Is Fear Deficit a Harbinger of Future Psychopaths?

Association for Psychological Science Thu, 19 May 2011 05:34 CDT

Comment: Risk factor? This term is usually applied in reference to any attribute, characteristic or exposure of an individual that increases the likelihood of developing a disease, illness (mental illness, for example), or injury.

But there is a difference between “mental illness” and psychopathy. Mental illness is what non-psychopaths may or may not have: emotional problems caused by trauma, toxins, abuse, etc. Psychopathy is completely different. Yes, psychopaths may have some apparently useful qualities, but they’re incidental to the underlying psychopathy. Yes, they may be charming and good talkers, but that’s an act. Yes, they may not kill, but they manipulate and harm others in different ways. It’s just the way they are.

And while we are aware of the hesitancy among the psychological community to diagnose young children as psychopaths without resorting to mental gymnastics or looking for ways to “fix” them, considering the above, failing to accurately assert the real nature of psychopathy puts us all at grave risk of continuous exposure to the danger, while our attempts to cure them don’t do much than train them how to be better manipulators.

From Review: Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry:

There was the failed experiment at Oak Ridge, in Canada, where psychopathic offenders were treated with LSD and encouraged to “share their feelings”, engaging in group therapy where they acted as each other’s psychotherapists. The inmates showed remarkable improvement and were released into the world, reformed beings eager to start life anew. At least, that’s what the doctors thought. But the therapy had simply taught them to be better manipulators, and it seemed to have gone to their heads. Their recidivism rates ended up being even higher than ordinary psychopaths…As psychopathy expert and author of the Psychopathy Checklist, Bob Hare, says, psychopaths are born psychopaths. You can’t treat them.

Fear is the most basic survival instinct. If a child without pronounced neurological disorders like autism is unable to register something so basic to the rest of the human species, perhaps this should make psychologists pause and take notice?

Jon Ronson in his latest book, The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry says the following:

Bob [Hare] said it’s always a nice surprise when a psychopath speaks openly about their inability to feel emotions. Most of them pretend to feel. When they see us non-psychopaths crying or scared or moved by human suffering, or whatever, they think it’s fascinating. They study us and learn how to ape us, like space creatures trying to blend in, but if we keep our eyes open, we can spot the fakery. (p. 100-101)

Comment: The problem is that “a lot more research” based on incorrect premises is only going to further muddy the waters. And perhaps that’s the intention as long as we have psychopaths ruling our world?

But if our “leading psychologists” were to conduct a real and unbiased research, it would become clear that psychopaths are different. They have the shape of a human, the outer form. They walk, talk, speak, eat, and breathe. But when it comes to the inner essence that makes us human, that part of another that we come to love and appreciate, they are not human. They are an intraspecies predator, and no amount of psychological intervention or pharmacological therapy is going to change that.

The researchers also found that children in the study tended to respond more slowly to faces showing disgust, another threatening emotion – in this case, one that suggests something is toxic or otherwise wrong. Sylvers says psychological scientists should consider that psychopathy may not be related just to fearlessness, but to a more general problem with processing threats.