Posted by IsoM on April 5, 2002, at 2:20:12
In reply to Re: To understand ugly things. . , posted by Zo on April 4, 2002, at 22:34:43
I'm not a sociologist & haven't done any studies but I've read a great deal of the subject & have been interested in it for a while now.
In my original post, I mentioned predators. I wasn't referring to psychopaths. That's a different thing entirely. Like you said, Zo, it seems "hard-wired" into them - like a birth defect. Some have come from loving, caring families even, parents & siblings who weren't anything like that.
It's not just empathy they lack but they also have no understanding of the reward/punishment concept. If you tell someone normal that if they do such-and-such, they'll be punished or rewarded for it, they'll understand what the outcome of their actions will be. With psychopaths, the outcome means nothing. It's like they can't grasp that actions lead to consequences. Researchers have found that even from a very young age, reward/punishment never altered anything they did.
In people like that, sadly, I think there's honestly nothing that can be done, at this point in time, to alter their thinking patterns.
poster:IsoM
thread:21405
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020403/msgs/21471.html