Summary Of Robert D. Hare's Without Conscience

Robert D. Hare’s book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us focuses on psychopathy in our society. In the book, the author highlights the characteristics of psychopaths in a simple manner that are understandable to an everyday reader. Psychopaths are individuals who are deceitful and manipulative and they don’t care who they hurt. Hare points out his personal experience with psychopath in prison that eventually lead him to create The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. In the Checklist, Hare emphasizes characteristics that makes someone a psychopath such as “shallow emotions, deceitful and manipulative behavior, lack of guilt, lack of empathy, impulsiveness, poor behavior control, lack of responsibility, need for excitement, early behavior problems, glib and grandiose behavior” (Hare 1993, p. 34). The author employs detailed interviews and a close study of psychopaths to research and create an instrument that could help detect psychopathy. In the book, Hare goes further to provide

stories relating to each psychopathic quality.
Furthermore, Hare emphasizes the ways psychopaths have little problem breaking the laws and norms of society and the way they pick and choose which rule and regulation they would follow. The book points out that while many criminals follow a moral code where they protect or stand by one another, little of that is seen with psychopaths. Psychopaths show no loyalty to their friends and family members when it comes to dangerous situations. They are also impassive in violent situations and heavily involved in sexual violence.
The book goes further in to looking at psychopaths in prison and out of prison. According to Hare, white-collar psychopaths can find other ways to use their skills to obtain what they desire while staying out of prison. Some psychopaths become successful executive and lawyers. While others can con people, and break the rules of society, while staying out of prison. Many of these con artists chose their victims by identifying the vulnerable individuals and targeting them because these individuals are gullible and easy to manipulate. The author also compares psychopath’s brain with a normal person’s brain and he points out that psychopath have bilateral language processes which allows them to say one thing and then quickly contradict it in the next statement. This technique allows psychopaths to change topics when their lies are pointed out. Keeping with that biological influence on psychopathy topic, the origin of psychopathy is unclear however both nature (genetic makeup) and nurture (the environment), seem to play a role.
Though out the book, Hare repeatedly points out that psychopaths are not mentally ill because they know the difference between right and wrong and they freely choose their behavior. According to the author, psychopathy treatment has little effect on psychopaths because many psychopaths don’t seek help on their own and a number of them use therapy sessions to improve their manipulative skills. Therefore, therapy ends up making them better psychopaths. Since treatment doesn’t work on psychopaths, the only way to survive psychopath’s presence is to protect one’s self by being alert around them and seek professional help for victims if needed. In Robert D. Hare’s book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us,
The author’s insight was supported by current research, used good examples and strengthen research ideas, however the author’s point of view was bias and it failed to account for young female psychopaths and homosexual psychopaths.
Hare’s point of view on the origin of psychopathy is favored by current research.
The author pointed out in the book that the likelihood that a child would become a psychopath is influenced by the child’s environment as well as his/her biological makeup. Hare’s point is validated by current research; In a study published in the Journal of Criminal Justice the author found that “both nature and nurture play a role in criminal behavior” (Fox, 2017 p. 31). Because this current journal confirms the author’s decades old point of view, this adds credibility to the author’s work as a whole and makes the information more reliable.
In addition, the author’s perception of psychopaths is further supported by current research findings. As mentioned before, psychopaths have biological different brains as compared to normal individuals. Hare mentioned they have “bilateral language centers” that allows them to make contradictory statements and manipulate their victims (Hare, 1993, p. 128). In addition, according to current research they also have “prefrontal deficits and amygdala impairment” (Umbach, Berryessa, Raine, 2015, pg. 306). Prefrontal cortex is involved in personality development and reasoning, while amygdala is involved in emotion. Therefore, damage to these two areas would make a person fearless in dangerous situation due to lack of reasoning and result in uncaring response in emotional situation. As a result, current biological findings support psychopathic characteristics recorded by Hare.
Furthermore, to increase additional trustworthiness, the author included good examples on the characteristic of psychopathy. Throughout the book, the author listed variety of behavior that are thought to be associated with psychopathy and he provided examples of each behavior seen in a psychopath in and out of prison. These examples added further credibility to the information provided on psychopath because it concluded that the behavior that was added on to the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised was based on thorough evidence and had reason to be there. Furthermore, all those examples also reiterated the position that there are many psychopaths present in our society.

While the author did well to enhance his credibility, he continued to point back to the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised throughout the book.

In many junctions throughout the book, the author reiterated the importance of Psychopathy Checklist-Revised and how vital it was to a psychopath’s diagnoses. While the author made convincing points in the book for the checklist, the author, himself, created the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised based on his research and experiments. So, the fact that he was pointing back to his own research repeatedly didn’t add confidence to the information given. It only made his opinion on the topic appear bias. Also, in the book the author mentioned the other tests as being less reliable at identifying psychopath “…criminals were able to fake the results of psychological test” (Hare,1993, p. 31). Because the author was the creator of the Psychology Checklist-Revised, he was bashing other psychological tests while making his own seem

superior.
The author’s work also failed to account for young female psychopaths. Throughout the book, it is assumed that the traits of young adolescent psychopaths are similar to adult psychopaths. According to a study published in International Journal of Law and Psychiatry “poor reliability was demonstrated from behavior items of Psychopath Checklist: Youth Version (PCL: YV)” with adolescent females (Das, Ruiter, Doreleijers, 2008, p. 219). Psychopath Checklist: Youth Version was based on Psychopath Checklist-Revised and it was also created by Robert Hare. Because Hare’s initial checklist was primarily based on adult male psychopaths in prison, it failed to account for young female psychopath’s behavior. Furthermore, generation difference and culture could also play a role in the poor reliability of Psychopath Checklist: Youth Version because adolescent behavior has dramatically changed in the past two decades with the help of social media. Therefore, a behavior that was previously consider bizarre might be fully acceptable now. Thus, the checklist failed to fully capture young psychopaths.
Furthermore, the author’s work also failed to consider homosexual psychopaths. Hare pointed out that psychopaths engage in sexual acts quite freely in order to procreate many children and increase the chances of their genes survival (Hare, 1993, p. 166). This idea regarding psychopath’s sexual behavior appears plausible, however, it fails to consider psychopaths that are homosexuals or psychopaths that don’t have children themselves but have adopted children. Therefore, further research is need on the reason behind psychopath’s sexual behavior to fully grasp the topic.
In conclusion, Robert D. Hare’s book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us did well to provide thorough examples with adequate research however his views were bias and they failed to account for young female psychopaths and homosexual psychopaths. Since the book was published in 1993, more current research focusing on utilizing the psychopathy Checklist-Revised on homosexual psychopaths is needed. In addition, further research on this topic should also take in to account culture and its impact on psychopathy diagnoses.