9u30 - 10u

By Peter De Graef & Kasia Uzieblo

Welcome and opening address

10u - 11u

By Scott Lilienfeld

In this talk, Prof. Lilienfeld will discuss widespread misconceptions concerning psychopathic personality (psychopathy) and explore their clinical implications, including their potential ramifications for assessment and treatment. He will also examine the probable psychological and sociological sources of these erroneous beliefs, as well as other mistaken ideas regarding mental illness – and psychology more broadly. He will conclude with constructive suggestions for debiasing laypersons, students, and mental health professionals against misunderstandings regarding psychopathy and other serious mental disorders.

11u - 11u30

Lots of coffee and other refreshments

11u30-12u30

By John Edens

Psychopathy is frequently introduced into evidence in legal settings, primarily to address questions concerning violence risk. Admissibility standards often require that evidence be both probative (i.e., relevant to the legal issue) and not unduly prejudicial. This talk will focus on two specific questions: (1) How does evidence concerning psychopathy impact perceptions of adult and juvenile offenders in the justice system? (2) How reliable are scores from the most widely used assessment instrument, the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, in legal settings? Results from various research designs (mock jury studies, case law reviews, reliability field studies) will be presented. Attributing psychopathic traits to offenders results in considerable adverse impact, such as harsher sanctions and more punitive moral judgments. Such results are particularly troubling when considered in conjunction with the growing body of research indicating that 40% to 60% of the variance in psychopathy scores in legal cases is attributable to some form of random or systematic rater error.

12u30 - 13u30

Sandwiches, refreshments and interesting posters

13u30 - 14u30

By Joseph Newman

The inhibitory, affective, and self-regulatory deficits associated with psychopathy differ from those of other antisocial individuals and may be eliminated by manipulating attention. Moreover, preliminary evidence indicates that attention training can modify these deficits and result in generalizable change. In this presentation, Prof. dr. em. Newman will consider the potential implications of these findings for psychopathy assessment, the development of new clinical interventions, and the science of behavior change. 

14u30 - 15u30

By Essi Viding

Recent years have seen a proliferation of structural and functional neuroimaging studies of individuals who either have, or are at risk of developing psychopathy. Although these studies have yielded some interesting preliminary insights into ‘the psychopathic brain’, the translational implications are still limited. In this talk Prof. Viding will consider the importance (and challenge) of: 1) replication; 2) specifying precise cognitive processes under study and designing studies to interrogate those; 3) formulating research questions that ‘justify’ the use of brain imaging; and 4) conducting brain imaging research alongside other methodologies. She will provide a brief overview of the extant data in the light of these challenges. Prof. Viding will also outline possible ways to maximise the translational utility of future neuroimaging studies of psychopathy - both in terms of providing better treatment focus based on a more comprehensive understanding of neurocognitive mechanisms, as well as in terms of assessing treatment impact. 

15u30 - 16u

Lots of coffee and other refreshments

16u - 17u

By Matt Matravers

Following a prolonged period in which ideas of blame, individual desert, and retributive punishment have been in the ascendancy across much of both the theoretical and political realms, a different set of ideas seems to be (re-)emerging. Some of these take the form of critiques of the above concepts, but others have tried to offer a constructive alternative to them. One form this has taken is to reinterpret blame and its relationship to responsibility in particular. Arguments have been offered for ‘blame as evaluation’ rather than as ‘sanction’ and for a clinical model that allows ‘responsibility without blame’. In this talk, Prof. Matravers will consider these ideas and what difference they (would) make to the question of holding psychopathic offenders criminally responsible. In doing so, the talk examines not only the question of the criminal responsibility of psychopathic offenders, but also the relationship between blame, responsibility and mental disorder and the distinctive nature of the criminal law. 

17u - 18u30

Bubbels and snacks