Cognitive neuroscientist Kent Kiehl discusses his research and personal experience working with “those without conscience.” Scott and Kent demystify the historically fascinating illness as it relates to criminal activity, genius, evil, flourishing, the brain, gender and treatment.
In this episode you will hear about:
- Why there’s been so much interest in psychopathy
- What it means to be a true “card carrying” psychopath
- Was Dexter Morgan a true psychopath?
- What it’s like to work with psychopaths in maximum security facilities
- How your average person rates on the psychopath scale
- How a psychopath thinks about love or justice
- The nature and nurture of a psychopathic personality disorder
- Which types of crimes are associated with the diagnosis
- How we can treat psychopathy
- The relation between introversion/extroversion and psychopathy
- The darker things Kent has come across in his career
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Resources:
- Kent’s website
- Kent’s book, The Psychopath Whisperer
- Psychopathy Checklist
- A summary of “the dark triad”
- A summary of the HEXACO personality inventory
- Mendota juvenile treatment center
- The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty by Simon Baron-Cohen
- “What is it like to be a bat?” by Thomas Nagel
“Dr. Kiehl is an author and neuroscientist who specializes in the use of clinical brain imaging techniques to understand major mental illnesses, with special focus on criminal psychopathy, psychotic disorders (i.e., schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, affective disorders), traumatic brain injury, substance abuse and paraphilias.” –Blurb taken from Kent’s website
This article originally appeared on Scientific American.
