Happy New Year!
Are psychopaths born or made? This week we open our Spring 2012 season with a very special guest, Dr. Dave Kosson (Professor of Psychology at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science and one of the co-authors of The Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version), who will discuss genetic and environmental factors related to psychopathy.
There is now substantial evidence that genetic factors contribute to individual differences in psychopathic traits. Studies conducted with different measures of psychopathy converge in suggesting a role for genetic factors. However, these studies also consistently indicate that genetics do not explain all of the individual differences, meaning that environmental factors also make a difference.
Dr. Kosson also mentioned several specific kinds of evidence suggesting the possibility that specific kinds of environmental factors could be related to psychopathic traits. However, he emphasized that these studies do not rule out genetic causes for environmental events. Although that may sound confusing, an example will help to illustrate it. One kind of adverse environmental factor that some people have linked to antisocial behavior is physical abuse. There is evidence that maltreatment of children is associated with conduct problems in children. In fact, there is evidence linking child maltreatment to higher levels of psychopathic features. However, the reason we say that studies like this do not rule out genetic factors is this; it is possible that genetic factors could lead a parent to display cruelty and lack of empathy for his/her children as well as cruelty in the child, and this kind of cruelty could be expressed in child abuse. In short, when you see an environmental correlate of any kind of mental disorder or disruptive behavior disorder, it could reflect what is called a gene-environment correlation (a genetic factor that is contributing to the environmental factor).
This is an important caveat in looking at environmental factors. Nevertheless, it is quite interesting that several different kinds of environmental correlates of psychopathic traits have been identified. However, Dr. Kosson emphasized that several of these findings have not yet been published. One of these is exposure to community violence. Two studies (one of which is published) have now indicated that exposure to violence in the community (either witnessing violent acts or being directly victimized in the community) are associated with higher levels of psychopathic traits in children. Another related study indicates that the absence of a biologically related father during the first four years of life has been associated with higher levels of psychopathic features. However, Dr. Schug pointed out that the absence of a biological father is the kind of thing that you might expect if a biological father himself had some psychopathic traits. Although these kinds of findings are not conclusive, they suggest that greater attention to environmental factors is warranted.