Theory on Psychopath/Sociopaths

[Marshalscienceguy]

Psychopaths/sociopaths might sometimes end up violent but are known to have emotional issues. They do not feel a lot but are sometimes violent. For this reason they are also very intelligent. Thinking without being clouded by emotions makes you a very efficient operators. So why would someone without emotions display rage or violent tendency's? I have an idea to this.

Since these people have emotional issues it is very very difficult for them to feel stimulated. So they will go to extremes so they can feel anything at all. Same thing with adrenaline junkys. Science has said that people will to do daring activity is activated by chemicals in the brain. More or less of certain chemicals determines how willing you are.

Someone who gets a lot of stimulation from activities are going to be more reluctant and someone who gets less is going to be more daring. This can actually be applied to anyone though. People who are very good at a subject take more to get stimulated than someone who is not good at the subject. So teaching them something simple which they know already will bore them. Since they are not actually learning. For someone who is good at the subject it will take more to stimulate them apposed to people who know less. So they need to go further to get real stimulation from it.

Now what some psychopaths seem to do is attempt to find stimulation. Since violence, fear, and terror seem to create a very intense reaction they often are into something which is violent, and creates fear and terror. Now when we are in fear our flight and fight response kicks in and everything is heightened. If someone feels nothing they are going to need to try very hard to get some type of reaction.

Its said they do not fear consequences and will still commit an act even if they know they will be punished for this.Things like Dopimine effects how happy a person is. If someone lacks this they are not going to be as stimulated. So they are going to need an more intense stimulant to react at all. So I believe that people with this sometimes try to fix this by horrendous committing these acts. Since what they do might create a very small amount of stimulation but probably feel barely anything even doing so.

 

[davidivad]

there is no doubt that they are often drawn to risky activities.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine_hypothesis_of_schizophrenia

 

these people have actual physical abnormalities in thier brain wiring and you can find abnormalities in the shape of the brain in many cases.

 

it has been suggested that people who are serial killers do it for the high it gives them, so in a sense you are right.

they often end up increasing the violence of such crimes likely because they do not get as high as the time before.

the prefrontal cortex shows up as a location of abnormality in these people and this is where higher thought processes come from.

i seem to have confused schizophrenia with psychopathic behavior.

i wonder how often that happens?

[iNow]

I think the OP conflates psychopathology and sociopathology with the simple issue of low dopamine levels. The premises don't really hold up, so the logic that follows is questionable.