She studied extreme psychopaths. Here’s what it taught her about human nature

It's a very common misperception that humans are fundamentally selfish, meaning every motivation

that drives us is based in a desire for what will benefit us, that we don't have any capacity

for truly caring about other people. I think there are reasons to be confident that can't be true, and I think one of the

most compelling is the existence of the disorder called psychopathy. So people who are highly psychopathic genuinely don't care about other people's welfare

And so I think the fact that psychopathy exists is pretty clear evidence that people are not fundamentally selfish

In addition, we now know that psychopathy exists on a spectrum. So there's very psychopathic people, people in the middle, but also people who are sort of anti-psychopathic

Most of that distribution of people definitely have the capacity to care for other people

And we've identified regions of the brain that specifically seem to encode the value of other people's welfare

I think it's really important for the reality of human nature, based on the scientific literature, to be better understood

Because trusting one another is a lot more enjoyable way to be, and it's more accurate, frankly, than being cynical

And so to try to understand that better, I have been studying extreme populations of people who have done things in the real world that suggest they're unusually caring or unusually uncaring

My name is Abigail Marsh. I'm a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Georgetown University, and I study the neural and cognitive basis of empathy, altruism, and aggression

the way we think about psychopathy now derives from the work of a psychiatrist named herbie

who was a really legendary clinician who spent many many years studying people with psychopathy

he wrote a book called the mask of sanity and i think that title perfectly captures

what it is that makes people with psychopathy unique which is that they outwardly appear

completely normal, even super normal. They seem just like anybody else, but that really is a mask

that's concealing inner profound deficits in emotion and the way that they engage with other

people. In its extreme form, psychopathy can drive some of the most serious antisocial behavior and

violence that we see. So for example, the serial killer Gary Ridgway is perhaps the most psychopathic

He killed dozens of young women over the course of a few decades We probably never know exactly how many His behavior and also the way he talked about them made it clear just how little he valued their welfare He didn think

that they mattered. The thing that I think unnerves people the most about serial killers like Gary

Ridgeway is just how normal they seem to everybody around them. They had families. They were known

members of their community that were not caught for many years, in part because nobody suspected

that they could be doing such horrible things under the surface. And that's a really good

example of the mask of sanity. There's somebody doing things that are so awful under the surface

that you would think there must be some sign of it externally. But in the case of some people

with psychopathy, there really isn't. I get asked a lot, what's the difference between the term

psychopath and sociopath. The main difference is that the term psychopath or psychopathy is a

scientific and clinical term and the term sociopath or sociopathy is not. It's really

important to emphasize that no clinician or scientist would ever refer to a person as a

psychopath. We don't refer to people as their disease or as their disorder anymore. And so I

refer to people who have psychopathy or who are psychopathic. So what we know about psychopathy is it's a neurodevelopmental disorder

In its extreme form, it affects probably 1% of people, maybe 2%

And it's pretty clear that people who go on to develop psychopathy

are different from a very early age because their brain is developing differently

Psychopathy is best thought of as a constellation of personality traits. and the three key traits that compose psychopathy include, most importantly, a mean, callous

disposition. They really don't care about other people's welfare, and they'll do things that hurt

other people to benefit themselves. They're certainly more likely to engage in various

forms of aggression, especially when that aggression is aimed at achieving a goal

So aggression can be divided into two broad categories. Reactive aggression, which is the

kind of aggression you show when somebody has made you mad, when you've been threatened

when you're frustrated. And then there's proactive aggression. It's deliberate aggression aimed at

achieving a goal. So you threaten to hurt somebody in order to take their money or to take something

that belongs to them. You threaten to reveal somebody's secrets so that they do what you want

them to do. That kind of aggression is really uniquely psychopathic. Second is a bold, socially

dominant personality. That boldness really reflects a fearless core. They don seem to understand why other people feel fear They not good at recognizing when they afraid And if you have that problem you much more likely to do things that cause other people to feel fear without really understanding what the big deal is

