Post by Deleted on Jul 8, 2019 5:54:57 GMT
New Research May Support the Existence of Empaths
By Kristen Milstead
Last updated: 30 Jul 2018
~ 4 min read
Do empaths exist? Many people who claim to be highly sensitive or intuitive to the emotions of others and even to feel what others feel would respond with an enthusiastic “yes.”
The scientific studies that are often used to demonstrate that empaths exist, however, provide indirect evidence.
This includes research showing the existence of mirror neurons in the brain, which are said to enable us to read and understand each other’s emotions by filtering them through our own (Iacobani, 2008). Other studies used to explain empaths include the concept of emotional contagion, which is the idea that when people synchronize their attitudes, behaviors and speech, they also synchronize their emotions both consciously and unconsciously (Hatfield, Cacioppo & Rapson, 1994).
These studies explain the existence of empathy in general. They do not explain why some people — empaths — have more of it than others. As a result, some scientists have been skeptical about whether empaths do exist and at the very least have argued that there is no evidence to support their existence beyond anecdotal descriptions of what it feels like to be one.
It appears, however, that research to support the existence of empaths does potentially exist. Neuroscientist and psychologist Abigail Marsh describes in her book The Fear Factor (2017) how she found evidence that there is a difference in the brains of people who are highly empathetic to others. She calls them “altruists.”
Marsh was motivated, based on her personal experiences, to learn what causes people to engage in selfless acts even when there is no benefit to themselves or when there is a cost involved. She recruited people for her studies who had engaged in the most extreme selfless act that fit into this category she could think of: donating kidneys to complete strangers, often anonymously.
To learn how they responded to the emotions of others, she measured their brain activity while showing them pictures of faces with varying emotional expressions. Compared with a control group (those who had not donated a kidney), they were especially sensitive to fearful facial expressions. When they recognized fear, there was heightened activity in the amygdalae in their brains. The amygdalae were also eight percent larger than those belonging to members of the control group.
Although she never refers to the altruists as empaths, I believe there are good reasons for applying the label “empaths” to this group of people in her research. First, there are different types of altruism, including kin-based, reciprocity-based, and care-based (Marsh, 2016). Her research appears to support care-based altruism, where no reward or genetic reward to the self is expected. The motivation for this type of altruism is thought to be possible solely because of concern for the well-being of others, or empathy (Batson, 1991). This appears to suggest that the group of individuals for whom she found measurable differences in the brains were not only highly altruistic, they were also highly empathetic — or “empaths.”
Second, empaths and psychopaths have often been noted anecdotally as being polar opposites (Dodgson, 2018), but Marsh actually refers to the altruists in her study as “anti-psychopaths” because of what her findings showed. She also examined brains of psychopaths and found the exact opposite of what she had found for the altruists. The psychopaths were less able to recognize fear on the faces of others and less responsive to it when they did. The psychopaths also had amygdalae that were about eighteen percent smaller than normal.
In other words, both the altruists and the psychopaths had abnormal brains when it came to responses to the fear of others — but in opposite directions. This appears to support the idea that they are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to empathy: psychopaths cannot feel and react to the fear of others (unless they have another motive) while altruists, or empaths, feel and are moved to respond to the fear of others as if it were their own.
Now that we know who they are, what do empaths look like beyond their altruistic behavior?
Empaths are popularly characterized as being exceptionally sensitive to their environments, absorbing the feelings of others easily, and then quickly becoming drained. General descriptions of what it’s like to be one range from having a higher degree of compassion and caring for others than average, to being strongly in tune with the emotions of others, to having a compelling desire to heal, assist and give others the benefit of the doubt even to the detriment of themselves.
Marsh was mostly interested in their acts of altruism and what motivated them, so there is little in her research to give us a clue about what their lives are like beyond their acts of altruism.
There was one interesting commonality, however. Her research indicates that, temperamentally, they appear to have more humility than average, and it is this humility that appears to enable them to treat strangers with such selflessness. She writes, “Although they are clearly more sensitive than average to others’ distress, their capacity for compassion and generosity reflects the same neural mechanisms that lie latent in most of humankind. Indeed, it is in part the fact that altruists recognize that they are not fundamentally different from anyone else that moves them to act.”
Now that we can potentially identify who they are, further research can tell us more about how being an empath affects their lives and, perhaps more importantly, how empaths can protect their strengths from exploitation given that this research indicates that they tend to view everyone as equally deserving of their assistance.
psychcentral.com/blog/the-perks-of-being-a-psychopath/
The Perks of Being a Psychopath
By Dr. John Glynn
Last updated: 7 Jul 2019
~ 3 min read
“Always treat everyone with respect. You never know who is secretly a psychopath.”
