Interesting discussion on the subject of psychopathy and the mind. Psychopathy as the “flipside” of anxiety:
James Blair: This is difficult to disentangle. We know that other pathologies – I mean, anxiety disorder for example, is associated with massively overactive amygdala activity, and if you treat anxiety disorder successfully, you’ll see a reduction in that amygdala activity. And in many respects, psychopathy is the flipside of anxiety disorder, and so potentially we’re imagining that there may be treatments that will allow us to boost that amygdala response, and so help these individuals out. But as regards whether it’s a fundamental problem caused by a specific set of genetic information, or whether it was caused by a particular environmental trauma, at a specific age; that question at the moment we just have no answer for.
Psychopathy as an evolutionary adaptation:
Stuart Kinner is interested in an evolutionary model of psychopathy, a sort of disturbing explanation that says psychopaths exist because they’re well-adapted to our society. This means that you don’t have to be a criminal to be a psychopath – but does it also mean that your boss, your neighbour, even you, could be a psychopath? He’s speaking again to David Rutledge.
Stuart Kinner: There have been some studies showing that for every psychopath we have in the prison, we have probably one out in the community as well. For example, there’s some recent research showing that psychopaths are extremely successful in modern large corporations. Because the normal structures of these corporations are disintegrated, it’s very easy for somebody who’s superficially charming, remorseless, manipulative to move up in the corporate structure.
David Rutledge: You’ve been writing about an evolutionary model of psychopathy, and the rather worrying notion that psychopathy may constitute a “successful life strategy”. Successful in what way? You’ve mentioned the corporation; what other kinds of benefits can psychopathy bring you?
Stuart Kinner: From that broader evolutionary perspective, a successful life strategy really means that the psychopath is passing on his genes. There’s a lot of research in the last 5 to 10 years, showing that psychopaths have a much more coercive much more aggressive sexual strategy, and they’re also much more promiscuous and start having sex earlier in life.
David Rutledge: And of course, if they’re passing on their genes, then it could follow that they’re increasing the percentage of psychopaths in the general population – if we accept that there is a genetic predisposition to psychopathy. Is that something that worries you?
Stuart Kinner: That’s a good point. There was actually a fabulous article in Plaayboy, believe it or not, called “The Coming of the Psychopath”, quite a while ago now, saying that very thing: maybe it is becoming a successful strategy, and eventually we’ll all be psychopaths. Fortunately, that’s not the case. It’s what’s called an “evolutionally stable” strategy. Psychopathy can only be successful as a life strategy when the potential victims greatly outnumber the psychopaths.
David Rutledge: Right.
Stuart Kinner: When you think about it, it’s very hard for a psychopath to con another psychopath. A psychopath won’t trust someone else, so we have to have a lot more victims than psychopaths out there, for them to be successful. This is why they tend to be relatively nomadic, why they tend to move from city to city and from community to community.