Psychopathy Among Offenders

In the article “Remorse, Psychopathology, and Psychopathy among Adolescent Offenders” by Andrew Spice, Jodi Viljoen, Kevin Douglas, and Stephen Hart, the aim is to establish the effects of shame and remorse on young offenders. Previous research doesn’t allow discussion for the implications and differences between the two emotions. The article is meant to link the “bad” guys with the bad feelings; bad is in quotations as these people are deviant, but not necessarily bad. In the words of the authors “The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship of remorse with psychopathic characteristics and psychopathology among adolescent offenders.” (Douglas, Hart, Spice, Viljoen, 2015).
The article, published in the academic journal Law
and Human Behavior, makes strict definitions of remorse and shame to clarify the information to follow it. Though both words are considered to be a synonym of regret, remorse is negative feelings associated with an action or event. Shame is negative feelings associated with oneself and their responsibility in an action and event. Knowing the difference between the two, the researchers expected different results regarding their influence on the deviant-- “With regard to psychopathy, we expected that measures of guilt would be negatively related to psychopathic traits and that measures of shame would be positively related to the antisocial and behavioral characteristics of the disorder.” (Douglas et al. 2015).
The study followed 97 young offenders collected from 11 probation office locations. Their previous probation files were reviewed as well as self-reporting and an interview. Guilt and Shame were measured by giving the participants scenarios and asking them to rate how badly they would feel on a five point Likert –scale; the researches gave statements and the participant would rate how true the statement was to their feelings. Each statement pertained to shame and remorse separately. For instance, if the scenario was “I threw the ball and it hit my friend in the face.” There would be statements like “I would feel bad for hurting my friend” or “I feel like I’m awful because I can’t throw a ball.” They would then say it was anywhere on a scale from very true to not true at all. The researchers would also study previous statements from the probation files to assess remorse and shame in the past.
Another important part of the study was to assess the presence of psychopathic tendencies in the subjects. They were all processed through the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version, so that the researchers can study how psychopathy aligns itself with remorse and shame. Psychopaths are known to have little to no effect by remorse and shame, while a classification called secondary psychopath is effected by shame. A secondary psychopath is someone who has the same tendencies as a primary psychopath but to less extreme measures. The distinction between the two forms of psychopathy and one’s status on the PC:YV effect the results in a way that is significant to the study. If a subject was to be psychopathic, the results they would provide could not be applied to a general population.
The hypothesis was proved to be correct. They found that guilt has a negative correlation to substance abuse, anger, and depression; Offenders who had a higher rate of guilt were less likely to participate in such actions. Shame, however, had a positive correlation to these factors; the higher the shame, the more likely they are to participate in such behaviors. This is logical, as shame forces the offender to hold sole responsibility while remorse shares responsibility with the event and circumstances. Shame can define a person while remorse can define a moment. Some of the results showed differing averages based on identities; they found that there is an inverse relationship between age and remorse, the older they get the less guilt and shame they feel when they break laws. Though there were no significant differences between genders or race.
The study was conducted in what may be the best possible way. When assessing emotions, it’s incredibly hard to establish a scale that accounts not only for the differing demographics, but also the different reactions to stimuli and emotion. Likert-scales have proven to be quite effective when collecting qualitative data, and an average based on the researchers key is a good indicator to any stimuli’s effect on a subject. My only complaint is that I wish they would either remove the psychopathic tendencies as a factor, or feature the qualification more clearly. As it is now, it gives the study one too many dependent variables that the reader can’t quite comprehend.
The implications of this study are numerous, especially to clinicians. The study urges those who work with and treat young offenders to focus on shame in their clients in a hope to combat the negative effects that come with it. Also, guilt may be the key in assuring that there are no further discretions with the client. From some of the examples we’ve seen in class, such as North Korea parading deviants in the streets and on TV, those with the social control are using shame as a tool. This study shows that it may be more helpful to use guilt. We shouldn’t make someone feel like an awful person for breaking a rule, but we should make them recognize the consequences of that law in a way that’ll force understanding—guilt over shame.
The research’s finding is undoubtedly helpful. The phrases shame and guilt are often used interchangeably so it is vital that we redefine the words and show that they are, on a basic level, incredibly different. Shame is dangerous to a young offender while guilt, it has been revealed, can help enormously. If those with social control are going to continue using shame as a both an informal and formal punishment, they have to recognize that they may be pushing them in the wrong direction. Shame only fosters further deviance and can in fact create subcultures that perpetuate deviant lifestyles through their attitudes, behaviors and conditions. From here, studies should be conducted to truly test the boundaries of shame and guilt. We should see where shame can truly take its victim and if guilt may have the power of bringing them back. The article echoes this need, “Further research is needed to investigate whether guilt-focused interventions are effective among justice-involved youth, both with and without psychopathic traits.” (Douglas, et al. 2015).
For further information regarding shame and why it drives the afflicted into the arms of more negative behavior, I looked to the textbook Readings in Deviant Behavior, edited by Alex Thio, Thomas Calhoun, and Addrain Conyers.
In Chapter 6, written by John Braithwaite, the textbook describes Shaming theory. Shaming theory states that delinquency and deviance are controlled by a person’s shame and the way they are connected to their society. Societies find that some identities and positions within communities bring responsibilities and attachments. The level of attachments are referred to as a person’s interdependency. For instance, a young, 20 year old woman with a job, a husband, and a monthly book club has more interdependency than a 60 year old unemployed man who doesn’t belong to any social circles. In a broader sense, communitarian societies like those found in the eastern hemisphere have more interdependency than the rather solitary community America offers. “Interdependent persons are much more susceptible to shaming” (Braithwaite, 2010) People who are more attached and hold more responsibilities have that many more opportunities to face
shame.
Shaming theory states that societies punish deviance in one of two ways, reintegration and stigmatization.
When the community chooses reintegration, they find that the deviant is more likely to realign themselves with the values of the population. Because the punishment does not illicit a rejection response from its victim, it is far less potent and deviants find they can move past it without feeling ostracized completely. But when the deviant is stigmatized, they see that the subject is more likely to veer off from the norm again. “Shaming that is stigmatizing, in contrast, makes criminal subcultures more attractive because these are in some sense subcultures which reject the rejectors” (Braithwaite, 2010) Shaming, and all the negative behaviors we see it influences in the article from Law and Human Behavior, create a comradery with others who have been shamed. Collectively, they support deviance in each other. Again, a subcultures’ attitudes, behaviors and conditions all contribute to the furthering of deviance in a
society.
The process of North Korea publicly shaming their criminals is relevant in this sense. Deviants are interviewed on TV, they are paraded through the streets. They stigmatize all of their criminals with the hope that it’ll deter them from repeating their offenses, but from both the textbook’s writings on shaming theory and the article by Douglas, Hart, Spice, and Viljoen we can assume that this is not actually effective. It’s creating an out group that finds ways to support each other. When we create an “Us” and “Them”, there is just as much connection in the “Them” group as there is in the “Us” group. From the research conducted by the knowledgeable sociologists at Law and Human Behavior and the authors of the Readings in Deviant Behavior, we can conclude that shame is a powerful and negative driving factor in our lives. Some communities use it as punishment, successful or not, and other use it to understand what is going on in the heads of the deviant. Sociologists would do well to harness such a power and dissect it for academic purposes. We don’t fully understand shame yet, and the complexities in which it is obtained and retained. But we are well on our way to accounting for the emotion in further sociological research.