– Alex Wayne, Diagnosis
How does one go about identifying a psychopath? It’s not easy, but researchers have made a lot of headway in answering this very question.
It is common knowledge that men are more likely to have psychopathic tendencies than women. For example, one study on a prison population found 31% of men met the criteria, compared to only 11% of women.
Psychopathy has a number of higher-order dimensions, including Self-centered Impulsivity, Heartlessness, and Fearless Dominance. The first dimension, Self-centered Impulsivity, is associated with impetuosity, belligerence, and narcissism.
Heartlessness is related to an inability to experience important social emotions like love or remorse.
Psychopaths, who clearly lack empathy, are at a disadvantage — or so the thinking goes. However, empathy requires taking other people’s feelings into consideration, walking in their shoes, so to speak. Walking requires energy. Luckily for psychopaths, no “walking” is required, unless it involves walking over other people to get what they want.
Empathy is built on a foundation of emotions. Although vital for binding and meaningful relationships, emotions often clouds judgment. In the extreme, emotions can actually impede one’s ability to think in a critical manner. Remember folks, this is 2019, the year of the oversensitive masses, where emotions constantly cloud rational thought.
The psychopath, freed from his emotional shackles, is well equipped to act in an unrestrained, ruthless manner. This is bad news for society… but not for a psychopath, especially one consumed by thoughts of power and prestige.
Fearless Dominance, the third dimension of psychopathy, is associated with impudence and a desire for social influence. Contrary to popular belief, Fearless Dominance comes with a number of socially adaptive behaviors. Equipped with a sense of interpersonal poise and potency, physical fearlessness, and emotional resilience, some psychopaths go on to do great things. Some even become heroes.
A 2015 paper, titled Successful Psychopathy, introduces readers to a man by the name of Forest “Tommy” Yeo-Thomas, a real-life daredevil. By employing a number of disguises and fake documents, the World War II British spy regularly evaded capture by the Nazis. According to the authors, Yeo-Thomas once pretended to be a corpse while traveling in a coffin.
Known as “White Rabbit” to his enemies, Yeo-Thomas once leapt from a moving train. In a move straight out of Liam Neeson movie, our hero (anti-hero?) once strangled a prison guard with his bare hands. When Yeo-Thomas wasn’t busy strangling Nazis, he was busy seducing beautiful women.
Most people, I assume, are unfamiliar with the life and times of Yeo-Thomas. However, most are familiar with James Bond, his fictional incarnation. Yes, Yeo-Thomas was the inspiration for novelist Ian Fleming’s ostentatious, sex crazed, martini gulping hero. The WW2 spy is typical of what we in the profession call a “successful psychopath.” Unlike malignant psychopathy, which often involves criminal acts and imprisonment, the “successful psychopath” embraces the darkness to achieve real-life success.
Do “successful psychopaths” avoid breaking the law because it’s “right”? No, they avoid breaking the law because it makes sense. By reining in their impulses, or at least channeling them in a more lucrative direction, “successful psychopaths” often go on to occupy positions of real significance.
So, what sort of professions attract psychopaths? Research already shows that psychopaths are more prevalent in certain occupations. It will come as no surprise that they tend to gravitate towards positions of power — think CEOs, surgeons, lawyers, celebrities, and politicians.
The link between politics and psychopathy is an especially interesting one. In 2004, scientists asked 121 presidential biographers to rate 42 U.S. presidents, up to and including George W. Bush, on their pre-office traits of fearless dominance, one of the three dimensions of psychopathy. The findings made for interesting reading. According to the report, fearless dominance was strongly correlated with overall presidential performance, guidance, public perception, persuasiveness, and, rather predictably, a willingness to take risks.
OK, we know a lot about who is likely to be a psychopath, but what about where? Are there certain places in the United States where psychopaths are more likely to gather and pollute the social environment?
Luckily for us, a recent study published in the scientific journal Heliyon provides us with an unambiguous answer. According to the authors, who estimated psychopathy prevalence based on Big Five personality patterns (Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism), Washington D.C. has the highest prevalence of psychopaths. Master swindlers, Svengalis of the highest nature, it makes sense that psychopaths flock to an area of the United States synonymous with political power and influence.
As the inimitable Jon Ronson once wrote, “Psychopaths make the world go around… society is an expression of that particular sort of madness… I’ve always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn’t? What if it is built on insanity?”
