What is psychopathy and what are we doing about it? | Dan Komar | TEDxJuniataCollege

Psychopathy is traditionally conceived of as a psychological disorder marked by affective, interpersonal and behavioral facets. Villains in pop culture demonstrate those characteristics, and so do inmates. Daniel Komar, a senior at Juniata College studying Psychology, unveils the mystery of this phenomenon and challenges us to think about this issue differently through learned empathy.

Dan Komar is a senior at Juniata College. He is currently working on his senior thesis about psychopathy. His research is under supervision of Dr. Weldon who is also a speaker at this event.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Hello.

So, today, I'm going to be talking
about what psychopathy is, the term,

and what we're doing about it
here at Juniata College.

So, I'll begin by saying
in the fall of 2016,

our lab in the Psychology Department,
under Professor Rebecca Weldon,

was attempting to ascertain some
of these features underlying psychopathy

and how they relate
to student populations.

We found, consistent with the hypothesis
called the distress-specific hypothesis,

which I'll talk about in a little bit,

that participants who were
higher in psychopathy,

which is this empathic deficit,

were slower in recognizing
the fearful faces of other people,

and I'm going to discuss
the implications of this.

Now, in the fall of this school year,

we wanted to try something else,
we wanted to question the impossible.

The fact is that there are
very few treatments for psychopathy,

and we wanted to see
if we could alter this effect,

this delay in recognizing
the fearful faces of other people,

by priming empathy,
or something like empathy,

in those people who were
higher in psychopathy.

I think in order to understand
what I mean by "psychopathy,"

we should discuss how the term
has been sensationalized in the media.

So, in pop culture in Hollywood,

there is this thing that has been coined
the "elite psychopath."

So, I'll tell you a bit
about what that is,

but first, I think I should give
some examples.

Such characters as Hannibal Lecter,
Patrick Bateman from American Psycho,

or the most recent television
adaptation of Sherlock Holmes,

all of these could qualify
as this elite psychopath caricature,

and it's problematic in a number of ways.

These characters are
antiheroes at the core.

So you are invited to empathize
with these protagonistic characters

who never really do show
empathy to other people.

And so, of course, we want
to emulate these characters.

But as a matter of fact,

they do show some
of the qualities of psychopathy.

They are cold, calculating, apathetic,
they're sophisticated,

but they're also some things
that we don't really see as often

in actual psychopathy.

They're one step ahead
of the competition, always,

they are Machiavellian masterminds,

and that's not something we really see.

So I'm going to talk about how
psychopathy has been characterized

in the field of psychology,

and those components will be differences
in action and differences in the brain.

Also, I think it's important
to note that in the DSM-5,

which is a terminology manual
for Psychology,

antisocial personality disorder has been
considered synonymous with psychopathy.

While it shares some common symptomology,

we will be considering psychopathy

in accordance with a different set
of features and facets

that set it apart ever so slightly
with antisocial personality disorder.

But I should start by saying
in antisocial personality disorder,

we see symptoms like aggression,
outward aggression,

that can be generalized,

this impulsiveness,
sensation-seeking behavior,

recklessness and association
with criminal behavior.

So let's talk about some of these.

There's a lack of guilt or remorse.

There's a lack of emotional expression.

These symptoms are affective
or emotional processing differences.

Our study focused mainly on these.

So people who are high in psychopathy
will tend to be callous,

a bit like the pop culture representation.

They will lack emotional expression,

so they won't be expressing
emotions to other people.

There's also a lack
of prosocial emotional response,

which means in day to day interaction,
when someone is showing distress,

you are expected
to behave in a certain way;

they don't do this.

There are also differences
that are interpersonal in nature.

They manipulate other people,
they use them as a means to an end.

And there is grandiosity as well,

or an exaggerated sense
of self-importance.

This is also seen in psychopathy,
in people who are high in psychopathy.

There's a last piece, and that piece is
sensation seeking and impulsivity.

This is not so much seen
in the elite psychopath caricature.

People who are high in psychopathy
will act impulsively,

they will seek sensation and they will not
duly consider risk versus reward.

And so, often, they will
commit criminal acts

and subsequently be incarcerated.

When they seek sensation,

they have to calculate
this risk versus reward,

they have to actively weigh the risk
versus reward in order to make the action,

but we don't really see this
in people who are high in psychopathy.

And of course there is
that aggression piece,

this generalized aggression.

So, people who are high in psychopathy
have difficulty determining

victims versus victimless crimes.

And so, when they commit these crimes,

they do not duly consider the potential
impact this might have on another person.

So let's talk about some of the brain
differences we see in psychopathy.

Mainly, we'll talk about the amygdala,

which is an area of the brain
near the center of the brain,

and there's less activation in people
higher in psychopathy, in this region,

when they are looking
at the emotions of other people,

specifically distress emotions.

And that's important

because when you're not processing
the distress of other people,

perhaps you're not also feeling
the guilt and remorse

that a normal person
would typically experience

when they can tell those people
are experiencing those emotions.

So, when there's less activation in people
who are high in psychopathy,

this area of the brain, the amygdala,
involved in emotional processing,

again shows less activation.

So, what's the importance
of studying psychopathy?

Well, there is this linkage
between psychopathy and crime.

If you look at the literature
on psychopathy,

you will find that most
participants are inmates.

This is not a coincidence.

It is far more prevalent
in prison populations.

It's been estimated anywhere
from 50% to 80% of inmates could qualify

for some symptomology in psychopathy
that is above the norm.

Outside of prison populations,

a much less percentage could be
considered high in psychopathy.

It has been estimated anywhere from 1.3%
to 6.85% of men in the general population,

mainly in the United States,

could qualify as having some symptomology
associated with psychopathy,

whereas in women, it is 0.8%.

So considerably less

could be considered to qualify
for the symptoms of psychopathy.

It is also important to study psychopathy
because at this time,

treatments for psychopathy
have been largely unsuccessful.

This is because treatments
like cognitive and behavioral strategies

require some kind of agency
or willingness to change,

in participants, or patients.

People who are high
in psychopathy, unsurprisingly,

seem to lack this agency
and willingness to change,

and so the treatments
are largely unsuccessful.

So what is being done?

Well, currently, our lab,
here at Juniata College,

is working on this
distress-specific hypothesis,

which is that the affective symptoms,

the emotional processing
symptoms of psychopathy,

could be responsible for this deficit

in processing the distress
emotions in other people.

So we thought, "What if we could
prime them for a congruent emotion,

and maybe that could,
maybe, alter this effect,

this delay in processing
the emotions of other people?"

So we used something called the
autobiographical emotional memory task,

which challenges a participant
to recall a time in their life

where they felt a specific emotion.

We used fear.

So our participants recalled a time
in their life where they experienced fear,

and because of this,

it may be that fear becomes
more salient, it's more accessible,

it's more easy to recognize
in other people.

So if we could take participants,
people who are high in psychopathy,

and prime them for this fear,

they may subsequently be better able
to recognize that fear in other people.

And if our findings support this,

it may be that priming
for a congruent emotion

could be a way, through exposure,
to condition an empathic response

in people who would otherwise
lack such a response.

In other words, we could foster
empathy in psychopaths.

And this would be groundbreaking

because incarceration in our country
is at an all-time high,

and if we could somehow minimize this

through developing strategies to address
people who have psychopathic symptoms,

before criminal behaviors
can begin to manifest,

we might be able to deal

with the current dilemma
that is psychopathy in our country.

Thank you.

(Applause)