On any given day, millions of Americans (like millions of others around the world) settle in to watch their favorite crime shows. “FBI” on CBS, “Dexter”, “Mindhunter” on Netflix, reruns of “Killing Eve”, “Law & Order” on the BBC, and dozens of other series attract a wide audience with their vivid portraits. villains whose behavior is surprisingly cruel. I confess: I am part of that audience. As a researcher who analyzes criminal behavior, even my students make fun of the amount of crime I see on TV.

I justify my hours of television as a job that provides material for my college courses and seminars on the nature of the criminal mind. But at the same time, I was fascinated by the characters in these series, despite how unrealistic a lot of them – or because of it – were.

One of the most common personality types in television police shows is the psychopath: the person who commits brutal murders, acts irresponsibly, and is not cold-blooded by law enforcement: while the shows are clearly fiction, the plots have become familiar cultural. References.

Viewers see Agent Hotchner as “someone with psychopathy” in any alarmingly violent character in the movie “Criminal Minds.” Dr. In “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” you hear Huang talk about a juvenile delinquent who attacked a young girl as a “adolescent with psychopathy,” which he claims was unable to respond to treatment.

These comments leave the audience with the impression that individuals with psychopathy are uncontrollably bad, incapable of feeling emotions, and incorrigible. However, extensive research, including years of work in my own lab, shows that the sensational concepts of psychopathy at the core of these narratives are self-defeating and completely wrong.

What really is psychopathy?

Psychopathy is classified by psychologists as a personality disorder that is defined as a combination of attraction, superficial feelings, lack of remorse or regret, impulsivity, and guilt. Roughly 1% of the general population meet the diagnostic criteria for this psychopathy, which is nearly twice the prevalence of schizophrenia. The exact causes of psychopathy have not been established, but most experts conclude that both genetics and environment are contributing factors.

Psychopathy imposes a high cost on individuals and society as a whole. People with psychopathy commit two to three times more crimes overall than others who engage in antisocial behavior and represent about 25% of the prison population. They also commit new crimes at a higher rate than other types of criminals after they are out of prison or out of control.

My colleagues and I have found that people with psychopathy are more likely to use narcotic substances at a younger age and try more types of narcotics than others. There is also evidence that people with psychopathy tend not to respond well to traditional therapeutic strategies.

The truth is much more subtle and encouraging than the gloomy stories in the media. Contrary to most interpretations, psychopathy is not synonymous with violence. It is true that individuals with psychopathy are more likely to commit violent crimes than those without the disorder, but violent behavior is not a requirement for a diagnosis of psychopathy.

Some researchers suggest that some of the core features of psychopathy are found in people who do not display violent behavior but tend to display impulsive and risky behaviors, take advantage of others, and care little about the consequences of their actions. These traits can be observed in politicians, corporate executives, and financiers.

What does science say about psychopathy?

Many crime programs and mainstream news associate psychopathy with a lack of emotion, especially fear or regret. Whether a character stands calmly next to an inanimate body or gives the classic “psycho look,” audiences are accustomed to seeing psychopaths almost as robots. The belief that people with psychopathy have no feelings is common not only among ordinary people, but also among psychologists.

There’s an element of truth here: A significant number of studies have found that individuals with psychopathy display less ability to process emotions and recognize the emotions of others. But my colleagues and I have found evidence that individuals with psychopathy can actually identify and experience emotions under appropriate conditions.

In my lab, we conduct experiments that reveal the complex relationship between psychopathy and emotions. In one study, we examined the putative fears of individuals with psychopathy with a simple test. We showed a group of participants the letter “n” and colored boxes on a screen. Seeing a red box meant the participant could receive an electric shock; green boxes meant no. So the color of the box was giving a threat signal.

It should be noted that the shocks were not harmful, just slightly uncomfortable, and this study was approved by review boards for the protection of human subjects. In some tests, we asked participants to tell us the color of the box (forcing them to focus on the threat). In other tests, we asked them to tell us whether the letter was uppercase or lowercase (forcing them to focus on things that weren’t threats), although we kept showing the box.

We have been able to see that individuals with psychopathy exhibit fear responses based on psychological and brain responses when they have to focus on the threat of receiving shock. However, they showed a lack of fear response when they had to indicate whether the letter was uppercase or lowercase and that the box was a secondary task.

Obviously, individuals with psychopathy are capable of feeling emotions; When their attention is diverted, they give a quiet emotional response. This is an extreme version of the type of embroidery we all do. We rarely focus on overt emotions in routine decision making. Instead, we use emotional information as background detail to inform our decisions. What this means is that individuals with psychopathy have a type of mental myopia: the emotions are there, but they can be ignored if they interfere with achieving a goal.

Many studies have shown that individuals with psychopathy are excellent at using information and regulating their behavior if it is directly related to their goals; for example, they may act cute and ignore emotions to fool someone. But when information is beyond their focus, they often exhibit impulsive behaviors (like quitting before taking a new job) and make extreme decisions (like seeking publicity for a crime while being sought by the police).

They have trouble processing emotions, but unlike ordinary television characters, they are not naturally stoic. The image of the fearless killer is based on an outdated scientific concept of psychopathy. Instead, people with psychopathy seem to be able to access emotions – only emotional information is drowned out by focusing on the goal.

everyone can change

One of the most damaging misconceptions about psychopathy—in fiction, in the news, and in some old scientific papers—is that it is a permanent, immutable condition. This idea reinforces the persuasive good versus evil trope, but recent studies tell a different story.

Characteristics of psychopathy naturally decline over time in many young people from late adolescence to adulthood. Samuel Hawes, a psychologist at Florida International University, and his colleagues followed more than 1,000 people from childhood to adulthood and repeatedly measured the characteristics of psychopathy. Although a small group consistently showed high levels of psychopathy, more than half of children who initially had high levels of these traits tended to decrease these traits over time and then never showed them at all during adolescence.

With appropriate intervention, the prospects for improvement are greater. We see that young people with psychopathic traits and adults with psychopathy can change and respond to treatments modified according to their needs. Various studies have documented the effectiveness of specific treatments designed to help teens identify and respond to emotions. Parenting interventions that focus on raising the caregiver’s emotional warmth and helping teens identify their emotions seem to reduce problem behaviors and symptoms.

In a series of experiments, we investigated video games designed to train the brains of individuals with psychopathy by helping them improve the way they integrate information. For example, we show a group of participants a face and teach them to react according to the emotions they see and the direction their eyes are looking at, and to integrate all the features of the face.

Or, we play a game where we show participants a set of cards to see if they can detect which cards are winners or losers when we change the rules. Players are not told when the change will occur, so they must learn to pay attention to subtle contextual changes as they play. Our preliminary data show that laboratory exercises like this can change the brains and real-world behavior of individuals with psychopathy.

Such studies open the possibility of reducing the social and personal damage caused by psychopathy. I believe society should reject myths that individuals with psychopathy are fundamentally violent, callous and unchangeable.

The behavior of individuals with psychopathy is fascinating; such that it does not need to be embellished to create dramatic plots. We must do more to help individuals with psychopathy perceive more information from their environment and make more use of their emotional experiences. Popular culture can help rather than hinder these goals.