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"I didn't know what made people want to be friends. I didn't know what made
people attractive to one another. I didn't know what underlay social interactions."
"I don't feel guilty for anything. I feel sorry for people who feel guilt."
I'm as cold a motherfucker as you've ever put your fucking eyes on. I don't give a
shit about those people.
These creepy Ted Bundy quotes patently summarize the main traits of a
psychopath: A callous, exploitive individual with blunted
emotions, impulsive inclinations and an inability to feel guilt or remorse.
There are, however, some limitations of this study. The study measured criminal
psychopaths. But not all psychopaths are criminals. Most psychopaths are
manipulative, aggressive and impulsive but these features far from always lead to
criminal activity. It remains to be seen whether non-criminal psychopaths, like their
criminal counterparts, have reduced activity between the amygdala and the
vmPFC. Another limitation of the study is that it doesnt show that reduced activity
between the amygdala and vmPFC is an abnormality specifically linked to
psychopathy rather than to a range of mental conditions that have been associated
with serious crime, including paranoid schizophrenia and extreme sexual fetises.
Though the Wisconsin study sheds some light on what may bring about the traits of
psychopathy, psychopathy remains puzzling. We don't know the reason behind the
reduced connectivity in the emotional system. It could be caused by a dysfunction
of neurotransmitters, for example, by a disturbance to the main excitatory
neurotransmitter glutamate. Alternatively, it could be a degenerative disease that
leads to a reduction of the brains white matter, which is responsible for
connectivity among neurons. The answer to what causes reduced connectivity in
the brains emotional system would help answer some of the bigger questions
about psychopaths, for example, the question of whether disorder is partially due to
social (or other environmental) factors or is primarily genetically based.
Social factors have some (even if only small) role to play in generating
psychopathy. But after many years of investigating the minds of psychopaths,
researchers have been unable to find any factors that could contribute to the
development of psychopathic traits. Early childhood abuse or neglect often leads to
posttraumatic stress disorder or phobias (e.g., in terms of making commitments).
But anxiety disorders are typically associated with either greater connectivity
between the amygdala and the vmPFC or a dysfunction of vmPFC that makes it
unable to modulate negative information from the amygdala. We cannot exclude
that childhood abuse or neglect may be a factor in making psychopaths commit
crimes, but it's not a likely contributing factor to psychopathy itself. Furthermore,
though serial killers like Charles Manson were abused and neglected as children,
the list of serial killers with a normal childhood is long. Famous serial killers such
as Ted Bundy, Jeff Dahmer and Dennis Rader grew up in healthy households with
supportive family members.
Elsa Ermer and Kent Kiehl of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque,
discovered that psychopaths have difficulties following rules based
on moral sensibility, despite fully understanding the rules. The blunted emotions of
psychopaths appear to play a role in preventing them from following rules. But this
is possibly correctable. We know that people with autism spectrum disorder have
difficulties picking up on social cues or do the right things in social contexts. But
higher functioning autists can normally learn to make the right kinds of signals in
social situations. For example, they can learn to make eye contact, back-channel
during conversation and express an interest in other people. Sometimes this
requires years of training with a therapist or medical professional. They have to
learn to do what others learn by interacting with family members and peers. If
people with high-functioning autism, an inheritable disease, can learn social cues,
then presumably some psychopaths can learn to follow moral rules by going
through extensive training.
It is worth noting here that a large number of the most gruesome crimes were
committed by psychotics, not psychopaths. Psychosis and psychopathy are
different kinds of mental disorders. Psychosis is a complete loss of one's sense of
reality. Psychopathy is a personality disorder, much like narcissistic personality
disorder. Personality disorders are potentially more permanent and less curable
than psychotic diseases.
Psychotics and psychopaths can have traits in common, such as blunted emotions,
but they differ in terms of whether they are in touch with reality. Psychopaths are
calculating and manipulative but they do not suffer from hallucinations or delusions.
They do not hear the voices of strangers in their heads or hold elaborate false
theories about the world. Serial killer Coral Eugene Watts strangled several women
because he saw evil in their eyes. Belle Sorenson Gunness slaughtered her
husbands because she believed men were evil. Ed Gein mutilated, skinned and
gutted his graveyard goodies and his only live victim because he wanted to be a
woman and believed he needed body parts for a sex change (or maybe to make a
replica of his mother). Richard Trenton Chase drank and bathed in his victims'
blood. He believed he had to do this to prevent Nazis from turning his blood into
powder with a poison they had hidden beneath his soap dish.