What is dissocial personality? This is otherwise the antisocial personality, psychopathy. Dissocial personality disorder is a persistent personality disorder associated with mental deficits in anxiety, learning, and interpersonal relationships. What psychiatric tests can determine that someone has a dissocial personality?

Dissocial personality- what does it mean? How can a dissocial personality be diagnosed? Dissocial personality disorder in the field of higher emotionality and is unable to establish deeper contacts with the environment, treating others instrumentally and using them to gain benefits for himself. What can make someone suspect a dissocial personality?

Dissocial personality: traits

Dissocial personality disorder is an antisocial personality disorder. People with this disorder adhere to the principle that the most important thing is to satisfy their own needs, regardless of the costs and welfare of others, and their actions are the result of cold calculation and voluntary choice.

According to experts, Katarzyna Waśniewska has a dissocial personality, sentenced to 25 years in prison for killing her six-month-old daughter Magda.

The characteristics of a dissocial personality are:

  • aggressiveness,
  • tendency to use violence,
  • emotional coldness,
  • negligible level of compassion and empathy towards others
  • a tendency to persistent non-compliance with the prevailing social and moral order.

Dissocial personality: causes

According to experts, there is no simple explanation of how dissocial personality develops.

Dissocial personality: environmental causes

Many researchers emphasize the importance of incorrect socialization when shaping a dissocial personality. The hostility of the environment, which at the same time promotes aggressive behavior:

  • on the part of the family: absence of one of the parents in the child's life due to separation or divorce,
  • constant quarrels at home, the father's lack of interest in the child, parental instability and lack of consistency in upbringing.
  • on the mother's side: Both overprotection and outright rejection of a child may result in socially maladjusted behavior
  • from the media side:omnipresent aggression, violence presented in the media, social coldness, insensitivity, social narcissism, putting personal benefits over the public good, manipulating the feelings of others
  • child's early "criminal" experiences, e.g. thefts, fights, robberies

Dissocial personality: physiological causes

Some specialists believe that the shaping of a dissocial personality may also be influenced by some physiological dysfunctions: changes in EEG, brain immaturity and dysfunctions of the limbic system, controlling the emotional and motivational sphere of a person. Often, especially in the case of men, researchers emphasize the possible role of genetic factors in the development of this type of disorder. Research shows that many men in prison have an additional Y chromosome in their karyotype (the XYY set promotes hyperactivity and aggression).

Dissocial personality: the basis for diagnosis

To diagnose dissocial personality, a psychiatrist conducts a clinical interview, observes the patient, and collects other available data, often in cooperation with a psychologist who has test tools for the diagnosis of personality.

Dissocial personality: criteria for diagnosis

The following criteria are taken into account when diagnosing dissocial personality:

  • absolute disregard for the feelings of others (lack of empathy),
  • strong and established attitude of lack of responsibility and disregard of norms, rules and social obligations,
  • inability to maintain lasting relationships with others in the absence of difficulties in establishing relationships,
  • very low frustration tolerance and low threshold of triggering aggression, including violent behavior,
  • inability to experience guilt and experience, especially from experienced punishments,
  • a clear tendency to blame others or use rationalizations of your behavior that seem to be acceptable - these behaviors are a source of conflicts with the environment.

Additionally, excessive irritability and behavioral disturbances in childhood and adolescence are indicated as factors that facilitate diagnosis.

Important

Dissocial personality and the propensity to commit crimes

People with dissocial personality disorder often come into conflict with the law. It is estimated that at least half (some researchers say as much as 80 percent) of convicts who are in prisons fall within the criteria of dissocial personality. Of course, this does not mean that everyone is dissocialmust become a criminal.

Dissocial personality and criminal liability

Dissocial personality is not a factor that excludes the responsibility for the actions performed.

Category:

Psychology