What general observations can be drawn about APD?

• Psychologists have not yet entirely understood what causes APD.
• Psychologists who think that it has a biological cause believe that little can be done to prevent it. It has yet to be treated successfully with medication.
• If APD has a situational cause, addressing the situation (improving parenting, reducing poverty etc) should help in preventing APD.
• The nature of APD is such that sufferers are difficult to work with and help. They may be dishonest or unreliable in their dealings with doctors, researchers or mental health workers.

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Remember It!

• Temperament
  • The inherited part of personality
  • Stays stable over time
  • is to do with how we respond to change and our environment e.g. laid back or tense
• Personality
  • was split by Eysenck into extroverts, introverts and neurotics.
  • is measured on Eysenck’s Personality Inventory (EPI) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ)
  • is measured on a sliding scale
  • Psychotics are hostile, aggressive, low in empathy and tend to criminal behaviour.
• Eysenck’s personality types
  • Stable extrovert
  • Stable introvert
  • Unstable extrovert
  • Unstable introvert
• Antisocial Personality Disorder
  • is defined by compulsive antisocial behaviour – lying, stealing, aggression, impulsiveness, carelessness of safety.
  • has to meet criteria described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to be diagnosed.
  • may be caused by reduction in the brain’s grey matter (cerebral cortex)
  • may be caused by poor upbringing and poverty in childhood
• Practical implications
  • Researchers can’t decide what causes it
  • It is therefore difficult to prevent or treat
  • 75 percent of the prison population have APD

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Test It!

1. Describe what is meant by personality.
2. Describe what is meant by temperament.
3. Describe a study that has been done on temperament. Be sure to include the aims, method, results and conclusions.
4. Eysenck developed personality scales to measure different types of personality. One was the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI), the other was the Eysenck Personality Questionniare (EPQ). Describe how Eysenk’s tests were designed and the scales they used.
5. What were Esysenck’s four personality types? Describe three characteristics of each.
6. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders lists the behavioural characteristics of an APD sufferer. Describe three of them.
7. What are the possible causes of APD? You should mention both the biological and situational causes explored by researchers.

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Some top tips!

1. Print out the Test It! Questions – it will allow you to replicate exam conditions and also allows you to give your eyes a rest from the computer screen whilst doing your crucial revision.
2. Make a copy of the Remember It! Section and put in a place that you often look at. i.e. front of a journal, next to a mirror, on a kitchen cupboard door, etc. That way you can do some cheeky psychology revision whilst doing those things you have to do!