Psychopath

Spock could not feel emotions, but he is guided by a strong moral principle. Image source: Pixabay.

Psychopath is often characterized by the complete and total lack of empathy, but a more recent development in understanding Psychopathy is the idea that empathy is a mental capacity evolved from discerning the sense of taste and smell. Psychopaths often prefer bitter tastes because they do not evoke a negative emotion. The capacity comes from the spindle neurons in the brain that connect the prefrontal cortex—which drives decision making—to the amygdala which drives emotions. Infants were not born with empathy, but we grow empathy until age 4.

In other words, psychopaths have stunted developmental growth in feeling emotions from their thoughts or actions (even if they could logically understand it). They can still feel intense emotions, just that emotions are connected to neither decision making nor their actions. And people could actually be all over the place on the psychopathy spectrum, depending on how much capacity of empathy they developed.

Without the capacity to feel, it takes more work for a psychopath to relate to other people. It is like playing a music piece on a piano with no motor memory; you have to consciously think about lifting and placing your fingers all the time. High functioning psychopaths can “fake it ’til you make it,” and they can be very successful. Low functioning psychopaths can have a difficult time to survive in a society.

But there are other developmental factors that affect whether a psychopath becomes a “psycho” in the traditional sense, i.e. someone who is cold, heartless, and inhumane. A high functioning psychopath can be taught to understand how their actions affect other people at the logical level. Without the ability to feel remorse from poor decision making, they need to be taught morals such as ethical fairness and internalize morals as part of their decision making framework rather than relying on emotions to guide them.

If they could not feel remorse, and without a moral principle to guide their decision making, a psychopath can use the knowledge on human behavior to manipulate others for their own gain and the detriment of others. This is why they can be both charming and callous at the same time. They do not show appreciation for what others do for them, and they are the kind of person who is rude to waiters.

The lack of connection between decision making and emotions can have both advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, they are able to make decisions without being affected by emotions which may allow them to make better decisions; on the other hand, they do not feel satisfaction from their accomplishments, and they are always thirsting to get more done. This can mean they are hyper-productive, but this can also make them thrill-seeking from dangerous behaviors.

A normal person can learn to detach decision making from emotions if they are trained to be more aware about their Unconscious Bias. Even though they could experience emotions from their actions, the emotion may not always be aligned with ethical fairness, and they could be pressed to bend the rules in order to justify their emotions.

None of the above should be construed in absolute terms. They all depend on different degree of traits complementing one another. The following table shows how normal people and psychopaths may develop a given trait using different developmental methods.

So it doesn’t make psychopaths any better or worse; it’s just that people cope differently, and they can always adapt.