The old adage has it that we’re never more than six feet away from a rat. Maybe the same thing can be said for psychopaths.
By Kristen Milstead
Last updated: 30 Jul 2018
~ 4 min read
Do empaths exist? Many people who claim to be highly sensitive or intuitive to the emotions of others and even to feel what others feel would respond with an enthusiastic “yes.”
The scientific studies that are often used to demonstrate that empaths exist, however, provide indirect evidence.
This includes research showing the existence of mirror neurons in the brain, which are said to enable us to read and understand each other’s emotions by filtering them through our own (Iacobani, 2008). Other studies used to explain empaths include the concept of emotional contagion, which is the idea that when people synchronize their attitudes, behaviors and speech, they also synchronize their emotions both consciously and unconsciously (Hatfield, Cacioppo & Rapson, 1994).
These studies explain the existence of empathy in general. They do not explain why some people — empaths — have more of it than others. As a result, some scientists have been skeptical about whether empaths do exist and at the very least have argued that there is no evidence to support their existence beyond anecdotal descriptions of what it feels like to be one.
It appears, however, that research to support the existence of empaths does potentially exist. Neuroscientist and psychologist Abigail Marsh describes in her book The Fear Factor (2017) how she found evidence that there is a difference in the brains of people who are highly empathetic to others. She calls them “altruists.”
Marsh was motivated, based on her personal experiences, to learn what causes people to engage in selfless acts even when there is no benefit to themselves or when there is a cost involved. She recruited people for her studies who had engaged in the most extreme selfless act that fit into this category she could think of: donating kidneys to complete strangers, often anonymously.
To learn how they responded to the emotions of others, she measured their brain activity while showing them pictures of faces with varying emotional expressions. Compared with a control group (those who had not donated a kidney), they were especially sensitive to fearful facial expressions. When they recognized fear, there was heightened activity in the amygdalae in their brains. The amygdalae were also eight percent larger than those belonging to members of the control group.
Although she never refers to the altruists as empaths, I believe there are good reasons for applying the label “empaths” to this group of people in her research. First, there are different types of altruism, including kin-based, reciprocity-based, and care-based (Marsh, 2016). Her research appears to support care-based altruism, where no reward or genetic reward to the self is expected. The motivation for this type of altruism is thought to be possible solely because of concern for the well-being of others, or empathy (Batson, 1991). This appears to suggest that the group of individuals for whom she found measurable differences in the brains were not only highly altruistic, they were also highly empathetic — or “empaths.”
Second, empaths and psychopaths have often been noted anecdotally as being polar opposites (Dodgson, 2018), but Marsh actually refers to the altruists in her study as “anti-psychopaths” because of what her findings showed. She also examined brains of psychopaths and found the exact opposite of what she had found for the altruists. The psychopaths were less able to recognize fear on the faces of others and less responsive to it when they did. The psychopaths also had amygdalae that were about eighteen percent smaller than normal.
In other words, both the altruists and the psychopaths had abnormal brains when it came to responses to the fear of others — but in opposite directions. This appears to support the idea that they are on opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to empathy: psychopaths cannot feel and react to the fear of others (unless they have another motive) while altruists, or empaths, feel and are moved to respond to the fear of others as if it were their own.
Now that we know who they are, what do empaths look like beyond their altruistic behavior?
Empaths are popularly characterized as being exceptionally sensitive to their environments, absorbing the feelings of others easily, and then quickly becoming drained. General descriptions of what it’s like to be one range from having a higher degree of compassion and caring for others than average, to being strongly in tune with the emotions of others, to having a compelling desire to heal, assist and give others the benefit of the doubt even to the detriment of themselves.
Marsh was mostly interested in their acts of altruism and what motivated them, so there is little in her research to give us a clue about what their lives are like beyond their acts of altruism.
There was one interesting commonality, however. Her research indicates that, temperamentally, they appear to have more humility than average, and it is this humility that appears to enable them to treat strangers with such selflessness. She writes, “Although they are clearly more sensitive than average to others’ distress, their capacity for compassion and generosity reflects the same neural mechanisms that lie latent in most of humankind. Indeed, it is in part the fact that altruists recognize that they are not fundamentally different from anyone else that moves them to act.”
Now that we can potentially identify who they are, further research can tell us more about how being an empath affects their lives and, perhaps more importantly, how empaths can protect their strengths from exploitation given that this research indicates that they tend to view everyone as equally deserving of their assistance.
psychcentral.com/blog/the-perks-of-being-a-psychopath/
The Perks of Being a Psychopath
By Dr. John Glynn
Last updated: 7 Jul 2019
~ 3 min read
“Always treat everyone with respect. You never know who is secretly a psychopath.”
