The findings could help teach psychopaths how to consider the thoughts and feelings of those around them.
Psychopaths need some motivation to empathise with other people, something the rest of us do automatically.
That is because there is a paradox at the heart of the psychopath.
On the one hand, psychopaths display a callous disregard for other people’s feelings — as though they don’t care about them.
On the other, they can be very charming when they want — suggesting they have some insight into how others feel.
Dr Arielle Baskin-Sommers, who led the study, explained:
“Psychopaths can be extremely manipulative, which requires understanding of another’s thoughts.
But if they understand the thought of others, why do they inflict so much harm?”
Now, research shows that psychopaths can empathise, but they need some motivation.
In other words, psychopaths have to be given a good reason to consider the feelings of others.
The conclusions come from a study of inmates in maximum security prisons.
They played a computer game that encouraged them to empathise with another character in the game.
The majority of people do this automatically, but psychopaths don’t.
Dr Baskin-Sommers said:
“It is like speaking in front of a class: Your attention should not be on the audience, but it is impossible to ignore social cues such as eye rolling or yawning.
That reflects our automatic process of considering the thoughts of those around us.”
Psychopaths did not pick up clues about how the other person was thinking automatically.
However, when they were specifically asked to take the perspective of the other person, they could do it.
Psychopaths seem to only have the ability to consider other people’s feelings if they have a goal in mind.
The findings could be used to help teach psychopaths how to consider the thoughts and feelings of those around them.
The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Drayton et al., 2018).
