Psychopathy is its own reward

摘要

A lack of emotion isn't the only thing driving psychopaths: the brains of people with some psychopathic traits may overvalue the reward associated with getting what they want. In extreme cases, this may result in callous and manipulative acts. Psychopathy is a spectrum of traits including fearlessness, callousness and narcissism; people in whom a number of these traits are strong are classed as psychopaths. Brain areas involved in emotion are less active in such people, but this can't explain other behaviour common to psychopaths, such as drug abuse.