And they just don't respond to risk and threat and punishment the way that other people do

That happens to be one of the reasons that the polygraph doesn't work, because that's one of the things the polygraph is picking up on is fear responses when people are lying

People with psychopathy don't have those responses, not nearly as strong, at least

And third is being disinhibited or impulsive. They'll steal things from people

They'll steal things from stores. They'll lie often easily and not really even for any reason

It's not really your fault if you have these traits. That's not to say that you don't deserve consequences

If you hurt somebody and you're psychopathic, I wouldn't ever argue that

But I think it's really important that we balance our desire that they experience some consequences from what they've done

with our understanding that they didn't choose to be this way. On the other end of the spectrum are people who are anti-psychopathic

people who are, in some cases, extraordinarily altruistic, who do things to help others at real risk and cost to themselves

like rescuing people from drownings or fires, or donating organs or bone marrow to other people

They're genuinely unselfish. And I hesitate to say that because the image that that conjures up

in most people's minds as somebody who's sort of saintly, right? They think of them as like a guardian angel

or somehow superhuman. It's not like they never swear. It's not like they never get mad

when they're stuck in traffic. They're just ordinary people in most ways. The character of Iron Man

is a really interesting example because, of course, he is very altruistic. He does a lot of things to help other people

but he doesn't seem like an altruist should seem, right? He's kind of a wisecracker

He's done some things that are less than savory in his past. But at core, you can tell

that he really does care about the other people around them, and he will go to great lengths to help them

And so in some ways, I think that's a more realistic depiction of a genuinely altruistic person

than the more sort of flat, one-dimensional, old-school character like Superman. Although extraordinary altruism is not a clinical condition, obviously

it is typified by traits that set altruists apart from other people

So first, their humility. They tend to think of themselves as just the same as anybody around them

despite the fact that they have actually done some pretty unusual things

And that seems to be a really core feature of altruism. If you think that everybody is equally special, helping others makes more sense

They tend to believe in the goodness of other people. They much less likely to believe that others can be truly evil Finally they seem to be more sensitive to other people distress They more likely to empathize with and recognize other people fear and also their

pain. What's really unusual about Extraordinary Altruists is that even when it comes to people

who are very distant from them, people who were only acquaintances or even strangers

they still seem to value their welfare. We're supposed to help people who are close to us if

they're in trouble. And if it's a perfect stranger, most of us don't see it as an obligation in the

same way. And yet extraordinary altruists, I don't think really see it that way. They really do think

well, this is a human being whose welfare is fundamentally important. If people are interested

in knowing how altruistic versus psychopathic they are, there are a couple tests out there

on the internet that you can use to test yourself. One of the better self-report tests of psychopathy

is called the Tri-PM, and it's available on the website of Psychopathy Is. It is a brief but very

well-validated test of that bold, dominant, relatively callous personality that typifies psychopathy, and you can get a percentile score and find out where you fall. If you get a very low

score on a psychopathy test, it may be a sign that you're highly altruistic, but another way to test

that is using a personality test called the hexaco. What it really captures is the degree to which

you believe that other people fundamentally matter versus are exploitable for your own good

There's really good evidence that people can become more altruistic. If you look at global

trends, you see generally that people are donating more money over time. They're helping more

strangers over time. One of the things that seems to make people become more generous is when they

themselves are doing better. And I think because they have the psychological and physical resources

to do so. So that's really good news because it means that policies that promote flourishing and

well-being will probably also promote generosity. But the best evidence for how people can become

more generous is by just starting. And so I generally recommend that if people would like

to become more altruistic. You think of some small feasible way to do things to help other people

and it should naturally proceed upward from there. Because one of the absolute best things about

altruism is how incredibly pleasant it is. It's such a source of joy for most people to help others

And that becomes a self-reinforcing process. want to dive deeper become a big think member and join our members only community

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