Secondary Psychopaths?
Can anyone tell me anything about secondary psychopaths? There doesn't seem to be much written about them. If someone could recomend a book, that would be great.
Please keep in mind I studied Philosophy in college, not Psychology.
Answer:
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/psychopathy...
Secondary psychopaths show normal to above-normal physiological responses to (perceived) potential threats. Their crimes tend to be unplanned and impulsive with little thought of the consequences. They have hot tempers and are prone to reactive aggression. They experience normal to above-normal levels of anxiety but are nevertheless highly stimulus seeking and have trouble tolerating boredom. Their lifestyle may lead to depression and even suicide.
For the secondary psychopath especially prominent are the Factor 2 (in the two-factor model) PCL-R items of impulsivity, weak behavioral controls, irresponsibility, lack of realistic long-term goals, proneness to boredom/need for stimulation, parasitic lifestyle, early behavioral problems, juvenile delinquency, and revocation of conditional release (breaking probation).
Sellbom and Ben-Porath (2005) found that secondary psychopathy (as measured by the Psychopathic Personality Inventory, Factor 2) shows opposite correlations to primary psychopathy in many cases.
Newman et al. found measures of secondary psychopathy to be positively correlated with Gray's behavioral activation system, a construct intended to measure sensitivity to cues of behavioral approach.
As for a book, David T. Lykken's book The Antisocial Personalities spends considerable time classifying various subtypes of both psychopathy and sociopathy (he lists two possible causes of secondary psychopathy as hypersexuality and a dystempered, or choleric, personality; for primary psychopathy, Lykken favors his fearlessness hypothesis but mentions others).
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