Analyzing decision making process and emotion recognition behaviors of murder crime convicts diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder in terms of psychopathy and comparing with healthy controls

Introduction: Although decision making is considered to be an abstract concept entailing a particular process of selection from among a series of alternatives with potentially varying consequences, it forms a vantage point in an individual's contact with the other throughout the process of humanity. Hypothetically relying on the concept of developmental sociopathy, this research investigates the emotion recognition and decision making functions of a sample group of murder convicts diagnosed with severe psychopathy and anti-social personality disorder who are known to have a quite destructive psycho-social relation with the society, and seeks answers as to the existence/ non-existence of a relation between these functions and the disorders. Clients and Methods: The study was conducted with 23 male convicts diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder plus psychopathy and 23 control participants matched according to their age, gender and level of education. All interviews with the convicts were carried out in Silivri Closed Penal Institution and those with the control group were run under clinical conditions. Findings: Comparison to the healthy control group, the results of the convicts diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder and psychopathy showed significant difference and correlation in terms of Toronto Alexithymia Scale (p:0,029;t:2,255), Childhood Physical Trauma Exposure (p:0,009;t:2,879), Iowa Gambling Test (p:0,009;t:-2,744) results. Results: The main result of the study revealed that murder convicts diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder and high psychopathy scores; had deterioration in decision making skills; had difficulty in recognizing and expressing their own emotions; were affected by the childhood traumas; formed heterogeneous groups and employed varying defence mechanisms. All findings considered together, it can be revealed that Antisocial Personality Disorder and Psychopathy are developmental psychopathologies and emotion recognition and decision making processes are influential in the socio-pathological reflections of people with these disorders.