Do Certain Culture Create More Psychopaths Literature Review Paper

Cultural Prevalence of Psychopathy
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Introduction
When studying psychopathy, culture plays a fundamental role regarding diagnosis and treatment of the conditions. Various studies have shown different causes of psychopathy and also highlighted that the differences are experienced inversely between men and women. To diagnose psychopathy, one need to take into consideration the inclusion of cultural and cultural influences on the approach.
Culture can be defined as behavioral norms, meanings, and the values used by members of a particular society as its reference point for the construction of their view of the world and ascertain their identity in their way. Traditions, language, values, religious beliefs are all part of culture. There is lots of need to understand the cultural manifestation of psychiatry to have an informed diagnostics and treatment plan. In the following paragraphs, the paper focuses on available literature on how the prevalence of psychopathy differs in different cultures.
The concentration of the paper will be on understanding why some cultures present with greater prevalence rates than the others and the exact characteristics of these cultures that drive this predominance. Additionally, the paper will attempt to the reasons why some cultures register little cases of psychopathy prevalence. In doing so, the paper will answer the question whether low prevalence is due to lack of physiological research or innate characteristics that makes it hard for individuals to presents with psychotherapy condition.
According to Mikton& Grounds, (2007), a manifestation of personality disorders, in general, is prone to cross-cultural bias. Psychopathy differs with other similar disorders like antisocial, dissocial personality and other mental illness. The available research on these disorders indicates that unlike psychopathy, the mental illness is diagnosable. Literature at the world health organization state stresses the role played by cultural variation influencing the expression of the construct. To answer the question, it is imperative to deviate from the realms of the western definition and explore cultural differences on a global scale. The goal, therefore, is to understand psychopathy outside the western perspectives into the world stage (Sullivan &Kosson, 2007).
Psychopathy, in general, can be contextualized as a personal disorder that entails interpersonal, affective, lifestyle and antisocial traits that include grandiosity, deceptiveness, egocentrism, shallow emotions and lack of remorse and empathy among other characters (Paulhus, Neumann, & Hare, 2009). While many studies have linked the manifestation. As a result role plaid by biological factors (Dolan & Doyle, 2007). Other studies support the view that the disorder is express dependently on cultural influences (Wernke& Huss, 2008). Culture determines the expression of personalities and behavior in many communities.
Thus the cultural impact on the development and the degree of mental disorder is profound (Mosotho, Louw, Calitz&Esterhuyse, 2008). Sullivan and Kosson (2007) state that several cultural groupings have identified impressions of individual engaging in behaviors and characteristics that meet the definition of the concept of psychopathy. Whereas the features are notable in almost all cultural groupings, there is no evidence of similarities between different cultures.
Studies have shown the prevalence of psychopathic individuals to be high within European countries compared to their North American counterparts. In a study by Sullivan and Kosson (2007) on prisoners, psychiatric patients and forensic offenders, recorded prevalence rate at 3% for Scottish nationals, and 49% of Norwegians. While this study concentrated on the developed countries, it can be representative of a multi-cultural setup of developing countries.
Alongside cultural implication on psychopathy prevalence, research have also indicated that black people, that is African Americans, and Native Americans presented a higher prevalence rate compared to their white counterparts, and the East Asians Lynn reported the lowest rate (as cited in Scanlan, & Palmer, 2009). However, there is little empirical evidence to corroborate the findings that race and ethnicity present a significant difference in psychopathy.
According to Sullivan and kosson (2007), cultures in North America are more likely to produce psychopathic individuals compared to their European counterparts. Using various methods like IRT and PCL-R, the researchers were able to register significant differences between the North American prisoners and the European counterparts. While there is no clear explanation as to why there is an important difference between cultures like Scottish and Norwegian cultures and North America, researchers argue that the sampling method of the holding facilities in which the prisoners were held could play a role.
The cut-off score for the PCL-R between Scotland and North America differed thus could be used to explain the difference in base rates between the two cultures. However with the introduction of a new cut-off score still revealed a significant difference in base rates of up to 8% cookie &Mitchie as cited in Sullivan &Kosson, 2007)? In another study, it was found that African American recorded significantly higher PCL scores compared to their European counterparts. However, other studies have played down the difference in psychopathic levels between the two ethnicity and cultures.
Prompted by the debate, Sullivan &Kosson (2007) employed Meta-analytic techniques to investigate whether there is the difference in level; of psychopathy within the various ethnicities. Researchers compared the mean PCL scores from both the African American and the European American. The result recorded no major significance in the similarities between the two ethnicities. However, various factors recorded heterogeneity making it more ambiguous to determine the differences.
Characteristics of cultures with high psychopathic prevalence
To understand how different cultural practices contributes to psychopathic tendencies, the researcher has studied the role of socialization and cited it as the focal point in which psychopathy and related disorders originates. According to Lykken (as quoted in Swogger, Walsh, &Kosson, (2008) socialization and precisely socialization by parents is responsible for creating both sociopaths and psychopaths. Lykken uses a model that interrelate both biological vulnerability of a child and the quality of parenting in order explain the origin of psychopathic tendencies.
Cultures vary in degree in which parents allow their children to express aggressive behavior, such cultures according to Ekblad (as cited in) make it more pre-exposed to a higher number of individuals with psychopathic characteristic than others. That it explains the role played by culture in socialization and development of anti-social behavior as the course of psychopathic associations. Cultures with more permissive regimes are more likely to produce aggressive particularly among boys.
In a study of the Swedish and Chinese cultures, Ekblad (as cited in Kim, Kim, & Lee, 2013), found that there was a substantial difference between the Swedish and China regarding aggressive behaviors among boys. The study recorded a higher rate in Sweden as compared with the Chines population. The explanation can be attributed to the different methods applied by their parents to contain the aggressive behavior.
Aggressive behavior is a concomitant of psychopathic personality disorder thus the variation in dynamic nature within cultures also shows the difference in psychopathic levels. The change in psychopathic levels is...