Friday, February 27, 2015

Psychopathy and Punishment


One of the main issues that comes up when dealing with psychopaths is identifying when someone is a psychopath. James Fallon, neuroscientist and author of The Psychopath Inside, discusses what being a psychopath is from his research, as well as his own personal experiences and how it has manifested in his life. However, despite the usual Hollywood-esc description of a blood thirsty, horrific, over the top psychopath that we are familiar with, Fallon had never harmed anyone physically. But throughout the book, Fallon looks into small incidences that exemplify his psychopathic behavior. While not being a murderer, the impact of Fallon’s psychopathic brain chemistry is shown through his interpersonal relations and change in behavior. An article I found online that connected with Fallon’s story, Why You Can’t Punish a Psychopath, According to Science talks about the decision making in psychopaths and how their brains respond to punishment and reward differently. Fallon outlines regions in the brain where a psychopath has decreased activity like the orbital cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, temporal lobe, anterior cingulate, and the insula, which make up a big part of the limbic system that regulates emotions (57-59). According to the article, emotional reinforcement affects decision-making. Because the complex neural network of emotion is disrupted in psychopaths their behavior also differs from the norm. Punishment is usually perceived as a catalyst for us to change our behavior, however the article suggests that psychopaths have difficulty with this because they don’t pay attention to punishment. The article states that, “psychopaths show overoptimism.” I thought this could be the underlying idea behind Fallon’s mischievous days that continued even as he got older. They were just seemingly harmless pranks and he managed to escape harsh punishment, yet he continued even though it could have resulted in massive repercussions like when he was almost arrested. Also, Fallon’s story about the boat and the large amount of time he spent working on it, as well as his previous OCD seem to indicate that it was these subtle behaviors that lead others around him to start to realize he was different. He also has a habit of skipping things that we may deem as important like “an uncle’s funeral, a friend’s wedding, a graduation” etc. because of the consequences like upset family members that we will have to deal with at the end. The article claims that it is harder for psychopaths to get rid of persistent behaviors because that is how their brain functions. The article mentions different regions such as the posterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula that are actually increased in a psychopath when they receive punishment showing that they just process rewards and punishment differently. While Fallon may have had a good childhood and did not express extreme psychopathic behavior, hopefully this study can help find a solution to stop young children with similar brain functioning from progressing to the extremes.

Fallon, J. (2013). The psychopath inside: A neuroscientist’s personal journey into the dark side of the brain. New York, NY: Penguin Group.

Picciuto, Elizabeth. (2015, Feb. 2).  Why You Can’t Punish a Psychopath, According to Science. The Daily Beast. Retrieved Feb 27, 2015 from:


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