Research

Evil: a dispositional viewpoint

By Lee Gilbert & Robert Babos

Psychopaths have to appear as though they are normal citizens and upstanding people; their relationships with others are usually fake with not much depth to them but strong enough that they can eventually lure a person to their death. They manipulate others into doing their will and believe that they are allowed to do the heinous crimes they commit, some have a God Complex and believe a higher presence has allowed or ordered them to do something. Psychopaths lack empathy and remorse until they are found out, then they plead forgiveness and state they didn’t mean to do it, we see this in stories of Psychopaths who drive around for hours with their victims body in the back of a car, they never hand themselves up they will try to get away with it and continue to commit crimes like a lot of serial killers. They have short term goals and have detailed plans but lack a wider view of the situation and long term perceptive.

The structure of a Psychopath brain doesn’t appear to be different using M.R.I. scans. However using Single Proton Emission Computerised Tomography (S.P.E.C.T) it would appear that they different from an average person with reduced blood flow to the amygdala which is an integral part of primary emotion in the limbic system. Psychopaths seem to process emotional data as though it is neutral data. When Psychopaths were shown words that evoke emotion in normal citizens much of the brain activity was in the centre, unlike psychopaths whose brain activity focused at the back, where the information would initially arrive through the visual but later move around the brain to stimulate emotional responses. The lack of brain activity seems to be a genetic factor which is hereditary and uncommonly developed during life, this falls more under the heading of situational. Evil in terms of situational is conformity and dehumanisation which is seen is the Stanford Prison experiment and the Milgrim experiment, people having to do things and following orders.

Some Psychologists believe that Psychopathic tendencies arise when biology and environment collide, a difficult upbringing plus the capacity to hate and kill can spark a psychopath. Psychopaths don’t seem to be able to be rehabilitated they will just try to kill again; it’s a mental problem they have, with the lack of emotion and feelings. They seem to have a lack of fear from the governing bodies and punishment in general and if they’re not afraid of returning to prison then they will keep committing crimes. If seen by therapists they try to charm and control the situation, whether by making the therapist like them or learning how to imitate emotions so as to seem more stable in the real world.

Sociopaths (I prefer the term sociopath to psychopaths) generally begin by committing smaller crimes and not jumping straight to murder or rape. While the “average” criminal may commit 4 or 5 crimes per year, a sociopath may commit anywhere between 50-300 crimes per year (Blumstein & Cohen, 1987). However, not all sociopaths are criminals, but they do exhibit irresponsible behaviour. They can be pathological liars, egocentric, irresponsible, promiscuous, manipulative, impulsive, unable to love, and can lack empathy, remorse, shame or guilt. At the same time they can seem to be charming and witty. They are by no means handicapped in any intellectual sense and can often carry out elaborate crimes and manipulate others. The most striking feature of a sociopath is their lack of what we consider to be a conscience.

Researchers have found that the impulsive and aggressive behaviour of sociopaths may be caused by low serotonin activity (Patrick, 2007). Serotonin has long been linked to aggression and impulsivity. Scientists at Johns Hopkins found that the absence of the gene needed to make nitric oxide made turned their lab mice into “vicious, over-sexed killers”. The current belief is that nitric oxide may act on serotonin. Other studies have also seen that people with this disorder show decreased activity in their frontal lobes (Morgan & Lilienfield, 2000), which have a part to play in feeling empathy, sympathy and judgement.

Evolutionary biologists believe that this “disability” greatly increased a person’s chance of survival many thousands of years ago. Evolution very likely favoured the more aggressive person. Twin studies are generally used to research genetic predisposition and heritability to sociopathy. The result, a high correlation of sociopathy among monozygotic twins and a slightly lower correlation between diozygotic twins. These studies have also been conducted with children who have been put up for adoption and whose biological parents were sociopaths; this was an effort to rule out environmental causes. Sociopathy seems to be very prevalent in the children of sociopaths especially if the father is the sufferer of the disorder. This suggests that there is a strong link between sociopathy and genetic predisposition. It also suggests that we should see a rise in this kind of behaviour as the risk for a relative of a sociopath seems to be much higher than other disorders. Their behaviour seems to be more suited for survival than the behaviour of the “average” person. Everyday sociopaths deceive and con other people successfully to gain access to mates or resources necessary for survival.

References

Blumstein, A., & Cohen, J. (1987). Characterizing Criminal Careers.

            Science, 237, 985-991.

Morgan, A.B., & Lilienfield, S.O. (2000). A meta-analytic review of the relation between              antisocial behaviour and neuropsychological measures of executive function.            Clinical Psychology Review, 20, 113-136.

 

Patrick, C.J. (2007). Antisocial personality disorders and psychopathy. In W. O’Donohue, K.A.       Fowler, & S.O. Lilienfield (Eds.). Personality disorders: Toward the DSM-V. Los      Angeles: Sage Publications.