The core personality features associated with psychopathy are callous and unemotional personality traits, which include a lack of empathy or remorse, weak social bonds, an uncaring nature, and shallow emotional responding (Cooke et al., 2005; Frick and White, 2008; Viding and McCrory, 2012).
For decades, researchers studying psychopathy have characterized the disorder as a profound inability to process emotions such as empathy, remorse, or regret.
Psychopathy emerged as a disorder characterized by a lack of remorse or empathy, shallow emotions, deception, egocentricity, glibness, low frustration tolerance, episodic relationships, parasitic lifestyle, and the persistent violation of social norms.
These deficits are likely to be related to dysfunctions in a wide brain network involved in empathy, including the vmPFC/OFC and amygdala. And because a lack of sharing of vicarious negative arousal in these individuals, this may result in not showing empathic concern for others.
The study showed that psychopaths have reduced connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), the part of the brain responsible for sentiments such as empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which mediates fear and anxiety.
Psychopaths are considered to have a severe form of antisocial personality disorder.
There is no single known cause of psychopathy. Genetics, trauma, brain structure, exposure to violence during childhood, and environmental conditions are possible contributing factors. Research about effective treatments for psychopathy is ongoing.
Of course, they can also get angry, especially in response to provocation, or get frustrated when their goals are thwarted. So Villanelle is right, to some extent. You can hurt a psychopath's feelings, but probably different feelings and for different reasons.
There are some areas where psychopaths may experience normal emotions and grief is one such area. In response to death of a person with whom there is a bond, some psychopaths can experience sadness and this may even bring about feelings of guilt which are otherwise impossible to feel. Crying may be a part of this.
Psychopaths tend to speak slowly and quietly
They also use fewer emotional words, keeping a relatively neutral tone.
Psychopaths have an inflated sense of importance. Much like narcissists, they think the usual laws and rules don't apply to them. They also tend to have grandiose ideas about their potential.
Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow affect, glibness, manipulation and callousness. Previous research indicates that the rate of psychopathy in prisons is around 23%, greater than the average population which is around 1%.
"When a psychopath interacts with you, if they get upset, they can keep their cool, but a sociopath will lose it," Lombardo told Health. "They're really hot-headed. If things don't go the way they want them to, they'll get angry and could be aggressive. They can't keep it together and have emotional outbursts."
Elevated anger responding is intrinsic to many descriptions of psychopathy. Both Cleckley and Hare's case studies include numerous descriptions of psychopaths whose misbehavior included frequent temper tantrums and rage-induced aggression.
According to Perpetua Neo, a psychologist and therapist who specializes in people with DTP traits, the answer is no. "Narcissists, psychopaths, and sociopaths do not have a sense of empathy," she told Business Insider. "They do not and will not develop a sense of empathy, so they can never really love anyone."
Background: Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are thought to be at higher risk of psychopathy. Early biological and social adversity may contribute to this risk.
“Our findings suggest that individuals with psychopathic traits enjoy fear as opposed to having deficits in fear but these theories are not incompatible,” Book and colleagues wrote in their study.
That said, psychopaths do appreciate their relationships in their own way. They do suffer pain, feel loneliness, have desires and feel sadness if they do not receive affection.
The behavioral manifestations of such deficits in psychopathic individuals are diverse, encompassing pathological lying, interpersonal manipulation, and the absence of guilt, remorse, and regret following decisions that cause harm to themselves or others.
Although both biological and environmental factors play a role in the development of psychopathy and sociopathy, it is generally agreed that psychopathy is chiefly a genetic or inherited condition, notably related to the underdevelopment of parts of the brain responsible for emotional regulation and impulse control.
Yes, research shows there are “good” psychopaths. Many people in positively heroic professions have strong psychopathic traits.
Key traits
Some of the red flags that someone is a psychopath include a lack of empathy, a charming personality to fool others, disorganisation, a tendency to blame others, a lack of fear, and being cold-hearted. “Making a clinical diagnosis of psychopathy is rather hard, actually,” Erikson said.
While popular accounts of attraction to psychopaths have focused on women, there was no evidence for a gender difference in attraction to psychopathic characteristics. Both males and females on average were about equally unimpressed with psychopathic characteristics in a potential romantic partner.