What Is a Psychopath? Definition and basic criteria

S.O.T.T: Psychopaths, and to a degree, sociopaths, show a lack of emotion, especially the social emotions, such as shame, guilt, and embarrassment. Cleckley said that the psychopaths he came into contact with showed a "general poverty in major affective reactions," and a "lack of remorse or shame." The PCL describes psychopaths as "emotionally shallow" and showing a lack of guilt. Psychopaths are notorious for their lack of fear. When normal people are put into an experimental situation where they anticipate that something painful will happen, such as a mild electric shock, or a mildly aversive pressure applied to a limb, a brain network activates. Normal people will also show a clear skin conductance response produced by sweat gland activity. In psychopathic subjects, however, this brain network showed no activity and no skin conductance responses were emitted (Birbaumer et al., 2012)...read more>>>...