Evoked potentials and psychopathy: a commentary on Raine.
Raine's (1989) paper on evoked potentials and psychopathy is critically reviewed and is found to be wanting at both a conceptual and an empirical level. Conceptually it ignores important issues surrounding the term 'psychopathy' and proposes a theoretical model of psychopathy based on a tripartite division of evoked potentials (early, middle and late) which ignores differences between stimulus modalities. Empirically, the extended sensation seeking model is not well substantiated by the data reviewed. An alternative approach is outlined which views psychopathy in the sense of chronic socially-deviant behaviour as reflecting a maturational deficit, and psychopathy in the personality deviation sense as reflecting deficits in cognitive appraisal processes. This approach embraces the pathological sensation-seeking aspect of psychopathy as well as other important aspects not addressed by Raine's model (lack of moral reasoning and characteristic style of coping both in impersonal and inter-personal contexts.
Howard
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Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago, New Zealand.
D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D006801:Humans; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*