Personality Disorders in Young Sex Offenders

Personality Disorders• The Personality Disorder involves inflexible and maladaptive

patterns of behavior and inner experience that are pervasive, inflexible and stable over time. These behaviors produce personal and social difficulties, deviate markedly from the expectations of the individual of the individual’s culture, and lead to distress and marked problems in functioning in society (Visser, 2006). In addition to personal and social difficulties, these people also display temperamental deficiencies or aberrations, rigidity in dealing with life problems, and defective perceptions of self and others (Sue, 2006).

• Cleckley’s (1976) classic description of the disorder included the following characteristics:

• Superficial charm and good intelligence• Shallow emotions and lack of empathy, guilt or remorse• Behaviors indicative of little life plan or order• Failure to learn from experiences and absence of anxiety• Unreliability, insincerity, and untruthfulness.• (Sue, 2006)• • The moral and active principles of the mind are strongly perverted or

depraved; the power of self government is lost or greatly impaired; and the individual is found to be incapable, not of talking or reasoning upon any subject proposed to him … but of conducting himself with decency and propriety in the business of life (Prichard, 1837; in Sue, 2006).

How it develops

• Family and Socialization Perspectives: Rejection or deprivation by one or both parents may mean that the child has little opportunities too learn socially appropriate behaviors or that the value of people as socially reinforcing agents is diminished. Parental separation or absence and assaultive or inconsistent parenting are related to antisocial personality (Phillips & Gunderson, 1999). Another explanation is that the child may have modeled the behavior of a parent who had antisocial tendencies.

Bowlby’s attachment theory• According to the theory, chidren who fail to bond or connect

with their caregivers develop inner working models of others as unworthy of trust, empathy, and concern, which can lead to a broad range of problem behavior at a later stage (Bowlby, 1969,1973). Subsequent other authors found relationships between early attachment relationships, social skills, externalizing behavior, moral emotions sever antisocial behavior, childhood aggression, conduct disorder, and sexual offenses (e.g. Allen, Hauser, & Borman-Spurrel, 1996; Fagot & Kavanagh, 1990; Greenberg, Speltz, & DeKlyen, 1993; Lehnecke, 2004; Lyons-Ruth,1996; Lyons-Ruth, Alpern, & Rapacholi, 1993; Spender & Scott, 1996; Van Ijzendoorn et al., 1997; in Bekker, 2007).

Oppositional Defiant Disorder• Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) is characterized by a negativistic,

argumentative, and hostile behavior pattern. Children with this disorder often lose their temper, argue with adults, and defy or refuse adult requests. They may refuse to do chores and refuse to take responsibility for their actions. The defiant behavior is directed primarily toward parents, teachers, and other people in authority. Anger, resentment, blaming others, and spiteful and vindictive behaviors are common. A pattern of defiance, disobedience, and hostility toward adult authority may be diagnosed as ODD when such a pattern persists until age 8. Children with ODD constantly fight, argue, lose their temper, snatch things, blame others, are angry and resentful, and test the limits of adults’ patience (APA, 1994; USDHHS, 1999c; in Papalia O. F., 2006). Some children with ODD move on to a repetitive, persistent patter of aggressive, antisocial acts, such as truancy, setting fires, habitual lying, fighting, vandalism, rape or prositution, and use of guns. This is called Conduct Disorder (CD) (APA, 1994; in Papalia O. F., 2006). Although confrontation often occurs, it does not involve the more serious violations of the rights of others that are involved in conduct disorder (Sue, 2006).

Conduct Disorders• Conduct Disorders are characterized by a persistent pattern of antisocial behaviors that

violate the rights of others, the behavior should be repetitive and persistent. Conduct disorders may include behaviors such as bullying, lying, cheating, fighting, destruction of property, stealing, setting fires, cruelty to people and animals, assaults, rape, and truant behavior. The pattern of misconduct must last for at least twelve months to warrant this diagnosis (American Psychiatric Association, 2000; in Sue, 2006). The diagnosis of conduct disorder applies only when the behaviors reflect dysfunction in the individual rather than a reaction to the individual’s social and economic environment.

