In the Mind of Psychopaths

The group of people that I chose to do intelligence research on was psychopaths, particularly serial killers. I did not focus on any particular subgroup, however there are subtypes of psychopaths such as primary and secondary and among those two subtypes it is further broken down into distempered and charismatic subtypes. In the article Psychopathy: Manipulation, Deception, and Evil, author Pamela Kulbarsh (2012) defines a psychopath as “a morally depraved individual who represent the ‘monsters’ in our society; an unstoppable and untreatable predator whose violence is planned, purposeful and emotionless” (p.1). While in the article it states that not all psychopaths are law-breakers that is a different story with serial killers

Scans have shown that psychopathic brains appear to be different than normal brains, the level of activity going on in their brains appears to be varying from a normal brain.

When the connectivity between these two regions is low, the process of feeling negative stimuli does not occur. This means they don’t feel embarrassed when they are caught doing something wrong because their brain simply thinks it’s okay. Although they can feel physical pain, they do not feel bad when they see other people suffer. As this brain abnormality in most cases of psychopathic criminals is not abruptly acquired, there is a good reason to think that it 's grounded in the psychopath 's DNA. This would be an example of how genetics can take control of their chaotic ways.

Psychopath’s have genetic dispositions and psychologist believe that they were born with their illness. Psychopaths only form artificial relationships with people who they can manipulate. Psychopath’s tend to be shown on the outside as charming, innocent, and “normal”. Psychopaths are very strategic in that they take time to thoroughly examine and

In Science Daily’s article Psychopathic Violent Offenders’ Brains Can’t Understand Punishment, Sheilagh Hodgins and Nigel Blackwood say psychopath’s brains do not learn from mistakes. The scientists took 12 violent psychopaths, 20 violent offenders with antisocial personality disorders but not psychopathy and 18 healthy non-offenders. Using an MRI, researchers observed and compared the participants’ anterior rostral prefrontal cortex (involved in decision making and memory call,) posterior cingulate cortex, medial prefrontal cortex (both involved in response to pain,) insula and temporal poles, both of which are involved in several different functions in the body. Together, all of these areas of the brain are involved in the ability to empathize,

Similar to mental illnesses, psychopathic tendencies can be another result of psychological trauma. There are criteria such as the inability to feel guilt, lack of empathy, antisocial behavior, and being unable to learn from experience. Psychopaths normally display charismatic and manipulative behavior in order to get what they want (Childhood). Rachael S. Fullam, Shane McKie, and Mairead C. Dolan researched psychopathic traits and found the following, “Mean response times were greater for the lie than truth condition. Lie responses resulted in enhanced activation of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. The PPI

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry, by Jon Ronson explores the minds of psychopaths. This nonfiction book, published in 2011, analyses the question of, what is a psychopath? When most people try to answer this question they think of characters in well-known movies and books such as American Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs. They may also think of serial killers like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy. In 1959, the Mental Health Act for England and Wales described psychopaths as a “disability of the mind which results in abnormally aggressive [...] conduct”. (PG 65). Just like many mental disorders such as autism and bipolar disorder are often misdiagnosed, so is psychopathy. As shown through this book, the normal human and even trained psychologist often find it difficult to spot and understand psychopaths. Psychopaths are a broader range of individuals than most people assume; they are serial killers, CEOs, politicians, and of course, the average person. Today, it is believed, that only one percent of humans are psychopaths.

Psychopathy, in the video provided is explained as a disease that someone is born with. This video explained how professionals feel that psychopaths think cognitively instead of emotionally. Emotions are developed in the limbic portion of the brain. The limbic system not only controls emotion but also controls instinct. In psychopaths, professionals may be very right in the matter that the limbic system is underdeveloped because psychopaths tend to not think in that manner. Some psychopaths will say that they murdered someone to get the love and affection from someone else. Well anyone with a normal healthy limbic system would tell you that murdering someone is not a turn on and does not create affection towards the murderer. But psychopaths

However, not all psychopaths are criminals – some psychopathic traits are actually linked to success. Psychopathy is a common mental disorders; the only mental disorders significantly more common than psychopathy are those related to drug and alcohol abuse dependence, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. The psychopath has hidden himself since he emerged with the rest of us 200,000 years ago. They lure you in with charm and emotional manipulation because he or she will do anything to get want they want. Examples of such people would be Adolf Hitler whom is responsible for millions of lives. Jack The Ripper, responsible for a string of murdered women in London in the late, this psychopath became famous because his identity remains unknown. Contrary to belief not all psychopaths are serial killers; lack of empathy or remorse still remains in non-violent aggressors such as con artists. The appeal of the insane person may be entertaining for media coverage however, many psychopaths aren't in prison or jail. Truth be told, a few people might have the capacity to utilize psychopathic characteristics to even achieve financial gain or political

To understand the differences it is crucial to understand the function and the structure of the parts of the brain responsible for psychopathy. One of the two main parts of the brains that is crucial in this excursion is the amygdala. The amygdala abuts the anterior part of the hippocampus. It is located within the temporal lobe of the brain and takes on the shape of almond (Blair, 2008). Given that they are found on the temporal lobe, there is one on each side of the brain (Wright, 2016). This is the part of the brain that helps people respond instinctively when faced with life threating situations that would be considered to require survival techniques or skills as well as impulses. When one is faced with a threat, they experience fear and in response they prepare for the emergency. It is also the part of the brain that responsible for experiencing fear; sadness, anger, aggression and anxiety among other emotions as one interact with the environment (Blair, 2008). As such it is very important in emotional learning, such as understanding and experiencing emotions. In light of learning, when one is young, they are taught about avoiding hurting other people. Relative to emotional learning, people learn to mirror the emotions of the others around them and hence when another person is hurting the brain is able to interpret the same and internalize the emotion associative (Blair, 2008). In the case of the psychopaths, they are not able to internalize this effect of understanding

One affect of psychopathy has, is that psychopaths lack empathy. Research shows that when psychopaths were shown images of a person being hurt and a picture on a random ink blotch, their brains don't make any changes, so they

I found it quite intriguing when the article stated that in psychopathic subjects the brain networks showed no activity unlike the “normal” people’s brain networks got activated. This indicates that the psychopaths arousal level is low. Hence, they are more prone to committing sexual and violent crimes. As I read the part below ‘shallow feelings’ I felt sorry for them. Missing out on empathy prevents them from being naturally able to relate to people. It’s immesenly sad how some people are born that way through absolutely no fault of their own, and have to go through life, missing out on a very significant part of humanity. As a matter of fact, it's not really anyones “fault” that they are, the way they are. Rather it is more obliging to look

Roles That Mental Illness Play In Psychopathic Behavior were investigated. Key issues which were addressed include:

Raine, Lee, Yang, and Colletti (2010) investigated whether individuals with a particular neurodevelopmental marker would have greater levels of psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder than controls. There are numerous hypothesis of the origin of psychopathy and antisocial personality including neurodevelopmental, genetic, brain injury, and impaired bonding, to name a few. This novel study sought to provide support for the hypothesis that antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy has a neurodevelopmental basis.

To solely focus on a psychopath you focus on the brain. Within this article it states that researchers believe this trait tends to be more genetic, which means they believe that most psychopaths are born this way. As quoted in the article by (John M. Grohol in his article of Differences between a psychopath vs sociopath) “Psychopathy might be related to