Literature Review on the Evolution of Psychopathy

Evolution of Psycopathy
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Evolution of Psychopathy
Abstract
Traditionally, traits such as selfishness, deceit, lack of empathy, egocentricity and manipulativeness used to play a crucial role in the conceptualization of psychopathy. In the past three decades, psychopathy has been redefined by the continuous violations of social norms such as stealing, inconsistent work behavior, lying and truancy. Due to this, psychopathy is considered as a personality disorder that is being characterized by strong antisocial traits. Its defining features are risk factors that influence violent behaviors. Researchers and neuroscientists have suggested that both orbitofrontal neuropsychological performance and genetic factors are developmental factors for psychopathy.
Introduction
Psychopathy is a personality disorder that is being characterized by behavioral, interpersonal and lifestyle traits such as lack of empathy and remorse, manipulation, glibness, grandiosity, shallow effect, irresponsible lifestyle and persistent violations of the social norms. The development and implementation of Hare’s psychopathy checklist-revised had improved the evaluation of this disorder. From PCL-R assessment, interpersonal and personality traits such as lying, lack of remorse and empathy, and manipulation are related to psychopathy. These traits are grouped in Factor 1 (F1). Antisocial traits such as impulsivity, irresponsibility and criminal behavior belong to Factor 2 (F2) (Hare, & Neumann, 2008).
Neuroscientists have established a connection between psychopathy and violent behaviors. They have suggested that the deficiency of violence inhibitors such as emotional ties, self-justifications, fear to punishments, and empathy facilitates the violent behaviors that are witnessed in psychopaths. Also, there is a proposition that psychopathy in adolescents may lead to the development of antisocial behaviors and violation of the law in adulthood.
However, there is a suggestion that the etiology of psychopathy contains an important biological component. This is due to recent studies that have demonstrated that genetic factors are contribute to the development of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) that is linked to psychopathy. Genetic factors are believed to account for more than 50% of ASPD. Additionally, it has been demonstrated that some of the contributing factors for the development of psychopathy characteristics such cruelty, unemotional traits; detachment and manipulation in men are genetic factors (Furguson, 2010).
A reason why genes have been linked to psychopathy is the modulation of serotonin (5HT) on violent behaviors. This suggests that there is a relationship between serotonin and violent behaviors in which more violent individuals possess more psychopathic characteristics (Dolan, Anderson, & Deakin, 2001).
Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) is one of the genes that have been linked to psychopathy. MAOA is an enzyme that catalyzes monoamines in the brain and is contains strands of 5HT. It is located in X chromosome (Xp 11.4-Xp 11.3) (Shih, Chen, & Ridd, 1999). The polymorphism repetitions (MAOA-uVNTR) have been described. MAOA-uVNTR is a repetiti...