An Underlying Cause for Psychopathic Behavior?

[chloe]

ScienceDaily (May 27, 2010) — Psychopaths are known to be characterized by callousness, diminished capacity for remorse, and lack of empathy. However, the exact cause of these personality traits is an area of scientific debate. The results of a new study, reported in the May 2010 issue of Elsevier's Cortex, show striking similarities between the mental impairments observed in psychopaths and those seen in patients with frontal lobe damage.

One previous explanation for psychopathic tendencies has been a reduced capacity to make inferences about the mental states of other people, an ability known as Theory of Mind (ToM). On the other hand, psychopaths are also known to be extremely good manipulators and deceivers, which would imply that they have good skills in inferring the knowledge, needs, intentions, and beliefs of other people. Therefore, it has been suggested recently that ToM is made up of different aspects: a cognitive part, which requires inferences about knowledge and beliefs, and another part which requires the understanding of emotions.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0427091723.htm

[crin63]

ScienceDaily (May 27, 2010) — Psychopaths are known to be characterized by callousness, diminished capacity for remorse, and lack of empathy. However, the exact cause of these personality traits is an area of scientific debate. The results of a new study, reported in the May 2010 issue of Elsevier's Cortex, show striking similarities between the mental impairments observed in psychopaths and those seen in patients with frontal lobe damage.

One previous explanation for psychopathic tendencies has been a reduced capacity to make inferences about the mental states of other people, an ability known as Theory of Mind (ToM). On the other hand, psychopaths are also known to be extremely good manipulators and deceivers, which would imply that they have good skills in inferring the knowledge, needs, intentions, and beliefs of other people. Therefore, it has been suggested recently that ToM is made up of different aspects: a cognitive part, which requires inferences about knowledge and beliefs, and another part which requires the understanding of emotions.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0427091723.htm

Well at least we can now understand Obama!

[revelarts]

Interesting... Some of us still just call it plain old sin, or the sin nature of man.

the one thing I wonder about with this type of research is who is making the criteria. In different cultures what is considered cruel is different. If we started a thread here about spanking we'd might have a people thinking that it's cruel other not. Public flogging use to be acceptably. abortion is legal today...
would they consider an abortion doctor a psychopath?
see what i'm saying?

[chloe]

Interesting... Some of us still just call it plain old sin, or the sin nature of man.

the one thing I wonder about with this type of research is who is making the criteria. In different cultures what is considered cruel is different. If we started a thread here about spanking we'd might have a people thinking that it's cruel other not. Public flogging use to be acceptably. abortion is legal today...
would they consider an abortion doctor a psychopath?
see what i'm saying?

Yeah but I think baby killers are psychopaths because that is like someone murdering an innocent human.