14 DAY TRIAL // Contrary to popular opinion, psychopathic criminals do not lack the ability to experience empathy, a new study published in today's issue of the journal Brain argues.
The only difference between them and ordinary folks is that, whereas the latter cannot choose when to be emphatic and when not to be, psychopathic criminals can switch their empathy on and off, depending on the circumstances they find themselves in.
Specialists argue that, should this theory be true to facts, it could explain why psychopaths can constantly alternate between being charming and being utterly cruel.
To research the hypothesis that cold-hearted criminals can be emphatic whenever they choose to do so, a team of scientists in the Netherlands carried out a brain imaging study.
During this investigation, they mapped the brains of 18 convicted psychopaths.
They also analyzed the brains of several volunteers who agreed to be the researchers' control group.
As part of these experiments, the psychopaths and the volunteers were made to watch a series of videos, EurekAlert informs us.
At first, they got to watch the videos just as they would watch any other movie. Later on, they were explicitly asked to empathize with the people featured in them.
Meanwhile, the scientists kept a close eye on their brain activity.
It was thus discovered that, although they do not use empathy automatically, psychopaths can activate it when instructed to do so.
“When explicitly asked to empathize, the differences between how strongly the individuals with and without psychopathy activate their own actions, sensations and emotions almost entirely disappeared in their empathic brain,” researcher Valeria Gazzola explains.
“Psychopathy may not be so much the incapacity to empathize, but a reduced propensity to empathize, paired with a preserved capacity to empathize when required to do so,” she further details.
The specialists argue that the findings of this investigation suggest that, in time, therapy could successfully be used to keep psychopathies under control.