By: Tom Michael

Tom Michael — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:28:02 +0000

Woah, thats really bad news. Using the legal system to attack your critics rather than responding with a letter or article of your own in the same journal really undermines the whole scientific method in this area.
Its a real shame because I’m actually quite a fan of Hare’s PCL. Its only the second factor that includes criminal behaviours, whereas the first factor refers to selfishness and narcissism, which “successful” psychopaths may have in abundance whilst not engaging in criminal activity. The second factor describes some behaviours which are in fact similar to those encountered in brain injured persons with orbitofrontal injury. Hare himself makes a big distinction between “true” psychopathy (factor 1) and criminal antisocial personality disorder (factor 2). Only the antisocial psychopath is high in both factors, and those are the types that do tend to be incarcerated, as the “axe murderer” type.
If Skeem and Cooke are claiming that criminality is not central to psychopathy, they are actually agreeing with Hare. However, if they are doing so in a way which is criticising his work, I can only imagine that they must be presenting a “straw man” of his arguments and misrepresenting them. This might be what is pissing him off so much.
Still, it would be better, more professional, more scientific and better for Hare’s reputation if he published a harsh rebuttal of their article, pointing out that they have either misunderstood or misrepresented his work.
I suppose that if they have actually fabricated quotes and attributed them to him, then they are actually lying about his work, which might warrant a libel suit.
In my work, Alan Baddeley’s central executive is always misrepresented, mainly because very few people have read his 1986 chapter in which he introduced the term. I found that reading the original work, politely emailing the author for clarification, and citing the response as personal communication was the best approach. I hope that Skeem and Cooke tried this with Hare and that they have saved any emails they recieved back!

By: RZ

RZ — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:26:49 +0000

Well he may be a jerk that is letting dollar signs cloud his scientific judgment but that’s hardly reason to call him a psychopath.

By: Romeo Vitelli

Romeo Vitelli — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:08:07 +0000

Sigh. I hope this is just a temporary lapse of judgment on his part because it’s hard to imagine something that could be more damaging to his reputation.

Comments on: Psychopath researcher threatens to sue critics

By: Tom Michael

By: RZ

By: Romeo Vitelli