the factor assessing antisocial behaviour. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the TAS and PCL-R were both predictive of violence. This relationship between the PCL-R and violence is well substantiated; that the TAS also predicts violence is a newer finding. Alexithymics spoke more slowly, used fewer total words overall and fewer affective words, and displayed less emotion in their voices than did nonalexithymics. Psychopaths could not be identified by any vocal measures except a slight tendency to speak faster than nonpsychopaths. Although both disorders are characterized’ by affective impoverishment, the verbal expressions of affect were very different in psychopaths and alexithymics. The psychopaths were adept at convincing raters of an emotional investment they did not feel; alexithymics could not disguise their lack of appropriate emotional response.

Psychopathy is a complex personality disorder denned by a constellation of affective and behavioral characteristics. There is accumulating behavioral evidence suggesting that the condition is associated with impairments in affective, cognitive, and language functions. However, relatively little is known regarding the neural systems underlying these abnormalities. The present thesis is comprised of five experiments designed to elucidate and characterize the abnormal functional architecture underlying these abnormalities in psychopathic criminals. In Experiments 1 and 2, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to elucidate the neural systems underling abnormal semantic and affective processes in these individuals. In Experiments 3, 4 and 5, event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to characterize the temporal features of cognitive and language functions in psychopaths. The results from Experiment 1 revealed that compared to control participants, psychopaths performed more poorly and failed to showed the appropriate neural differentiation between abstract and concrete stimuli during a lexical decision task. These deficits were located in the right anterior superior temporal gyrus. The results from Experiment 2 indicated that psychopaths, relative to control participants, showed less activation for processing affective stimuli than for neutral stimuli in several neural regions, including the right amygdala/hippocampal formation, left parahippocampal gyrus, ventral striatum, and in the anterior and posterior cingulate. Psychopaths did show greater activation for processing affective than for neutral stimuli in regions located outside the limbic system, including bilateral inferior frontal gyrus. These latter data suggesting that psychopaths used different neural systems than did controls for performing the task. The results from Experiments 3 and 4 indicated that psychopathy is associated with abnormalities in the P3 ERP component elicited by target stimuli during visual and auditory oddball tasks. In addition, the psychopaths' ERPs to visual and auditory target stimuli were characterized by large fronto-central negativities in the 350-600 millisecond time window. These fronto-central ERP negativities are similar to those observed for patients with temporal lobe damage. In Experiment 5, using a standard sentence processing paradigm, no group differences were observed between psychopaths and nonpsychopaths in the amplitude of the N400 potential elicited by terminal words of sentences that were either congruent or incongruent with the previous sentence context. These results indicate that the abnormal fronto-central ERP negativities observed in previous studies of language function in psychopaths are not related to processes involved in the generation of the N400. Taken together, these data suggest that one of the cardinal abnormalities in psychopathy is abnormal semantic processing of conceptually abstract information and affective information and that these abnormalities are related to the function of neural circuits in the anterior temporal lobes and lateral frontal cortex.

Alcohol abuse/dependence frequently co-occurs with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and conduct disorder (CD). Furthermore, crime studies have generally found that alcohol is involved in over 50% of violent crimes, and experimental studies support the notion that acute alcohol consumption indirectly increases the likelihood of aggressive and disinhibited behaviors in the laboratory. However, the mechanisms underlying alcohol's association with such behaviors remain unclear. The goals of this thesis were therefore to further elucidate potential mechanisms underlying (a) alcohol-induced aggressive, disinhibited behaviors and (b) the high comorbidity between delinquent, aggressive behaviors (characterizing CD/ASPD) and alcohol misuse/abuse/dependence. Thus, four studies were conducted, focusing on individual differences in the physiological response to alcohol intoxication. Specifically examined was the elevated heart rate (HR) response to alcohol, which is thought to reflect an increased sensitivity to alcohol-induced reward. / Results of Study I indicated that high HR Responders to alcohol self-reported increased multiple year delinquency (physical aggression, theft, and destruction of property), as well as more alcohol consumption and an increased positive subjective feeling following intoxication, as compared to low HR Responders. Furthermore, a high HR response was related to increased extraversion, disinhibition, boredom susceptibility, and total sensation seeking. Study II revealed that Aggressive Sons of Male Alcoholics (Agg-SOMAs) had the highest intoxicated HR response, and reported the most alcohol consumption, as compared to Non-Agg-SOMAs, or Agg - or Non-Agg - Non-SOMAs. Studies III and IV revealed that intoxicated high HR responders exhibited the most physical aggression (assessed by the Taylor Aggression Paradigm), as well as the most behavioral disinhibition (assessed by the Go/No-Go task) as compared to sober high HR Responders, or sober/intoxicated low HR responders. / In summary, individuals with a high HR response to alcohol appear to have an increased propensity for multiple addictive, disinhibited and aggressive behaviors. This determines a phenotype of both potential heuristic and clinical importance. These findings are discussed within the context of a hypothetical model of (a) the high comorbidity between alcohol use/misuse and aggression/ASPD, and (b) the increased likelihood of alcohol-induced aggressive, disinhibited behaviors.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 36-56).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2008. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-89). Also available online in ProQuest, free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (M.S.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Dr. Jeanette Taylor, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Aug. 27, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-141). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

The role that parenting plays in the development of antisocial behaviour has been, and is still widely researched. International studies on this topic are vast. In South Africa, however, very little has been researched within this area. This study aimed to systematically review literature on the role of parenting in the development of antisocial behaviour. International literature published between 2000 and 2013 was reviewed in order to gain a better idea of the current state of knowledge on this topic. All of the articles included in the review examined some aspect of parenting behaviour, parenting practices and/or parenting styles related to the development of antisocial behaviour, conduct disorder, and/or oppositional defiant disorder. The articles were systematically assessed, and eight themes emerged which include: effective parenting behaviours; the moderating effects of callous unemotional traits on parenting; parental warmth; parental discipline; parental knowledge and monitoring; parental psychopathology; parenting styles; and parenting during infancy.