Journal article
Potential effects of severe bilateral amygdala damage on psychopathic personality features: A case report
Personality disorders, Vol.9(2), pp.112-121
03/2018
DOI: 10.1037/per0000230
PMCID: PMC5665719
PMID: 27936839
Abstract
The fearlessness model posits that psychopathy is underpinned by a deficiency in the capacity to experience fear, predisposing to other features of the condition, such as superficial charm, guiltlessness, callousness, narcissism, and dishonesty. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether fearlessness is irrelevant, necessary, sufficient, or merely contributory to psychopathy. In the present case study, we sought to examine the fearlessness model by studying an extensively investigated female patient-S. M.-who experienced early emerging bilateral calcifications of the amygdala, resulting in a virtual absence of fear. We aimed to replicate findings regarding S. M.'s deficient experience of self-reported fear and examine her levels of triarchic psychopathy dimensions (boldness, meanness, disinhibition). We also examined S. M.'s history of heroic behaviors given conjectures that fearlessness contributes to both heroism and psychopathy. Compared with population-based norms, S. M. reported deficient levels of self-reported fear and self-control, as well as elevated levels of heroism. She did not, however, exhibit elevated levels of the core affective deficits of psychopathy, as reflected in measures of coldheartedness and meanness. These findings suggest that severe fear deficits may be insufficient to yield the full clinical picture of psychopathy, although they do not preclude the possibility that these deficits are necessary. (PsycINFO Database Record
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Potential effects of severe bilateral amygdala damage on psychopathic personality features: A case report
- Creators
- Scott O Lilienfeld - Department of PsychologyKatheryn C Sauvigné - Department of Psychology, Georgia State UniversityJustin Reber - Department of Psychology, University of IowaAshley L Watts - Department of Psychology, Emory UniversityStephan Hamann - Department of Psychology, Emory UniversitySarah Francis Smith - Department of Psychology, Emory UniversityChristopher J Patrick - Department of Psychology, Florida State UniversityShauna M Bowes - Department of Psychology, Emory UniversityDaniel Tranel - Department of Psychology, University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Personality disorders, Vol.9(2), pp.112-121
- DOI
- 10.1037/per0000230
- PMID
- 27936839
- PMCID
- PMC5665719
- NLM abbreviation
- Personal Disord
- ISSN
- 1949-2715
- eISSN
- 1949-2723
- Publisher
- United States
- Grant note
- T32 GM108540 / NIGMS NIH HHS
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 03/2018
- Academic Unit
- Neurology; Psychiatry; Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
- Record Identifier
- 9984002408602771
Metrics
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