Anti Sociopath Activism
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More on psychopaths. I was watching a tv show last night where an FBI criminal profiler provided running commentary to Charles Manson’s interview from some time ago. Basically, she (the FBI profiler) was interpreting Manson’s 1987-on camera statements in light of what is known about the way a psychopath thinks.
What a show. For instance, the Tate murder was a botched revenge killing. In the 1987 intereview, Manson talks about how he (Manson) rejected Hollywood. Nope, Hollywood rejected him, and in true psychopathic form, he sought out murderous revenge. But he (Manson) didn’t do his homework — right address, wrong renters. The address was the same as a music producer who rejected Manson. The music producer (Terry Melcher) had moved. Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate moved in.
Manson covered-up his true motives with this rig-a-mar-ole about “Helter Skelter” — and probably killed the LaBianca’s just to make it look good. (Of course, all the while directing others to do his dirty work).
So back to psychopaths: Mind Hacks: Scanning psychopaths
Mind Hacks has a post about the December Nature paper (by Alison Abbott) on brain-scanning psychopaths. The paper reports on Dutch researchers brain- scanning convicted, imprisoned criminals to see where the “empathy” chip is in the brain. (More after the jump)
University of Gronigen’s Dr. Harma Meffert is developing behavioral- imaging assays to see what parts of the brain are involved in feeling the feelings of others — beyond just recognition of emotional faces. (The explanation of the use of “hand movies” — human hands stroking each other or slapping each other — is interesting).
Criminals are a self-selecting population– they are the ones who get caught. Sub-criminal psychopaths are more interesting to me. One source for subcriminal psychopaths is temporary employment agencies — people who temp their whole lives may fit within the clinical definition of a psychopath.
And, perhaps this is parsing words, but psychopaths seem to have a compassion deficit — they know how others feel but they don’t care. They manipulate people to gain power. They evoke emotion in others with the same brain cells used for trigonometry.
Nevertheless — I hope one day there is a way to pre-screen for psychopathy.
A prediction: One day the standard of prudence for corporate governance will require a brain scan for all directors and officers.
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3 responses so far ↓
1 DrSteve // Dec 21, 2007 at 11:28 am
You’re spot on about psychopaths and empathy. It’s amazing to me how an (ill-chosen) phrase – psychopaths have no empathy – is repeated in practically everything you read by amateurs and experts. They’ll also speak of psychopaths’ skills as con artists, but not make the connection that in order to do that you have to have empathy!
2 DrSteve // Dec 21, 2007 at 11:37 am
Oh, and thanks for for linking me to this fact I didn’t know, though it makes perfect sense: “All subjects were drawn from 5 temporary employment agencies in Los Angeles, Calif. This recruitment strategy was used because pilot data had shown that this community group had relatively high rates of violence perpetration.”
3 swivelchair // Dec 25, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Dr. Steve — Thank you for your comments, and I really appreciate your blogging on the subject.
Yes– I asked one of the researchers directly about temps lacking that “moral center” — of course, everyone temps when they are in college or between jobs or whatever. She said people who temp for most of their work life generally test out to be psychopaths (or perhaps antisocial, I’m not clear on the screenin).
I’ll jump over to your blog, and post the same, thanks for visiting! Swivelchair
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