Marginal Revolution: What are psychopaths?

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What are psychopaths?

Psychopaths cannot process clues of context very easily:

The key deficit in psychopaths, he [Newman] says, is an inability to process contextual cues, which makes them oblivious to the implications of their actions, both for themselves and for their potential victims...

Newman has published several studies showing this inability to consider peripheral information. In 2004, Newman reported in the journal Neuropsychology one study in which subjects were presented with mislabeled images, such as a drawing of a pig with the word "dog" superimposed on it. Newman's researchers timed how long it took them to name what they saw. They found that people in the control group -- non-psychopaths -- were confused by the mislabeled images, while the psychopaths answered swiftly and barely noticed the discrepancy.

"Although it is somewhat counterintuitive that superior selective attention be associated with psychopathology, it is consistent with the importance of incidental contextual and associative cues for regulating behavior," Newman wrote.

The main point of the article, with which I agree, is that we should feel sorry for psychopaths. Here are Robert Hare's results on psychopaths. Here is a summary of some neurological evidence.

Addendum: Speaking of neurology, here is Will Wilkinson on whether neuroeconomics implies paternalism.

Posted by Tyler Cowen on September 28, 2006 at 06:46 AM in Science | Permalink

Comments

sorry for people responsible of 80% percent of felonies?

Posted by: S at Sep 28, 2006 11:37:59 AM

yes. why not?

Posted by: josh at Sep 28, 2006 1:12:14 PM

If I don't feel sorry for them, does that make me a psychopath?

Posted by: TGGP at Sep 28, 2006 1:46:00 PM

You should educate yourself about psychopaths, understand their regular traits, and know that it is very likely that you will be dealing with one at some time. Robert Hare's book is excellent in this regard. Perhaps some day we will cure this condition, although here we are talking about a massive reordering of the personality. But saying that we ought to "feel sorry for them" could be taken the wrong way. It might suggest to some people that sympathy and reason will change a psychopath, or get you out of an entanglement with one. That is very likely to be a dangerous mistake. Feeling sorry for a psychopath will NOT work. You will just get played. However, acting like you are sympathetic may buy you time, to get to a safe place.

Posted by: Lee A. Arnold at Sep 28, 2006 2:06:22 PM

This is very interesting. I know a man who is a psychopath. I can't imagine him being confused by
mislabled pictures. But what is very interesting is that his son is a high functioning autistic with
Asperger's syndrome. The son is unable to read facial expressions and thus can't function well socially,
although unlike his father he is actually quite a pleasent person if you take the trouble to get to know
him. I wonder if both conditions tend to run in families?

Posted by: Intrigued at Sep 28, 2006 4:12:48 PM

Josh I guess you or your familie have not br¡een victim of one

Posted by: S at Sep 28, 2006 7:01:42 PM

I fail to see why the expression of pity cannot be separated by disgust toward the activities of said psycopath. It isn't like they asked to lack remorse or pity. I would guess it's a fairly lonely existance.

Posted by: nelsonal at Sep 28, 2006 11:43:36 PM

The problem for us non-psychopaths is that it is tough -- maybe impossible -- to feel genuinely sorry for someone without showing them mercy and compassion. Mercy and compassion are, of course, extremely dangerous when directed toward a psychopath as you will be taken advantage of and victimized a second time. Learning about psychopathology has made me more rather than less in favor of tough sentencing rules for clearly psychopathic individuals, as only the threat of severe punishment keeps them in line. At the same time, I cannot support such a position without feeling just the slightest bit of righteous indignation.

This is probably why the doctrine of forgiveness in Christianity is among the least popular and least followed of its tenets. Perhaps the most interesting point here is one that Steven Pinker has made before and Tyler has implied with some of his recent posts: advances in neuroscience and our understanding of the brain will probably make retribution morally indefensible soon. Deterrence, on the other hand, especially to an economist, is defensible and even laudable.

Posted by: Mark at Sep 29, 2006 1:59:30 AM

In what sense are pity and contempt mutually exclusive? I guess I didn't realize you could only feel one way toward a person. Sheesh.

Posted by: josh at Sep 29, 2006 12:17:52 PM

I find the experiment on psychopaths very interesting. Although the one experiment done can lead to prevention
techniques and gives us some insight on how a psychopath processes imagines i do not think that this one
experiment is enough to cateogrize anyone as a psychopath. I think more experiments that lead us to
more knowledge on how they think, and how their childhood was would be very helpful as well. But feeling sorry for
the people who are accountable for 70% or more of the crime and murders is very skewed statement.

Posted by: Brandon at Oct 2, 2006 3:59:27 PM

I think this should go under the 'Demand Curves Slope Downward' category. The research suggests that there are a whole range of cues that we, 'normal', people react to in relation to our perceptions of the (potential) pain/embarrassment/suffering brought about in other people due to our (potential) actions which reduce the incidence of these actions, and that the circuits for reacting to these cues are non-functional in the psychopath. The researcher is trying to create prosthetic circuits to replace these dysfunctional circuits using their desire for self preservation. Interesting.

Posted by: Darin London at Oct 18, 2006 1:32:53 PM

Feel sorry for them? I should bleedin' cocoa!

Emotions don't enter into it - they don't have any, except for pride and rage, but they often use other people's emotions to manipulate them. The way to deal with psychopaths is to have a superior strategy - lifetime supervision and treatment, plus the promise of life imprisonment when they commit serious crimes does me fine.

Posted by: Andy at Apr 28, 2007 1:27:07 PM