Psychopathy Research at Oak Ridge: Skepticism Overcome.(from the chapter) This chapter is the story of a program of research that began a quarter century ago and of the collaboration on which it was founded. The collaboration started when we began working together at the Oak Ridge maximum security division of the Mental Health Centre, Penetanguishene, Ontario. At the outset, we were skeptical about the value of the psychopathy concept. Because we were more familiar with the MMPI Psychopathic Deviate scale than with the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, it seemed to us that psychopathy was probably nothing more than a pseudonym for having an extensive criminal history and really had little to offer to an understanding of the psychology of antisocial behavior. Nevertheless, intrigued by the work of Robert Hare, we decided to measure the construct so that we could try to falsify our expectation. In the space of less than a decade we had changed from believing that psychopathy was merely a proxy for having a history of criminal behavior to the hypothesis that psychopaths comprised a natural, biological type, so different from other humans that drugs and therapy had effects on them quite opposite to their effects on other people. We owe a debt to Robert Hare for stimulating our thinking about violent offenders, for providing us with a superb psychological measure, and for giving us the model of a scholar for whom empirical results are the evidentiary standard. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)https://www.upress.umn.edu/test-division/bibliography/2000-2009/2007/harris_psychopathy_2007https://www.upress.umn.edu/logo.png
Grant T Harris and Marnie E Rice
(2007)
Psychopathy Research at Oak Ridge: Skepticism Overcome.