• Two types of conduct disorders are recognized: (1) childhood-onset type (at least one conduct problem occurs before age ten) and (2) adolescent-onset type (conduct problem occurs after age ten). Barry et al (2000) found that subgroups of children with sever conduct disorder who also show callous, unemotional personality traits, do not show much distress about their behavioral difficulties, a pattern consistent with adults who have antisocial personality traits (Sue, 2006).

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• In summary: Conduct disorders are charactirised by habitual misbehavior, such as stealling, skipping school, destroying property, fighting, being cruel both to animals and to other people, and frequently telling lies. Children with this disorders may misbehave independently or in groups or gangs. This disoder is often a precursor to antisocial personaltiy disorder, a disorder that frequently involves unlawful behavior (Sternberg, 2001).

Research to confirm the link between Antisocial Personality Disorder and CD• Charectirised by emotional detachment, Conduct Disoder individuals display low fearfullness,

a callous misuse of others for personal gain, severe and violent pattern of antisocial behavior, and high rates of recidivism, [e.g. Barry et al., 2000; Frick and Ellis, 1999; Harpur et al., 1989; Patrick, 1994; in Loney, 2007). Childhood conduct problems accompanied by emotiona detachment ( or callous-unemotional traits) have been linked to sever conduct problems, low anxiety, reward dominant response style, impairments in the processing of fearful aversive stimuli, and a propensity to engage in thrill-and-adventure seeking behavior [e.g. Blair, 1999; Frick, 1998; Frick et al., 1999; Loney et al., 2003; in Loney, 2007]. This research suggests that psychopathy features emerge in childhood and may persist into adulthood.

• The study conducted by Loney et al. (2007) was imed to confirm this. It examined the stability and predictive utility of psychopethathy features during the adult transition and in relation to various externalizing symptoms previously assiciated with the psychopathy construct (i.e., conduct problems, hyperactivity/impulsivity, and substance use symptoms). It was conducted on a community-based sample of adolescent boys who were assesed at age 17 and again approximatley 6 years later. Moderate stabilty was predicted for psychopathy features accross the adult transition. In addition to stabilty, psychopathy features were expected to be positively associated with various externalizing symptoms during adolescence and to predict increasses in such sypmtoms over the transition from adolesence to adulthood. The results were largely in accordance with predictions. The results of this investigation suggest that adolescent psuchopathy features are moderately stable and predictive of various extenalizing behavior difficulties during transition to adulthood.

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder• Many chidren with conduct disorder also have attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Some

11 – to 13-year-olds progress from conduct disorder to criminal violence-mugging, rape, and break-ins-and by age17 may be frequent, serious offenders (Coie & Dodge, 1998; in Papalia O. F., 2006). Between 25 and 50 percent of these highly antisocial children become antisocial adults (USDHHS, 1999c; in Papalia O. F., 2006).

• Forsman and coleagues (2007) made a study on ADHD. This Study tested if persistent externalizing behavior and symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in childhood are associated with personality and behavioral aspects of the psychopathic personality constellation in adolescence. Childhood externalized behavior and ADHD are two behavioral syndromes that have been related to traits associated with psychopathy as well as development of stable and sever forms of antisocial behavior. Externalizing behavior is a reccuring pattern of antisociality, including aggressive and non-aggressive behavior. Studies have shown that persistent ADHD is associated with having fewer friends, being rejected by peers, repetitive drunkeness, alcohol problems and daily cigarette smoking in adolescence (Bagwee, Molina, Peham, & Hoza, 2001; Molina & Pelham, 2003). There is a common genetic effect influencing callous/unemotional traits and externalizing behavior in childhood (Viding et al, 2005), as well as psychopathic personality traits and antisocial behavior in adolescence (Larsson, Tuvblad et al, 2006). Therfore this study hypothisizes that externalizing behavior is a genetically influenced precursor to the psychopathic personality constellation in adolescence.

• They therefore found significant association between persistent externalizing behavior and psychopathic personality suggesting, in agreement with existing theory, that persitent externalizing behavior is a strong predictor of antisocial behavior in general (Forsman, 2007).