Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were able to disrupt part of the brain that is related to moral judgment by using a magnetic field applied to the scalp of study participants. Normal neural activity in that part of the brain was switched off, resulting in a "no harm, no foul" mentality. Read Scientists able to manipulate morality on The Scotsman. Link submitted by a Lovefraud reader. …
Psychopaths show overactive dopamine systems
Why do psychopaths go after what they want regardless of the negative consequences they may experience? According to the journal Nature Neuroscience, the answer may be chemical—an overactive dopamine reward system. Read Driven toward reward without regard for consequence on Time.com. Read the scientific study, Mesolimbic dopamine reward system hypersensitivity in individuals with psychopathic traits, in Nature Neuroscience. Link submitted by a Lovefraud reader via Facebook. …
How does ODD relate to sociopathy?
This week a reader asked about a disorder called ODD and its relationship to sociopathy. ODD or oppositional defiant disorder is a childhood disorder. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists: In children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), there is an ongoing pattern of uncooperative, defiant, and hostile behavior toward authority figures that seriously interferes with the youngster's day to day functioning. Symptoms of ODD may include: • Frequent temper tantrums • Excessive arguing with adults • Often questioning rules • Active defiance and refusal to comply with adult requests and rules • Deliberate attempts to annoy or upset people • Blaming …
Forgiveness, sociopathy and choice
Although it has been many years and there is a new relationship, a friend of mine still wishes every day that the sociopath that preyed on her will “drop dead.” Wishing and hoping that some horrible end will come for the sociopath takes up time and energy in my friend's life; as she searches for evidence that something bad has indeed happened to the sociopath and then is disappointed. Recently, I discussed the topic of forgiving psychopaths with a psychopathy researcher who is not a clinician. He said he received a letter from someone complaining that friends were pressuring the victim to forgive. It was the psychopathy researcher's opinion that people should NOT be told they have to for …
ASK DR. LEEDOM: Is there any new research on sociopaths and parenting?
I recently received this note from a reader in Ireland: The reason I'm writing today is I have a friend who is in the same position has just recently had contact from her 2.5yr old son's sociopathic father, looking for access. She is learning all about what having a sociopathic father actually means, has read the book (Just Like His Father?), but is still unsure whether to allow it or not. What do you think? Any new research? Anything that shows clearly kids do better without contact? I do not know of any new research on this topic. We previously discussed two papers parents should be aware of; one concerns antisocial fathers and the other concerns antisocial mothers. Antisocial …
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Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy, meeting highlights: At-risk children
This weekend I am reporting from the 3rd meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy, where I also presented the results of the research Sandra Brown, M.A. and I did. In the next few weeks I will summarize the highlights of the meeting for you. One of the reasons I attended this meeting was to be sure the information we present to you on this website is up-to-date and accurate. Happily, I came away from the meeting confident, having had conversations with all the leaders in the field. The problems of at-risk children were a major focus of the meeting. Many research teams are working on trying to measure problems with emotional processing in antisocial children. Before we …
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Can a 5 year old be a psychopath?
This week while reflecting on the writings that most influenced my thinking about psychopathy/sociopathy, I received a letter from a mother of a five year-old boy whose father shows many signs of the disorder. She wrote: Do you believe that children can show signs of being psychopathic? If so do you teach them to suppress the way they really feel by masking the problems with fake feelings? Can feelings of love really be learned? Just because someone on the outside appears like they have feelings does that mean inside they have actually changed? As you know they are good actors. The skill is learned very quickly to lie to blend in with the others. I bought your book off Amazon I should be …
Psychopathy, empathy and moral agency: Lessons from autism
If there is one thing that gets me argumentative it is statements like this one that appeared in a recent research paper: "non-incarcerated psychopaths have an arguably equal potential to illuminate our understanding of the emotional difficulties, such as lack of empathy and lack of conscience, which underlie psychopathy and which lead to offending behaviour." (emphasis mine) Now I agree that we can learn from non-incarcerated psychopaths, I wrote recently about a well designed study where sociologists conducted interviews of some. But I cannot believe that statements like the one above make it through editorial review for another reason. Researchers in psychology have spent the last 50 …
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Love, sex, your brain and sociopaths
Ever since the beginning of recorded history, humans have been trying to understand and explain the mysteries of love and sex. Over the past few decades, scientists started using specialized equipment to measure physical arousal by attaching devices to private parts. More recently, they've been observing the most important romantic organ in the human body—the brain. Forbes wrote about the research of Andreas Bartels, Ph.D., at the Imperial College of London. Bartels used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, which can capture images of brain activity, to pinpoint the areas of the brain that are activated by love. Bartles did a study of 17 people who were madly in l …
The New Yorker writes about researchers’ struggle to study psychopaths
Two Lovefraud readers brought an article in the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine to my attention. It's entitled Suffering Souls—the search for the roots of psychopathy, by John Seabrook. The article starts off describing the work of a researcher, Dr. Kent Kiehl, who is using an fMRI machine to study the brains of prisoners in the Western New Mexico Correctional Facility, searching for physical indications of psychopathy. The author provides a brief history of the evolution of scientific understanding about this personality disorder, and describes today's conflicting opinions about it. Seabrook reviewed the literature and interviewed experts, including Dr. Robert Hare. All in all, t …
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