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

With the right training, huh?

[i kan reed]

How about we hold their eyes open and force them to watch horrific, violent videos, preferably multiple at a time.

Re:With the right training, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll be cured all right.

Re:With the right training, huh?

[Immerman]

Isn't the whole point the fact that they can turn off empathy/have it off as a default state? Without empathy what would be the point of horrific imagery other than discouraging them from turning it on, and maybe give them a thrill if they get off on violence?

It seems to me the whole idea of "rehabilitation" here is shaky at best - as a general rule our society rewards psychopathy quite readily with power, wealth, and sex. So what's in it for the self-interested psychopath you want to rehabilitate? It may be that they can learn to "turn on" the switch for sustained periods to get themselves cleared as rehabilitated, but unless the switch were somehow magically locked in place why wouldn't they just "turn it off" again once they were free?

Re:With the right training, huh?

[jason.sweet]

Holy fuck YOU'RE dense. Were you born without the ability to comprehend humor?

He probably switches it on and off at will.

Re:With the right training, huh?

[davester666]

So why don't we do that instead of electing them to public office or making them executives in the banking industry?

Re:With the right training, huh?

[ShanghaiBill]

So why don't we do that instead of electing them to public office or making them executives in the banking industry?

Because there is evidence that psychopaths actually make better leaders. There was an article about this a couple months ago in the Economist. By ignoring the suffering of individuals, psychopaths are able to focus on bold action for the greater good. This is especially apparent in war time, where compassionate leaders are often dithering and indecisive, leading to a prolonged war and many more deaths and wounds than needed.

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.

Re:How would you know

[i kan reed]

Well, if they don't want to go back to their seat in congress after the treatment, they're better.

Re:Would this training work...

[Hatta]

They already know how to turn empathy on and off. When campaigning, turn empathy on. When legislating, turn empathy off.

Interesting

[bigsexyjoe]

Robert Hare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Hare is an expert in psychopaths. He said that was asked to work on therapies for psychopaths to get them to rehabilitate. He said he wanted to develop a program that appeals to their self-interest to not engage in criminal or bad behavior. If they do have an "empathy switch" that would be a good thing. You would have to convince the psychopath that it is in their best interest to leave it on.

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:How would you know

[i kan reed]

And, we've discovered that certain kinds intervention before age 18 is really effective at decreasing crime rates among these people. And notably, in spite of the fact that we have all these awesome criteria, less than 10% of those who meet our best criteria ever really do anything wrong. NOVA had a fascinating documentary about it. (I'm at work and can't verify that's the right video). If we could trivially split people into categories of "future murderer" and "non-murderer" it wouldmake life easier, but we cannot.

Re:Would this training work...

[Digital Vomit]

For example: Tax the rich 90%. That sounds good to me, it should solve a lot of problems... However... if these people are taxed too much they will move to more tax friendly areas, move jobs out of the area, and in general make things worse in the long run.

Funny...that's exactly what happened after we reduced the tax burden from the rich down from 90%.

I was going to say you sound like you've fallen for some propaganda, but then you said the following and now I don't think you know what you're talking about at all:

Trickle down doesn't work when you give the rich more money. But it does work if you take it away from them.

Trickle-down economic policies don't work, but they do work when you don't implement them???

Re:why?

[Digital Vomit]

Because that sort of behavior has evolutionary advantages for the species.

slashdot, fix yer damned scripts

[anyaristow]

Way OT but I'm really sick of this...

A script on the fsdn domain is causing command-click on links to load both the new tab and the original tab with the destination URL. Both firefox and safari.

Peace in our time!

[TiggertheMad]

Your opinion is that of an armchair historian, with a very different perspective than leaders at the time had.

It could be said that Neville Chamberlain was a compassionate leader...