Psychopathic Criminals Have "Empathy Switch"

dryriver writes "Psychopaths do not lack empathy, rather they can switch it on at will, according to new research. Placed in a brain scanner, psychopathic criminals watched videos of one person hurting another and were asked to empathise with the individual in pain. Only when asked to imagine how the pain receiver felt did the area of the brain related to pain light up. Scientists, reporting in Brain, say their research explains how psychopaths can be both callous and charming. The team proposes that with the right training, it could be possible to help psychopaths activate their 'empathy switch', which could bring them a step closer to rehabilitation. Criminals with psychopathy characteristically show a reduced ability to empathise with others, including their victims. Evidence suggests they are also more likely to reoffend upon release than criminals without the psychiatric condition."

Comments

Would this training work...

[NickDanger3rdEye]

...for politicians?

normal people can probably do it too

[iggymanz]

kind and good normal people have been known to turn it off under certain conditions, too fight or defend against that which they believe "evil"

maybe studying that reaction could help with the psychopath problem

Re:normal people can probably do it too

[MightyMartian]

I think this is mainly to do with tribalism, which is a very very ancient set of instincts (we share them to a large degree with the other apes, just look at how chimp tribes behave towards each other). People are built to fit themselves into kin groups, which works pretty well when you're talking about relative small societies of a hundred or a few thousand individuals. Essentially it is an "us vs. them", "friend vs. stranger" recognition system.

If someone is seen as a stranger, they are a potential threat, and actions can be taken against them that one would not take against a member of one's own kin group or society (this is why murder of a relative or close friend is still seen in most societies as a much higher crime than murder of a stranger or an acquaintance). Through the ages demagogues have been able to manipulate this basic tribal instinct to group people based upon relationship to further all sorts of atrocities. Whether it's persecution, exile, slavery or genocide, once you've convinced a populace that your desired target group is somehow alien, you can convince that populace to do almost anything.

It's as the old story goes (and time for the Godwin); Hitler convinced an entire nation made of up people who adhered to a religion whose basic tenet was "love thy brother" that persecution and ultimately murder of millions of members of ethnic groups (Jews and Roma in particular) was perfectly fine, and yet even Hitler was a vegetarian who loved his dogs.

Whether this "empathy switch" in psychopaths is related to that I don't know. Obviously even in normal people there is a way to trigger the dehumanizing of groups if they can be convinced that they are alien threats. Mind you even look like genocides like the Jewish Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide, there was long standing prejudice and mistrust against the targeted group, so it's not as if appeared out of nowhere.

why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anyone ever voluntarily suffer on behalf of another?

It's actually very normal for humans: Othering

[Anonymous Coward]

It's actually very normal for humans to turn off empathy as needed and desired. Much of social conditioning is used to do this, either by design or due to environmental pressures.

"Othering", the enemy, homeless, other races, gangs, neighborhoods, city-states, etc. etc. etc. lepers, sick people in general (although there is also a built-in revulsion for physical deformity.)

The thing with psychopaths, born or bred, is that their empathy switch is very strongly set to "off", for the average person the switch is somewhere between on and in-between.

Obligatory

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Data: Captain, I believe I am feeling... anxiety. It is an intriguing sensation. A most distracting...
Picard: Data, I'm sure it's a fascinating experience, but perhaps you should deactivate your emotion chip for now.
Data: Good idea, sir.
[beep]
Data: Done.
Picard: Data, there are times that I envy you.

Re: With the right training, huh?

[MickLinux]

Nonetheless, empathy training does work.

When one of my children got caught bullying -- and that is one psychopathic behavior that MANY practice -- I searched for the right response, and came up with a book called "Small criminals among us: how to recognize and change children's antisocial behavior, before they explode."

The methods -- and there are multiple -- are all about empathy training.

My experience? Between that, and allowing a heavy use of the (Catholic) confessional, and a focus on the Christian aspects, that child is much improved. The book was very helpful.

Re:With the right training, huh?

[ArhcAngel]

You're missing the point. It's important that these scientists do the research because it provides a reason to beg for funding for the research. That is essentially the only possible benefit from this train of thought...

While I am of the same cynical cloth you seem to be cut from there is the possibility they could discern what chemical process happens in the brain to turn it on and synthesize a serum that the psychopath would then be induced to take once released to prevent the switch from turning back off. I'm sure many pharmaceutical firms would fund that research.