The Cluelessness of the Psychopath

Hannibal Lecter is arguably the world’s most famous psychopath. I know—he’s not real. Still, the anti-hero of The Silence of the Lambs embodies the chilling constellation of traits generally associated with this rare mental disorder. A highly intelligent physician and psychiatrist, Lecter is superficially charming, even urbane—at least when he’s not cannibalizing his innocent victims. He is rarely emotional, and despite the brutality of his crimes, he shows absolutely no evidence of empathy or a guilty conscience.

That’s what makes psychopaths so mysterious and incomprehensible—the lack of normal human feeling. How could somebody’s child develop into that kind of merciless automaton? What did Hannibal Lecter’s inner life feel like as he was growing up?

One leading idea is that this psychopathic derangement is linked to childhood temperament, specifically fearlessness, which lays the groundwork for the development of full-blown psychopathic disorder in adulthood. There is evidence to support this notion: Psychopaths have great difficulty learning about pain—learning to avoid electrical shocks and loud noises, for example—and their ability to recognize fearful faces is also impaired. Perhaps most notably, psychopaths don’t respond normally to fear-inducing punishments—making it very hard for parents and others to teach them right and wrong.

Despite the popularity of the so-called “fearlessness hypothesis,” a growing number of experts question whether it goes deep enough. Perhaps, they argue, the problem is even more fundamental, perhaps neurological—a problem with attention, which makes psychopaths unresponsive to fear-provoking cues in the world. According to this competing theory, psychopaths appear fearless because they aren’t paying close enough attention to the things that normally scare people? This theory has inspired clinical interventions that train kids to consciously focus on emotional cues around them—an approach that has not been especially successful.

Now another group of psychological scientists is going even further, suggesting that the roots of the disorder may reach deep into the unconscious mind. Patrick Sylvers of the University of Washington, working with Patricia Brennan and Scott Lilienfeld of Emory, suspected that psychopaths may suffer from a deficit in “preattentive processing”—the constant, automatic scanning of one’s surroundings that takes place outside of conscious awareness. Theoretically, if children lack this basic cognitive machinery, they would never learn to decode normal signs of danger, and without this acquired fear, they would fail to socialize into adults with conscience.

At least that’s the theory, which the scientists decided to test in the laboratory. They recruited 88 boys, between 7 and 11 years old, who had troublesome histories both at school and at home, and screened them for what’s called “callous unemotionality.” This includes an unsettling disregard for others’ needs, shallow emotions, and lack of remorse and empathy—very similar to the core traits of the adult disorder. They also tested them for impulsivity and conduct problems, and for signs of narcissism, like bragging a lot, which is also seen in many adult psychopaths.

Following this screening, the scientists gave the boys a visual test that measures unconscious emotional processing. Specifically, they wanted to see if the test subjects, compared with normal boys of the same age, were slower to become aware of fearful faces that were flashed rapidly—so rapidly that they were not registered by the conscious mind. If so, this would be evidence that the troubled boys are not automatically assimilating threatening cues in their world. They also flashed happy, disgusted and neutral faces for comparison.

The results, reported on-line in the journal Psychological Science, were clear and provocative. Indeed, they comprise the first evidence ever that kids with psychopathic traits have a significant deficiency in their automatic, unconscious processing of certain cues—especially fear cues but also cues for disgust. Fear and disgust are closely related in the primitive mind, and the findings suggest that these troubled kids have a fundamental impairment in recognizing—“in the blink of an eye”—any kind of social danger. So perhaps the childhood roots of Hannibal Lecter’s murderous personality lay not in fearlessness itself, nor even in his conscious thought processes, but rather in his general social cluelessness.

Wray Herbert’s book, On Second Thought, is now available in paperback. Excerpts from his two blogs—“We’re Only Human” and “Full Frontal Psychology”—appear regularly in Scientific American Mind and in The Huffington Post.

Comments

I’m unimpressed by your analysis, due to its estrangement from evolutionary curiosity. You fail to see any use in society for the unempathetic or undisgustable, yet one only need look around for the uses to which the psychologists of the consumerist corporations use empathy, disgust and status clues to herd the non-psychopaths around, even to their own detriment (climate change denial, anyone).

Back to the legal tablets.

i am doing a search to find the information i need to see if I have the correct facts for a theory I have – about consciousness being an evolutionary survival trait for species who have stalled at a plateau once they have reached the point of manipulation of their environment – as a matter of moving forward with the competitive tools, survival of the fittest, that would have brought them to a point of over population causing competition among themselves…consciousness being the survival tool to move forward as a species by working together for the common good.
Then psychopaths perhaps being the way they are due to a lesser evolved consciousness.

This builds to the current appearance that psychopaths rule us as creatures of prey

It’s not rare at all according to the statistics I have read.

regardless of whether or not your analysis is right, wrong, or unimpressive, the findings are still incredibly frightening to the average human being!

The quality of life and security for the citizens has been largely restored and we are a large part of why that has happened.

