It’s Halloween, folks, and you know what that means: Jell-O molds of brains and punn-y costumes (Freudian Slip, anyone?), right? Amirite? Okay, maybe that’s just me, whatever, guys. But I can name at least one cherished Halloween pastime that tends to be pretty popular across the board, and that’s the horror movie marathon.

As we learned earlier this month, the mechanisms by which our brains process fear are intricate yet animalistic—after all, we’re by far not the only species that experiences the sensation of fear. Though what may be a uniquely human instinct is the propensity to actually seek out fear (and the sensation of arousal that inherently comes with it)—a concept illustrated nicely in this piece from The Dana Foundation. This purposeful seeking-out of fear-inducing stimuli is undoubtedly present in the act of partaking in the aforementioned horror movie marathon, and a particular subset of said scary flicks (and the characters therein) will serve as the main focus of this post.

There are lots of types of scary movies out there, from the psychological thriller to the slasher film and everything in between, but today, for the purposes of this entry, our interests lie in the psychopathic killers. Whether your allegiances fall with Freddy Kruger or Jason Voorhees, the psychopath is a popular character in cinema and in popular culture in general. But what makes this character profile so enjoyable and even attractive at times? And furthermore, what can we learn from the psychopaths among us?

A recent piece in Scientific American covered a conversation between psychologist Kevin Dutton of the University of Oxford and actor Michael C. Hall, the man behind America’s favorite serial killer, Dexter Morgan, of the hit Showtime series, Dexter. In his remarks and in his new book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us, Dutton asserts that possessing some of the qualities of a psychopath—ruthlessness, charm, inflated self-worth, lack of remorse and empathy, and the ability to manipulate others, to name a few—might not be all that bad.

Conventionally, we picture psychopaths as horrifying, antisocial killers and menaces to society, but Dutton argues that psychopathic tendencies fall on a spectrum (much like other psychological disorders), and those individuals that fall on the lower end can actually use these traits to their advantage. One of the examples he uses in his book (an excerpt of which can be found here, and is definitely worth a look), is that of a neurosurgeon. Ruthlessly cool and focused under pressure, and immune to emotional flair-ups of empathy and compassion in times of stress, the neurosurgeon (or any surgeon, for that matter) is a great example of someone who may possess psychopathic tendencies on some low level. Another prime example presented by Dutton is the business mogul—in order to climb to the top of a huge conglomerate, it’s imperative that some insensitivity, cutthroat ambition, and ruthlessness come into play.

In the context of the discussion, Michael C. Hall echoed Dutton’s claims that psychopathic tendencies can be a plus, saying he envies some of Dexter’s qualities, stress-management especially. And though we may not realize it consciously, the acceptance and even embracing of psychopathic traits isn’t uncommon. In his book, Dutton makes reference to an informal poll conducted in one of his classes in which students were presented with the aforementioned personality profile and asked what line of work might best suit someone who fits that description. Not surprisingly, their answers included CEO, spy, surgeon, and politician, as well as assassin and serial killer.

So what does this mean for the non-psychopathically inclined among us? And what does it mean for those who possess some of these traits? Could surgeons and CEOs be one step away from being the next Dexter Morgan or Hannibal Lecter? Probably not. As for everyone else, maybe we should try embracing some of our psychopathic tendencies, if we have them. It’s no surprise that characters like Dexter are so appealing to so many people (myself included)—though Dexter is on what Dutton would consider the higher end of the spectrum in terms of intensity of psychopathic qualities, a lot of those qualities are admirable ones, and ones that we would tend to seek out. So who knows, maybe you could be a psychopath, too.

Sources:

“Dexter” and British Psychologist Ask: Who Wants to be a Psychopath? – Scientific American

What Psychopaths Teach Us about How to Succeed [Exceprt] – Scientific American

Desperately Seeking Stimulation: Fear, Reward, and the Human Need for Novelty – The Dana Foundation

Paul Zak, the director of The Center for Neuroeconomic Studies at the Claremont Graduate University, for years has been searching for what makes us moral, and he thinks he has the answer. In this short talk Zak explains why massage, dance and prayer may increase donation to charity up to 50%, and how morals from a Californian high schooler to a primative Papua New Guinea subsistence farmer may have an identical physiological basis. The answer he claims, is Oxytocin. Here is the talk (via Youtube):

Trust, morality — and oxytocin – Ted.com

What contributes more to creating a person’s identity (i.e. personality, behavior, intelligence)? Is it genetics, or is it the environment in which the person was raised? In other words, as Francis Galton might ask, is it “nature” or “nurture?”

de Waal's book on empathy

When it comes to how empathetic someone is, Frans de Waal, a Dutch primatologist and ethologist, believes it’s both nature and nurture. He says that a person’s empathy is “innate” – inherited through genes – but also that a person can learn to become more or less empathetic. That seems reasonable; depending on early experiences and education, someone may be more or less of a certain characteristic.

But how is empathy innate? Two NewScientist writers, Philip Cohen and Ewen Callaway, wrote articles discussing the areas in our brains called the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the anterior insula (AI), which become active not only when we are in pain but also when others are.

Imaging studies, cited in their articles, found a positive correlation between a volunteer’s reported empathy for a person in pain and activity in the pain-processing areas of the volunteer’s brain. This has led Cohen to believe, “Humans are hardwired to feel empathy.”

For example, in a study led by Shihui Han and colleagues, “17 Chinese and 16 Caucasian (from the US, Europe and Israel) volunteers” were shown videos of strangers, both Caucasian and Chinese, in pain while their brains were scanned using fMRI. While their fMRI results suggested that they responded more empathetically towards volunteers of the same ethnicity or from the same country, their responses actually indicated they “[felt] each other’s pain about equally.”

Interestingly, our brains seem to be “hardwired” to feel more for certain groups over others, whether we notice or not. These groups appear to consist of people we can identify more with, whether through ethnicity, age, gender, or any other in-group.

Frans de Waal would find these results quite understandable. He says, “Empathy is more pronounced the more similar you are to someone, the more close, socially close, you are to someone.” He continues to say that empathy “evolved… for members of any species that is cooperative and social… it’s important to take care of others in the group because you depend on [them], you survive by [them].”

Seemingly then, our brains, and likely those of other species, have evolved to serve a survival advantage; they respond in those pain-processing areas more actively when those like us are in pain, despite what we report as our level of empathy.

While we seem to be hardwired to empathize more with certain groups over others, we’re still united as a species to empathize with one another over those of other species.

Martha Farah, a cognitive neuroscience researcher, suggests that we have a “person network” divided into persons and non-persons, which has promoted closer social bonds within our species. Farah proves that this brain network exists by considering the rare disorder prosopagnosia, which consists of “impaired visual recognition of the human face.” A specific area of the brain can be “selectively” damaged for one to obtain the disorder, demonstrating that specialized areas of the brain exist for discerning other humans.

Whether our brain also specializes in empathy towards non-persons is something to look into. For now, consider yawn contagion, which de Waal discusses with TIME about. He says there is a “deep bodily connection” that allows pets to catch yawns from their owners. This seemingly innate connection seems to break physical barriers with other animals, but what, if any, connection breaks emotional ones? And is it innate, or is it learned?

Have animal rights activists and pet lovers learned to be more empathetic towards non-persons? I’d like to think that it’s not just the influence of my environment that has led me to empathize with my childhood pets or toys – not to mention some of my favorite characters, like Hamm from Toy Story or Patrick from SpongeBob SquarePants.