Far from pointing to a person being โborn badโ, Associate Professor Moul explained that psychopathic traits may be the result of โminor deficits in basic cognitive processes that, over time and development, can cascade into the personality features and interpersonal style of someone we would identify as a psychopathโ.
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She used the example of a toddler playing with children of the same age, intentionally hurting a playmate and then staring at them as they cried. This is not a manifestation of psychopathy. In fact, itโs quite common, simply a child learning how to be a social being.
โIf [that] young child failed to notice the impact of their behaviours more often than another, it is understandable that they may be delayed in developing the appropriate social response,โ Associate Professor Moul says.
โNow, if you mix in other factors such as parents resort[ing] to harsher parenting techniques, school-teachers that might label the child as difficult or a trouble-maker and so treat them differently, school friends that might laugh at a joke made at anotherโs expense and so reinforce bullying behaviours for an instigator who is blind to the distress of the victim, it isnโt difficult to see how antisocial, psychopathic behaviours might be more likely to develop in this child.โ
So, why did your boss treat you so badly?
โAntisocial behaviour can have many different causes and rationales. It may be that [they] did indeed have high levels of psychopathic traits and had developed into what would be termed a workplace psychopathโ,โ she says.
โThey may have learned that treating others poorly facilitated their own career. Without strong feelings of empathy for others or guilt for causing negative outcomes for others, they would be more likely to come to that conclusion.โ
โOn the other hand, perhaps they were very anxious and alleviated this by controlling their environment (including staff) as much as possible. Or maybe they had low self-confidence and felt that they needed to act tough to gain respect from others.โ
In other words, it can be very difficult to determine if someone has high levels of psychopathic traits from their behaviour alone as the disorder can only really be defined by the individualโs own internal experience of social emotions.
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