I am a psychologist and my name is Jordi Barcelona. The article seems very good, although as always, with this type of theory, it is very difficult to prove any hypothesis.
I really love the theme of the psychopathic personality and I have also written an article (http://www.barcelonapsicologo.net/personalidad/trastornos/ejemplo_antisocial.htm) I would highlight the fact that most psychopaths are far from the image of Hannibal Lecter. There are psychopaths who are company directors or politicians. Not to be confused with violence psychopathy. A psychopath does not have to be physically violent. If the psychopath is in an environment where physical violence does not bring any benefit (such as a manager in a company), then do not use, because it could hurt (for example, expel a company a manager who physically assaults another senior ).
I leave the link to an article discussing the relationship between psychopathic personality and the personality of many politicians (http://www.barcelonapsicologo.net/personalidad/trastornos/politicos_manipuladores.htm).
Sorry for my English.

As someone who has spent many years considering the nature of narcissism, I find something about this research particularly intriguing. Narcissism is generally considered to cover a very broad spectrum of severity from the relatively mild and commonplace “selfishness” of the average teenager, all the way through narcissistic personality disorder (in which the suffer can be considered to be “devoid of empathy”) and culminating with the as-yet tentative diagnosis of “malignant narcissism” (which contains psychopathic traits, including predatory behaviour).
It has long been accepted that the narcissistic defence is underpinned by exceptionally low self-esteem, despite an artificial external presentation of the opposite. However, I have long suspected that what lies yet further beneath is really a particular type of social incompetence, much as has been revealed in this study of psychopathy.
Psychopaths, like the more severely disordered narcissists, are notably without empathic abilities. This is frequently observed as an explanation for their sometimes difficult-to-understand cruelties. However, this study would seem to suggest that, in psychopaths at least, there may be a deficiency of aptitude or ability to recognise the feeling responses of others.
Psychopaths are, as in this study, partially diagnosed by their shallow emotional lives and are generally said to be distinguishable from severely disordered narcissists in this regard. However, experience suggests to me that narcissists are most likely disordered to the extent to which they are unable to recognise the feelings of both themselves and others (I present the fundamental character of narcissism in this way in my short paper here: http://blochhealing.co.uk/narcissism-and-society) and that, in all probability, the narcissist exists on a spectrum of “Cluelessness” in this regard culminating, in the most severely disordered, in outright psychopathy.
My experience suggests that those at the less severe end of the spectrum may be helped by healthy relating in which they are systematically engaged as full persons. Not many therapists are optimistic about the possibilities for assisting those at the more severe end of the spectrum.
Now to find a way to test these hypotheses!
Peter

Illenfled said that some USA president are psychopath that mean they have not conscience ,fearless man have less conscience ? Every brave person are psychopaths?

I know this is an old thread, but I have to say something to correct all that I have read on here, for those who may still come to read it: I feel that psychopathy is more of an evolutionary advantage, due to its fearlessness, not the other way around as you say. Psychopaths may lack a conscious for doing anything deemed wrong by society, but they don’t lack awareness of their surroundings, so they are at least conscious in that regard. They are just less guided by their emotions, what little they do have. They also know right from wrong, and are consciously aware of what they are doing, even if they can’t always feel it. They are logical, intelligent, prepared, and very aware. Psychopathy is constantly being considered a negative personality disorder, by only focusing on the negative traits. For some reason people don’t like to look at its positive traits as well. It’s easier to blame them for everything I guess, for everything we can’t explain, for all of our pains and societies bad choices. What is more wrong with this is that not all psychopaths are evil. In fact, most of them are good, normal people, and capable of all kinds of good things, if not more so than normal people. Someone with a crazy ex might say: “My psyhopathic ex” not even fully understanding what they are saying. Psychotic behavior is not a psychopathic trait. Moreover, children cannot be diagnosed with psychopathy. It is not until age 25 when the brain is fully developed in the regions used to diasnose psychopathy. Anyone can have psychopathic traits, even an extreme empathic individual, but that doesn’t mean they are psyhopathic. Anthony Hopkins Hannibal Lector was not characteristic of a true psychopath either. Using this as a comparison to psychopathy is innacurate. He may have had traits, but he was something else. Few movies have true psychopathic depictions. People like to see the evil psychopath, for thrills, but it’s not even realistic. What your seeing is Hollywoods lies, and then taking that fiction, and making assumptions about real psychopaths, turning that fiction into non fiction, to suit your emotional fantasies you crave, your Halloween scare flicks. I am making this post to get the word out, for people to stop and think about what they are being fed by social media, and stop judging psychopathy as if they themselves are any less capable of evil crimes. More crimes are done by people without psychopathy. That is something to think about. I do not fear psychopaths. I am not a victim to them or anyone. I am aware of my surroundings and my information. The key is to not trust anyone, ever. You are more likely to get duped by your neighborhood narcissist or the empathic best friend you have that has been sleeping with your husband for years. They can feel hurtful emotions, so what is their excuse? Who is the true evil that lurks in your life? I’d rather be friends with a loyal, blunt, honest, non jealous, non emotional, non possessive, succesful, real psychopath anyday. Survival of the fittest is the psychopath. Imagine a world with less emotionally driven, sniveling, cheaters and liers, less anxiety, less depression, more mental toughness, less pain, less “im a victim”, more “Im unstoppable, im strong, I like myself because I am confident, I challenge things, I have little fear, I am a problem solver, not a whiney complainer that gets nothing done in lieu of an emotional outburst, I see reality, I say what I mean and mean what I say, I will be honest if you ask me what you look like, instead of lying to you to not hurt your feelings, therefore actually getting a response you asked me for. I am human too, I’m just the next best thing in the evolutionary cycle”

Yeah except psychopaths are notorious pathological liars. They will lie to manipulate others if it serves a purpose to them.


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