Jamie Reidy shares a frightening New York Times Magazine article on the prevalence of psychopathy in children who have not suffered abuse.
Years ago, I dated a single mom who told me about her 3-year old son’s habit of kicking their kitty cat. I joked with my roommate that I should alert the FBI, so its serial killer profilers could study the development of a mini-Hannibal Lecter.
Suddenly, that doesn’t seem like such a joke.
Prepare to be creeped out:
The New York Times Magazine’s Jennifer Kahn reports on a growing trend of child psychopaths who stump experts because these kids have suffered no abuse:
Currently, there is no standard test for psychopathy in children, but a growing number ofpsychologists believe that psychopathy, like autism, is a distinct neurological condition — one that can be identified in children as young as 5.
This is still quite controversial, obviously, as many symptoms of psychopathy – narcissism and impulsivity, for example – are natural in kids.
Some psychologists think early detection could help the children reverse their course:
Researchers hope, for example, that the capacity for empathy, which is controlled by specific parts of the brain, might still exist weakly in callous-unemtional children, and could be strengthened.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free
Editor’s note: Jamie meant to include this last quote from the NY Times Magazine article in order to temper alarmism, but forgot to do so.
In the 1970s, the psychiatry researcher Lee Robins conducted a series of studies on children with behavioral problems, following them into adulthood. Those studies revealed two things. The first was that nearly every psychopathic adult was deeply antisocial as a child. The second was that almost 50 percent of children who scored high on measures of antisocial qualities did not go on to become psychopathic adults. Early test scores, in other words, were necessary but not sufficient in predicting who ultimately became a violent criminal.
So, the early testing is only so helpful. But it could be particularly damning to incorrectly label a child a “psychopath.” There’s the rub.
Do you agree that psychopathy can be detected as early as pre-school? Have you seen this already amongst your kids’ schoolmates?
Photo by: Vincent Teeuwen
I’m currently an undergraduate psychology student, and I’m hoping to make this subject the focus of my career. Research shows that the vast majority of people draw a distinction between actions that are against the rules and actions that are just plain wrong. The key is to ask them if certain actions would still be wrong if a relevant authority figure (teachers, the law, social norms, even God in some studies) changed the rules. Most kids can tell that, for example, hitting a classmate is qualitatively different from talking without raising your hand. They’ll tell you that the latter is… Read more »
To be honest, I find the notion of diagnosing children and dooming them to a life of suspicion is dangerous. There is also the question of what we do with children and people who have not done anything wrong? You can’t teach someone to feel empathy who cannot physically feel it, but you can teach people who are different to operate within the structure of society to a great degree. Whether someone is good or evil is ultimately a choice. There are tons of people with Antisocial Personality Disorder who are good. Just because someone is antisocial doesn’t mean they… Read more »
Corrections. Currently, there is no standard test for psychopathy in children, .. The testing in children is no different to adults and the standard tests for adults have been about for decades – Ref Prof Bob Hare’s work (Seminal Studies) goes back into the 1960’s – “PSYCHOPATHY Theory and Research” has been a basic text since it was first published in 1970 – 42 years ago. The Hare Check-lists and assessment tools from 40 years ago are equally valid on children and adults. There has been medical and legal bias that has prevented testing of children, as the view has… Read more »
Personality Disorder is *not* a synonym for Sociopathic behavior. There are many different personality disorders – some are largely genetic, others (eg Borderline) are clearly related to abuse or other childhood experiences. And not all people with personality disorders are selfish and manipulative – that only really applies to the dramatic/erratic cluster. There are two other clusters of personality disorders: the anxious cluster (perfectionists, people who avoid anything challenging, etc) and the odd cluster (socially withdrawn, holding strange beliefs, etc).
It’s important to avoid stereptyping personality disorders. They are a very varied bunch of conditions.
Hey Jamie, Just recently read this piece – was well worth the 45-minute investment. I agree, this is pretty chilling…I think it’s easy to try and dismiss this as parental failings (and a nice protection for all of us parents thinking this couldn’t happen to us). But when you read the whole story, it’s a little hard to chalk it all up to the parents. One of the other interesting observations from their studies was that (1) almost all violent criminals (according to the statistical sample) exhibited at childhood these “callous-unemotional” characteristics as they call it, and (2) yet only… Read more »
It also suggests that some of those callous-unemotional children find places for their personalities that don’t get them caught. Big business comes to mind.
“many symptoms of psychopathy – narcissism and impulsivity, for example – are natural in kids.” Indeed. I know I’m supposed to say that little kids are all darling angels and special little snowflakes sent from Heaven, but the reality is that they can be extremely narcissistic and impulsive early in their development. I think 3 years is a bit early to start making diagnoses about empathy just yet. Most kids younger than 3 have very little concept about how other people might think or feel differently than they do. (They generally don’t have a “theory of the mind” that most… Read more »