Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional 9-year-old psychopaths

I wouldn't be totally surprised that some people are just born this way. I mean, some kids are born overly empathetic, always worried about others, why can't the opposite happen as well?

You mean like Barbara Oakley's evil genes book is arguing?

http://www.evilgenes.com/

I work in the criminal justice system and most psychopaths tried in death penalty cases have profound neglect and abuse in their childhoods. Brain development research indicates that consistent abuse and neglect of infants probably causes their developing brains to miswire and fail to make the "empathy" connections that normal babies make. Google Bruce Perry and Bessel van der Kolk.

That being said. some on trial have no apparent reason that they seem to lack empathy. I can easily believe that the miswire could be caused by biology (born that way) or environment. All of us have biological glitches but most of us are lucky enough to have the ones that can be medically diagnosed and treated.

I think it's possible to be more creeped out than is warranted by that parallel. Most people with autism are noticeably unusual, yet many are able to learn to function in society. (And I don't know whether it's many or most who can learn to function well in society--the rise in new diagnoses may be attributable to the ones who are most able to be helped, though not many get the help they need because its costs a lot.)

I would bet that most of the low-empathy people described in the article have capability to learn and improve, and the experts in the article state that they're hoping so too. I don't think either biology or parenting will turn out to tell the whole story; both matter tremendously.

DeeDee

This conversation reminds me of a child DD and I encountered at a playgym (think Gymboree type of place) when she was very young. DD was less than 2 and he was an older child - couldn't have been more than 3- 4 at the absolute oldest. At first he seemed like a very pleasant child, kind to the younger kids, etc. Then suddenly he would change. He looked like a different kid completely. His mother would remove him from the play area and he would hit and kick her viciously. This was not the way a normal 3 year old would lash out in a tantrum. There was something very mature and deliberate in the attack. When she would give up fighting him he would happily go back into the play area as if nothing had ever happened. I remember looking at the mother and realizing that she was terrified of her own child. She was desperate to stay at the gym as long as possible - anything to avoid being home alone with him.

I have thought about this mother and son a few times over the years. This thread makes my heart sink at the idea of what he must be like now that he is older.

After reading some of the posts, and the article, I was reminded of the daughter of a friend of mine. The friend is PG. The daughter was similar as a child to one described and the father actually thought his daughter would grow up to be a serial killer.

On the contrary, as she finally got through her teens, she made different choices. Whether she is still unempathic, I do not know, but she behaves and is managing her life. Perhaps, many of these highly intelligent psychopaths do manage the "bad" behaviors as they get older and blend in.

I think I could enjoy hunting down psychopaths.

They really, really annoy me.

Maybe I could make it into a hobby.

fwtxmom: That must be a pretty intense line of work to be in. Yes, it's clear that abusive, violent childhoods create abusive violent adults. But psychopaths have additional defining traits, such as a controlled, calculated quality to their violence, and a lack of normal response to aversive stimuli. I think the genuine psychopaths are more likely the ones you talk about in your second paragraph. (The two authors you cite are both trained in the psychodynamic tradition, which has been long discredited. Neither has published research in reputable scientific journals.)

DeeDee: I guess it's a question of, how do they turn out under normal "good enough" parenting? Certain people might be wired to be psychopaths even with decent parenting, but could still benefit from early identification and intervention (if we could figure out what that intervention ought to be). This is analogous to the case of autism.

But a different scenario is that there are people who are born with a risk factor for psychopathy, but are likely to turn out relatively normal with "good enough" parenting, and are most likely to turn into full-blown psychopaths under conditions of emotional stress in childhood. This is more analogous to depression.

Pemberley: Just wow.

What do you mean by "lack of normal response to aversive stimuli"?

In one sentence they say not all psychopaths are violent and in the next sentence they say every psychopath leaves a trail of destruction behind them.  In the example Dr. Hare gave about stepping in a child's blood and cussing because you got your shoe dirty isn't destructive but it is so inhuman.  This is going to mess with me a little bit, but only on the back burner because I want to believe the secular humanist version that people are good, everybody's "born ok the first time".  I love that bumpersticker. And I hate to entertain the thought that if not some people can never be "ok".