Psychopathic traits are not reserved for dangerous criminals and people with mental disorders — to one degree or another, they are characteristic of each of us. Does this mean that we are all a little psychopathic? Clinical psychologist Lucy Foulkes explains.
Each of us periodically lies, cheats or breaks the rules. Everyone may not show proper sympathy and understanding in a given situation. And this means that almost everyone will find some psychopathic traits in themselves.
To determine their presence in any person allows the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale questionnaire (a questionnaire for determining the degree of psychopathy). This questionnaire includes 29 statements, with response options ranging from «strongly agree» to «strongly disagree». Here is one of them: «Sometimes I tell people what they want to hear.» Surely many of us would agree with this statement — but does that make us psychopaths?
“Not unless we score high on most of the other statements,” says clinical psychologist Lucy Foulkes. “However, only a few of us will complete this survey with a zero result. So there is something to think about.”
In some cases, a low level of psychopathy may even be beneficial. For example, a surgeon who is able to emotionally detach from his patient’s suffering is likely to operate more effectively. And a businessman who skillfully manipulates people and cheats often succeeds.
We are frightened and captivated by their behavior: who are these monsters, so unlike us?
Many are attracted to such qualities of psychopaths as the ability to charm others, a thirst for risk, an interest in casual relationships. “However, in its final form, psychopathy is a highly destructive personality disorder,” says Lucy Foulkes. She combines anti-social behavior and thrill seeking (which manifests itself in aggression, drug addiction, risk-taking), ruthlessness and composure, lack of guilt and a desire to manipulate others. It is this combination that makes psychopaths dangerous to others.”
The things that stop ordinary people from committing crimes — feelings of pity for a potential victim, feelings of guilt, fear of punishment — do not serve as a brake on psychopaths. They do not care at all what impression their behavior makes on those around them. They show a powerful charm to get what they want, and then easily forget the one who will no longer be useful to them.
When we read about people with pronounced psychopathic traits, we are frightened and captivated by their behavior: who are these monsters, so unlike us? And who allowed them to treat others so inhumanly? But what is most alarming is that psychopathic traits are not only in people with a pronounced personality disorder. They are, as it were, «spilled» in society, and unevenly: for the majority of people, these features are relatively weakly expressed, for a minority — strongly. We meet people with psychopathy of different levels in the subway cars and at work, we live in the neighborhood with them and have lunch together in a cafe.
“Psychopathic traits are not reserved exclusively for dangerous criminals and people with mental disorders,” reminds Lucy Foulkes, “to one degree or another, they are characteristic of each of us.”
Psychopathy is just the tip of the line we all stand on
Clinical psychologists are trying to understand what determines what place we will take on the anomaly scale. Genetics certainly play a role: some are known to be born with a predisposition to develop psychopathic traits. But that’s not all. Environmental factors also matter, such as the violence that was committed in our presence when we were children, the behavior of our parents and friends.
Like many aspects of our personality and behavior, psychopathy is the result not only of upbringing or natural gifts, but also of a complex interaction between them. Psychopathy is not a stone path that you can’t leave, but a “travel kit” issued at birth. Research shows that certain interventions, such as support for parents whose children are endowed with high levels of psychopathic traits, can reduce these levels.
Over time, Lucy Foulkes hopes, clinical psychologists will find treatments that can help mitigate the pronounced psychopathic traits. For now, however, there remain many people—in prisons, mental hospitals, and in our daily lives—who display very high levels of psychopathy and whose behavior is destructive to those around them.
But it’s still important to remember that psychopaths are not entirely different from us. They are simply endowed with a more extreme set of those traits of character and behavior that we all have. Of course, the behavior of some of these people — murder, torture, rape — is so disgusting that it is difficult to comprehend it, and rightly so. But in reality, the behavior of psychopaths differs from the behavior of ordinary people only by a degree. Psychopathy is simply the extreme point of the line on which we all stand.