A previous version of this article was published in 2018.

A few years ago, a study revealed a surprising relationship: either psychopaths Had an evolutionary advantage over “normal” humans? This is what genetic analysis seeks to confirm. But let’s not run so fast: what is a psychopath? And what is evolutionary advantage? Can we happily associate genetics with behavior? The real question is far. simply.

“Who wants to sleep with a psychopath?” If we recall some famous films, we can say that there are so many of them. But it’s not just a matter of fiction. It turns out that there are several studies that show the peculiar attraction that exists towards sociopaths and antisocials.

But before we continue on this path, which we will return to in a moment, let’s review what we know about psychopaths. Fortunately, not everyone is like Christian Bale, the real ruthless and cruel serial killers. As the sciences of psychology advance, it becomes more apparent that psychopathy is not an easy pathology to define or “pigeonhole.”

And unlike other disorders and psychological traits, no single behavior that a psychopath can be clearly distinguished from a normal person. This, as you can imagine, is a very serious problem when it comes to describing any work. There is currently no scientific evidence to tell who is a psychopath and who is not.

This does not mean that sociopathic behavior cannot be detected, something that fits antisocial personality disorder or TPA. Among the most common features of sociopathy are a lack of empathy and remorse, a distorted view of self-esteem, a constant search for new sensations, and even dehumanization without concern for influence, as it is popularly known.

And in such a scenario, who can see the positive side of a sociopath? These antisocial traits translate into behaviors. more aggressive, but also more risky, innovative, even impressive. Experts explain that a lack of self-control can lead these individuals to consume more drugs, alcohol, or seek out risky and exciting situations.

In general, the cocktail is served and indeed the psychopathic personality, rudelyfinds a roster of couples and sexual relationships. But there is a stretch from assumption to reality. Are psychopaths really more reproductively successful?

Antisocial Disorder, Reproductive and Evolutionary Advantages

Let’s admit that people with psychopathic traits have more partners. But that doesn’t mean they’re more reproductively successful, does it? But the study we mentioned at the beginning seems to confirm what we suspected. Accordingly, there are some traits related to the ease of reproduction among the genes of people with social disorder traits.

Specifically, analysis of more than 31,000 people shows that what is referred to as “c” is.genetic relationship“Between genes associated with antisocial behavior disorders and genes related to reproductive outcomes. This correlation suggests that genes that allow us to reproduce more and more often coexist with those associated with antisocial behavior in many cases.

Thus, the genes present (and somehow responsible) for psychopathy are associated with those for more and better reproduction. This represents an evolutionary advantage that we didn’t expect, the researchers interpret, which could mean that these traits may increase over time rather than disappear.

But let’s criticize the research. First of all, let’s assume the analysis is robust: We have 31,814 individuals looking for a set of genes and looking for relatedness based on their presence. For this, researchers I compared the genome the number of people included in a database that aggregates patients with pathologies and antisocial behaviors with another epidemiological database of “normal” people.

The result supports the hypothesis, so yes, there is a correlation between genes. However, we must take the result with precision. Since the costs of genetic analysis have become cheaper, it has become fashionable to seek the ultimate genetic cause.

But psychologists warn that we are much more than a handful of genes. We cannot transfer all responsibility for behavior to someone else. alleles and genetic material. That’s not to say they don’t have an effect, but if we take into account that we can’t exactly say that one or more genes make someone antisocial, we’re starting from a biased point.

On the other hand, what does evolutionary advantage mean? We often use this term when we want to talk about reproductive outcomes in biology. But still, we are simplifying an extremely complex question because we cannot say that better reproductive outcomes mean an evolutionary advantage.

Despite the mechanisms of natural selection, evolution does not always favor certain traits that we consider “positive”. Sometimes it’s just chaotic. Thus, while talking about evolutionary advantage has statistical or scientific meaning, we cannot interpret it that way.

Also, to emphasize this point, we don’t know if there are more. “psychopathy genes” by the world, compared to the total population that makes 500 years for example, would confirm his interpretation. It’s hard to give an unbiased opinion in the same way researchers do, as we don’t connect behavior so easily with genetics and evolution, the three enormous broad fields.

Even so, the approach doesn’t stand alone, as the researchers draw from other previous studies, but this is the largest study by individuals to date. But the most important thing may be how they manage to interweave these three big themes: genetics, evolution and behavior, under the same analysis, something we cannot ignore or underestimate, drawing on cutting-edge techniques. .