Essay --

Anti-Social Personality Disorder is a classified personality disorder in which a person, sometimes referred to as a â€Å"psychopath†, has a lack of empathy, an increased chance of acting violently towards others, and a complete disregard for authority and punishment. Prevalent features and symptoms include: shallow emotions, irresponsibility, mistrust of others, reckless thrill-seeking, disrespect for the law, prone to lash out with physical violence, harmful impulsiveness, arrogance, manipulative, greedy, lack of kindness or compassion, disrespect for others, and dishonesty (Psychology Today, n.d.). A main factor of this disorder is the inability to process, interpret, and display emotion, even fear. An example is that most criminals with this disorder respond drastically different to their sentencing than normal. They seem relaxed and unable to process it on an emotional level. They are also fully aware of what they are doing, and have no sense of distorted reality, or rem orse which classifies them as sane people. They also have neurotransmitter deficiencies in the brain, such as reduced serotonin and dopamine (Freedman & Verdun-Jones, 2010). The overall population of people having this disorder is a small amount, about 3% and higher in prisons and abuse clinics which is around 70%. Also, because of their constant involvement in violence, most people diagnosed with this disorder die by violent means such as suicide and homicide (Internet Mental Health, n.d.). People with Anti-Social Personality Disorder have also been found to have an impaired learning condition, notably a term called Response Reversal. This is defined as a change of behavior following a reversal of a previously established relationship between events and their re... ...mental disorder is not the same as a definition of that mental disorder, and even though PPD indeed synonymous with antisocial personality disorder, they are different terms for the same disorder (Hart & Cook, 2012). Another argument is that PPD could be caused by a combination of different personality disorders, and not just one, as well as many environmental patterns, not just genetic (Association for Psychological Science, n.d.). In conclusion, Anti-Social Personality disorder has immense effects on people concerning empathy, violence, and even learning. It is also a very resistant disorder to treat. However, much needs to be learned about this disorder in order to help patients live normal lives, and can even be useful in establishing a treatment context for addressing conditions such as substance abuse, impulsive aggression, and schizophrenia ( Pajerla, 2007).