Introduction to Psychology 10th Edition by Rod Plotnik,Haig Kouyoumdjian

Exercise 10

What Is a Psychopath?
Jeffrey Dahmer would pick up young gay men, bring them home, drug them, strangle them, have sex with their corpses, and then, in some cases, eat their flesh.
Dennis Rader would break into people's homes, tie them up, strangle them, and eventually murder them. His murder method earned him the name "BTK killer," which stands for Bind, Torture, and Kill.
Dahmer and Rader are superficially charming, unemotional, impulsive, and self-centered. They are pathological liars who constantly manipulate others. Also, both men completely lack remorse, guilt, and empathy. Finally, they have low self-esteem and a lifelong sense of loneliness. However, not all psychopaths are serial killers.
Other types of psychopaths include the corporate psychopath, the con artist, and the chronic offender. A corporate psychopath may swindle investors out of billions of dollars. The con artist may pass himself off as a doctor, attorney, or police officer to deceive and manipulate others. The chronic offender is persistently in trouble with the law and gets rearrested soon after he is released.
What may seem surprising is that psychopaths can love their family members but have great difficulty loving the rest of the world. Rader, for instance, was a loving husband and father. Yet, he seemed completely devoid of humanity as he plainly recounted the details of how he murdered his many victims.
Some of the fascinating characteristics and behaviors of psychopaths may be explained by biological and neurological factors. For example, some psychopaths have abnormalities in their limbic system, which is responsible for motivational behaviors, such as eating and sex, as well as emotional behaviors, such as fear and anger. Also, some psychopaths have a disruption in the communication between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex, which is believed to contribute to their inability to regulate aggression and their insensitivity to cues that predict they will get caught and punished. Interestingly, psychopaths also have lower autonomic arousal and consequently experience less distress when exposed to threats.
The life histories of psychopaths often include a chaotic upbringing, lack of parental attention, parental substance abuse, and child abuse. These life experiences may interact with biological or neurological factors linked to psychopathic behaviors. In other words, at least for some children, the consequences of having a stressful childhood can be deadly.
Question
According to the three definitions of abnormal behavior, are Dahmer and Rader abnormal?
Statistical Frequency
Although Thompson caused no problems to others except to violate a city law against living in a storm drain, his preferred living style could be considered abnormal according to statistical frequency.
The statistical frequency approach says that a behavior may be considered abnormal if it occurs rarely or infrequently in relation to the behaviors of the general population. By this definition, Thompson's living in a storm drain would be considered very abnormal since, out of over 300 million people in the United States, only a very few prefer his kind of home. This illustrates that even though statistical frequency is a relatively precise measure, it is not a very useful measure of abnormality. By this criterion, getting a Ph.D., being president, living in a monastery, and selling a million records are abnormal, although some of these behaviors would be considered very desirable by most people. In fact, Guinness World Records (2012) lists thousands of people who have performed some statistically abnormal behaviors and are very proud of them. We would not consider any of these individuals to necessarily have mental disorders.
As all these examples demonstrate, the statistical frequency definition of abnormality has very limited usefulness.
Deviation from Social Norms
Thompson's behavior-preferring to live in a sewer-could also be considered abnormal based on social norms.
The social norms approach says that a behavior is considered abnormal if it deviates greatly from accepted social standards, values, or norms.
Thompson's decision to live by himself in a storm drain greatly deviates from society's norms about where people should live. However, a definition of abnormality based solely on deviations from social norms runs into problems when social norms change with time. For example, 25 years ago, few males wore earrings, while today many males consider earrings very fashionable. Similarly, 50 years ago, a woman who preferred to be very thin was considered to be ill and in need of medical help. Today, our society pressures women to be thin like the fashion models in the media.
Thus, defining abnormality on the basis of social norms can be risky because social norms may, and do, change over time. The definition of abnormality most used by mental health professionals is the next one.
Maladaptive Behavior
The major problem with the first two definitions of abnormal behavior-statistical frequency and deviation from social norms-is that they don't say whether a particular behavior is psychologically damaging or maladaptive.
The maladaptive behavior approach defines a behavior as psychologically damaging or abnormal if it interferes with the individual's ability to function in his or her personal life or in society.
For example, being terrified of flying, hearing voices that dictate dangerous acts, feeling compelled to wash one's hands for hours on end, starving oneself to the point of death (anorexia nervosa), and Dennis Rader's committing serial murders would all be considered maladaptive and, in that sense, abnormal. However, Thompson's seemingly successful adaptation to living in a sewer may not be maladaptive for him and certainly has no adverse consequences to society.
Most useful. Of the three definitions discussed here, mental health professionals find that the most useful definition of abnormal behaviors is the one based on the maladaptive definition-that is, whether a behavior or behavior pattern interferes with a person's ability to function normally in society (Sue et al., 2010). However, you'll see that deciding whether behavior is truly maladaptive is not always so easy.