Psychopathy as a Benefit and its Potential Predictors in Children

Within all the stigma that commonly surrounds psychopathy, a recent shining exception appeared in the news: psychopaths are more successful than the average person. Individuals often accuse politicians of having marred charm, a lack of remorse, ability to persuade and control others, and a large sense of self worth. Little do they know that these are the hallmarks of psychopathy. Indeed psychopathy isn't restrained to a subset of the population always hunted down the law, it's present in some doctors, lawyers, world leaders, and business owners; it is clear that although a person may be a psychopath, that person isn't necessarily violent. Traits such as fearlessness, attention, and mental grit are translated into an advantage over other individuals working the same job. In an excerpt from "What Psychopaths Teach Us about How to Succeed", Kevin Dutton discusses a study done using a self-reporting Psychopathy scale and an customs exercise where subjects were told to identify the individual that's hiding a scarlet cloth. The individuals that scored higher on the Psychopathy scale consecutively were able to hone in accurately on the individuals that had the red cloth. This is because psychopathic in dividuals are capable of detecting weakness in other people and take advantage of that more so than the average person. In a related study, "Kids with Conduct Problems May Have Brains that Under-React to Painful Images: May Increase Risk of Adult Psychopathy", it was discovered that kids that are prone to callous behavior in the classroom have reduced brain response to tasks that call upon empathy. One such task was demonstrated in the article by Kevin Dutton that involves analysis of responses from the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex when an individual is presented with two scenarios. One scenario involved whether the individual would push a lever to alter the path of a train car to kill one person rather than 5 people on the tracks. The other scenario, one that activates the emotional center (the amygdala) in average people was whether the individual would push a large person in front of the train car if it would stop the train car at the expense of the large person's life. A psychopathic individual would answer the second scenario without much emotional conflict, they would clearly, rationally see that they would exchange one life for five. However, an average individual would struggle with taking one life through their own direct influence (pushing) even if five people would be saved. The presence of similar communications in the brain of a child could potentially be diagnostic of psychopathy. In the world of tomorrow, we might be able to prevent crime and rehabilitate individuals that exhibit a violent brand of psychopathy.

Works Cited:
Dutton, Kevin. "What Psychopaths Teach Us about How to Succeed [Excerpt]: Scientific American." What Psychopaths Teach Us about How to Succeed [Excerpt]: Scientific American. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=what-psychopaths-teach-us-about-how-to-succeed&page=2>.
Lockwood, Patricia L, and Catherine L Sebastian. "Kids With Conduct Problems May Have Brains That Under-React to Painful Images: May Increase Risk of Adult Psychopathy." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 2 May 2013. Web. 13 Dec. 2013. <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130502131859.htm>.