– Alex Wayne, Diagnosis
How does one go about identifying a psychopath? It’s not easy, but researchers have made a lot of headway in answering this very question.
It is common knowledge that men are more likely to have psychopathic tendencies than women. For example, one study on a prison population found 31% of men met the criteria, compared to only 11% of women.
Psychopathy has a number of higher-order dimensions, including Self-centered Impulsivity, Heartlessness, and Fearless Dominance. The first dimension, Self-centered Impulsivity, is associated with impetuosity, belligerence, and narcissism.
Heartlessness is related to an inability to experience important social emotions like love or remorse.
Psychopaths, who clearly lack empathy, are at a disadvantage — or so the thinking goes. However, empathy requires taking other people’s feelings into consideration, walking in their shoes, so to speak. Walking requires energy. Luckily for psychopaths, no “walking” is required, unless it involves walking over other people to get what they want.
Empathy is built on a foundation of emotions. Although vital for binding and meaningful relationships, emotions often clouds judgment. In the extreme, emotions can actually impede one’s ability to think in a critical manner. Remember folks, this is 2019, the year of the oversensitive masses, where emotions constantly cloud rational thought.
The psychopath, freed from his emotional shackles, is well equipped to act in an unrestrained, ruthless manner. This is bad news for society… but not for a psychopath, especially one consumed by thoughts of power and prestige.
Fearless Dominance, the third dimension of psychopathy, is associated with impudence and a desire for social influence. Contrary to popular belief, Fearless Dominance comes with a number of socially adaptive behaviors. Equipped with a sense of interpersonal poise and potency, physical fearlessness, and emotional resilience, some psychopaths go on to do great things. Some even become heroes.
A 2015 paper, titled Successful Psychopathy, introduces readers to a man by the name of Forest “Tommy” Yeo-Thomas, a real-life daredevil. By employing a number of disguises and fake documents, the World War II British spy regularly evaded capture by the Nazis. According to the authors, Yeo-Thomas once pretended to be a corpse while traveling in a coffin.
Known as “White Rabbit” to his enemies, Yeo-Thomas once leapt from a moving train. In a move straight out of Liam Neeson movie, our hero (anti-hero?) once strangled a prison guard with his bare hands. When Yeo-Thomas wasn’t busy strangling Nazis, he was busy seducing beautiful women.
Most people, I assume, are unfamiliar with the life and times of Yeo-Thomas. However, most are familiar with James Bond, his fictional incarnation. Yes, Yeo-Thomas was the inspiration for novelist Ian Fleming’s ostentatious, sex crazed, martini gulping hero. The WW2 spy is typical of what we in the profession call a “successful psychopath.” Unlike malignant psychopathy, which often involves criminal acts and imprisonment, the “successful psychopath” embraces the darkness to achieve real-life success.
Do “successful psychopaths” avoid breaking the law because it’s “right”? No, they avoid breaking the law because it makes sense. By reining in their impulses, or at least channeling them in a more lucrative direction, “successful psychopaths” often go on to occupy positions of real significance.
So, what sort of professions attract psychopaths? Research already shows that psychopaths are more prevalent in certain occupations. It will come as no surprise that they tend to gravitate towards positions of power — think CEOs, surgeons, lawyers, celebrities, and politicians.
The link between politics and psychopathy is an especially interesting one. In 2004, scientists asked 121 presidential biographers to rate 42 U.S. presidents, up to and including George W. Bush, on their pre-office traits of fearless dominance, one of the three dimensions of psychopathy. The findings made for interesting reading. According to the report, fearless dominance was strongly correlated with overall presidential performance, guidance, public perception, persuasiveness, and, rather predictably, a willingness to take risks.
OK, we know a lot about who is likely to be a psychopath, but what about where? Are there certain places in the United States where psychopaths are more likely to gather and pollute the social environment?
Luckily for us, a recent study published in the scientific journal Heliyon provides us with an unambiguous answer. According to the authors, who estimated psychopathy prevalence based on Big Five personality patterns (Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism), Washington D.C. has the highest prevalence of psychopaths. Master swindlers, Svengalis of the highest nature, it makes sense that psychopaths flock to an area of the United States synonymous with political power and influence.
As the inimitable Jon Ronson once wrote, “Psychopaths make the world go around… society is an expression of that particular sort of madness… I’ve always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn’t? What if it is built on insanity?”
The old adage has it that we’re never more than six feet away from a rat. Maybe the same thing can be said for psychopaths.