Who
Commits Domestic Violence?
By:
THEODORE MILLON and
Seth Grossman
Carrie Millon
Sarah Meagher
Rowena Ramnath
A
26-year-old male was arrested following the multiple stabbing death of his
wife. Intoxicated during the incident, he positioned the corpse so that he
could perform vaginal intercourse while he watched pornographic films on
television. Psychological testing performed after his arrest revealed diagnoses
of antisocial personality disorder and major depression (Meloy, 1996).
Although
this case is obviously an extreme example, psychologists are often called on to
make judgments about what is called “dangerousness.” It is difficult to
distinguish between those who are likely to become violent and those who are
not, but Hare’s (1991) revised Psychopathy Checklist is often helpful.
Psychopathy
consists of two underlying dimensions. The first reflects interpersonal and
emotional aspects of the disorder and includes traits such as callousness,
selfishness, exploitative use of others, and lack of remorse. The second more
closely parallels the DSM’s antisocial definition, which refers to a socially deviant
lifestyle. Violent offenders generally score higher on the instrument (Cornell,
Warren, Hawk, & Stafford, 1996). Moreover, research has shown that on
release, psychopaths are four times more likely to commit a violent offense
than are non-psychopathic inmates (Harris, Rice, & Cormier, 1991). Other
investigators have attributed the psychopath’s propensity for violence to a
malfunction of a “violence-inhibition mechanism” (Blair, 1995; Blair, Jones,
Clark, & Smith, 1995).
Most
animals have mechanisms that regulate aggression, causing them to terminate
attacks when submission cues are displayed. For example, a dog will stop
fighting when its opponent bares its throat.
Blair,
Jones, Clark, and Smith (1997) suggest that in psychopaths, such mechanisms are
either inoperative or under-responsive. Their research shows that psychopaths
under-respond to cues of distress, for example, a close-up of the face of a
crying child. The psychopath’s apparent inability to inhibit aggression has
implications for the area of domestic violence. Exactly who will become abusive
is difficult to determine.
Although
domestic violence occurs at all levels of society, sociodemographic variables
indicate that younger, lower income, less educated men with a history of
parental violence and current diagnoses of antisocial personality disorder,
depression, and alcohol or drug abuse are more likely to be perpetrators (L. E.
Keller, 1996). In this text, psychopaths are more clearly depicted as the
malevolent antisocial sub-type.
References
Personality Disorders in Modern Life,
second edition, 2000, 2004 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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