396 Chapter 11 Psychological Disorders
the rights of others; is deceitful, lying and conning
others for profit or pleasure; is impulsive and seeks
quick thrills; shows reckless disregard for his or her
own safety or anyone else’s; gets into physical fights
or assaults others; and is chronically irresponsible,
failing to hold jobs or meet obligations. The DSM-5
has added one final symptom, the one that is at the
heart of psychopathy: lacking remorse for the harms
inflicted on others.
As you can see, this definition covers a broad
set of behaviors. It includes psychopaths, who are
deceitful and lack remorse, but it also includes
teenagers who fall in with a bad crowd for a few
years and criminals who have been aggressive rule-
breakers since early childhood. The latter become
what one researcher calls “lifetime persistent
offenders,” though their offenses take different
forms at different ages: “biting and hitting at age 4,
shoplifting and truancy at age 10, selling drugs and
stealing cars at age 16, robbery and rape at age 22,history. Even a close-knit culture such as the
Yupik in Canada has a word for them: kunlangeta
(Seabrook, 2008). An anthropologist once asked
a member of the tribe what the group would do
with a kunlangeta, and he said, “Somebody would
have pushed him off the ice when nobody else
was looking.” Psychopaths are feared and detested
everywhere.
Over the objections of many clinical scientists
who study psychopathy, the third edition of the
DSM replaced that diagnosis with antisocial person-
ality disorder (APD). For several editions, the DSM
has described people with APD as having a “per-
vasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the
rights of others,” occurring since the age of 15
(although often people with APD have had conduct
problems in childhood). This “antisocial” pattern
may be expressed in various ways, but to receive
the diagnosis, a person needs to meet only three of
these criteria: repeatedly breaks the law and violatesantisocial personal-
ity disorder (APD) A
personality disorder char-
acterized by a lifelong
pattern of irresponsible,
antisocial behavior such
as lawbreaking, violence,
and other impulsive,
reckless acts, and lack
of remorse for harms
inflicted.
In the popular imagination, psychopaths are sadistic and violent. Gary L. Ridgway (left), the deadliest convicted
serial killer in American history, strangled 48 women, placing their bodies in clusters around the country so he could
“keep track of them.” But most psychopaths are not murderers; they use charm and elaborate scams to deceive and
defraud. Christopher Rocancourt (right, with model Naomi Campbell) conned celebrities and others out of millions of
dollars by adopting false identities, including movie producer, Brazilian race car driver, Russian prince, son of Sophia
Loren, and financier. He was caught in Canada and spent a year in a correctional center—hosting media interviews
and writing his autobiography.