Most people think they know what a psychopath is: someone who has no feelings. Someone who probably tortured animals for fun when they were little. Psychopathy is a spectrum, and we are all somewhere on that spectrum.
Patrick Bateman in American Psycho and Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs are typical portrayals of psychopaths in popular culture. Their lack of emotions, such as anxiety and fear, helps them to stay calm in frightening situations. Experiments have shown that they have a reduced startle response.
Psychopaths react far less intensely in such fear-evoking situations. If anything, they remain calm. Psychopaths can also be very charming even if only superficially and they have the ability to confidently take risks, be ruthless, goal-oriented and make bold decisions.
This makes them well suited to environments like Wall Street, the boardroom and parliament. Here, psychopaths are more likely to be making a killing than killing. Psychopaths are more likely to be found in towns and cities. You currently have JavaScript disabled in your web browser, please enable JavaScript to view our website as intended.
Here are the instructions of how to enable JavaScript in your browser. Psychopathy is one of the most well-known and well-studied personality disorders.
But is there an underlying biological reason for psychopathy? And if so, can the disorder be cured? However, whilst people with psychopathic characteristics may have an increased risk of violence, this is far from a defining feature. Instead, psychopathy is characterised by an extreme lack of empathy. Psychopaths may also be manipulative, charming and exploitative, and behave in an impulsive and risky manner. They may lack conscience or guilt, and refuse to accept responsibility for their actions.
Research has suggested that the areas of the brain involved in emotion processing, empathising and decision making — for example amygdala, insula and ventromedial prefrontal cortex — show reduced activity in people with psychopathic characteristics when they see other people in distress or try to learn consequences of their actions. The impaired functioning of these areas of the brain affects the ability of individuals with psychopathy to form associations between stimuli and consequences, such as hurting other people and the fear and distress others display as a consequence, or making a poor choice and receiving a punishment.
Genetic Risk Factors. Most psychological outcomes are caused by the combined effects of many hundreds or thousands of genes. The combined effects of many genes account for about half of the variation in psychopathic traits. This means that some children are born at higher risk for developing psychopathy. Is psychopathy something people are born with?
It's Complicated. No one is born with psychopathy or any other psychological disorder. However, some children are born at high risk for developing psychopathy due to inherited genetic factors.
Environmental Risk Factors. Environmental influences can increase—or reduce—the odds of developing psychopathy in people who are at risk due to inherited factors. There are many environmental risk and protective factors for psychopathy, most of which have not yet been identified. Each of these factors likely has only a small impact. In other words, each of these factors might only affect the severity of psychopathic symptoms a little bit.
Factors that increase risk for psychopathy include:. Perinatal factors, such as smoking during pregnancy, high-stress levels during pregnancy, or birth complications Not experiencing highly warm and responsive parenting in early childhood Read more about what is meant by 'warm and responsive parenting' and its relationship to psychopathy.
Again, it is important to remember that a risk factor is not the same as a cause. Many children with psychopathy have none of these risk factors and did experience warm and responsive parenting. Similarly, most children with these risk factors will not develop psychopathy. Other risk factors for psychopathy include:. Low resting heart rate, which may reflect low physiological arousal A fearless temperament.
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