Psychopaths can "turn on" empathy

[Rommie]

I find this study fascinating- link

It would be really awesome if this finding could be exploited for therapy for kids who are on track to be psychopaths, as right now there's no cure for them. It would surely save a lot of people a lot of pain.

[SciFiFisher]

potentially it may lead to better therapy. But, I wouldn't start trusting that charming Ted Bundy look a like any time soon.

[FZR1KG]

Interesting.
I wonder if default empathy that can be turned off is related.

[SciFi Chick]

Interesting.
I wonder if default empathy that can be turned off is related.

It wouldn't surprise me. Isn't that sort of what happens in war a lot of times? Then again, I don't know that they're "turning it off" so much as responding to the stress.

[Cyborg Girl]

fMRI... Scientific American had an article a few years back about how easy it is to misinterpret fMRI results, including an image of apparent blood flow in the brain of a dead fish. So I'm going to maintain a degree of skepticism for now.

[FZR1KG]

Misinterpreting is possible with every technology.
Take a simple voltmeter for example.
If someone that doesn't know that it places a high impedance load on the circuit and they measure a system that has high impedance, the results will always read lower than the actual.
Same as an oscilloscope etc etc etc.
You can't throw out data that someone gives if they used a multimeter because someone else doesn't know how to use one.
We'd never get anywhere that way.

This is why error calculations are vital in fields of research. Its also why I can't take any research seriously unless they have legitimate error calculations (uncertainty) with the research paper.
IMHO it was one of the defining lines separating the soft and hard sciences. Soft sciences cannot by nature have meaningful error calculations done.
Its also the thing I've been on about for years, the trend for hard sciences to not provide realistic error calculations.

So if they have done their studies properly in this case the data should be valid. If they haven't its anyones guess.

[Rebis]

Yes, it'd be nice if they could turn on empathy a long time prior to their lifelong prison sentence...or lethal injection. Maybe there'd have been no prison or lethal injection because their victims would still be alive and never victims.

Interesting, isn't it, how they always have oodles of empathy for themselves.

[FZR1KG]

Problem with the death penalty is that they kill innocent people.
Ask Gov Perry.
Too damned lazy to check some additional paperwork, which is his job btw, and let an innocent man die while Perry held the paperwork that showed compelling evidence to his innocence.
The government killing citizens at its finest.

[Rebis]

I didn't say I'm pro-capital punishment. You seem to be reading that into my reply.

[brite]

It's not so much that they "turn on" empathy... is that they fake it... they learn how it looks, learn how emulate it... it's a game to them, nothing more...

[Sigma_Orionis]

Well, apparently they can fake it well enough to show up on fMRIs

Don't know if it's depressing or encouraging though.

[FZR1KG]

Problem with the death penalty is that they kill innocent people.
Ask Gov Perry.
Too damned lazy to check some additional paperwork, which is his job btw, and let an innocent man die while Perry held the paperwork that showed compelling evidence to his innocence.
The government killing citizens at its finest.

You're right. Too early in the morning. Sorry.

[SciFiFisher]

Well, apparently they can fake it well enough to show up on fMRIs

Don't know if it's depressing or encouraging though.

yes

[SciFi Chick]

A test to determine if you're a psychopath.

http://kevin-goodman.com/?page_id=1229

[FZR1KG]

A test to determine if you're a psychopath.

http://kevin-goodman.com/?page_id=1229

You link no work.

[SciFi Chick]

A test to determine if you're a psychopath.

http://kevin-goodman.com/?page_id=1229

You link no work.

It works for me. I just checked it again.