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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from housetop work

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Speaker 1: dot com. Pay you. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert la and I'm Christian saber Hey.

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Speaker 1: So did you know that you cannot only listen to

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Speaker 1: us on this podcast, but you can engage with us

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Speaker 1: on social media and read stuff that we've written, and

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Speaker 1: watch stuff that we're in. We're all over the place.

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Speaker 1: We're not just in your earbuds. It's a crazy time

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Speaker 1: to be alive. Yeah, it is. It is indeed, Uh,

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Speaker 1: if you follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Tumbler, where

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Speaker 1: we are blow the mind. On all those platforms, we're

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Speaker 1: curating all kinds of weird science that we're not putting

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Speaker 1: into the episodes, all the stuff that Robert and Joe

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Speaker 1: and I find throughout the day that is just utterly bizarre. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And then we've got videos like our Monster Science series

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Speaker 1: and lots of blog posts. Robert in particular is profound

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Speaker 1: and prolific on our blog side. So if you want

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Speaker 1: to hear more from us about I don't know, music,

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Speaker 1: Monster science, which would you cook up this week? Um?

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Speaker 1: I'm actually working on another Higher Human Forms post, which

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Speaker 1: is a body modification series that I've been doing with

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Speaker 1: a focus more on uh, sort of religious themes and

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Speaker 1: body modification and sort of like religious trans humanism. I

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Speaker 1: can't remember we talked about American Mary before. I think

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Speaker 1: it may have come up a few times. You've seen it? Yeah, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a very interesting horror film. Yeah, great horror movie, really

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Speaker 1: interesting take on the body modification community. And uh directed

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Speaker 1: by twin female sisters that just did an excellent job

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Speaker 1: and co star in the movie. Yeah, and they're Canadian. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I forgot about that, right, all right. System. One more

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Speaker 1: way that you can interact with us, especially if you

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Speaker 1: want to talk about horror movies, because that seems like

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Speaker 1: a big thing that goes on there is on Fridays

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Speaker 1: at noon Eastern Standard time, we are on periscope uh

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Speaker 1: and basically for you know, twenty minutes, we will sit

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Speaker 1: there and uh answered questions that you have. Last week,

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Speaker 1: Joe brought a pretty interesting article about outer space to

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Speaker 1: the table that we discussed with our fans on there. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and we'll tell you, you know, some kind of behind

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Speaker 1: the scenes stuff too, like what we're recording that week,

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Speaker 1: what what kind of you know things are coming up

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Speaker 1: on the show and Vice versa. But in this episode

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Speaker 1: we are discussing UM an interesting and troubling topic and

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Speaker 1: UH and then that is the idea of psychopathy in

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Speaker 1: children and UH an adolescence. UM. This is I definitely

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Speaker 1: want to preface here that that I I am particularly

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Speaker 1: I'm approaching this UH topic not only is someone who

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Speaker 1: just finds the trope itself kind of fascinating from a

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Speaker 1: cultural standpoint. You know, you can't get away from the

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Speaker 1: killer child, the terrible Tieu child, the what the the infant.

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Speaker 1: It's a it's a trope I guess or archetype that

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Speaker 1: I think is like ingrained into human culture. The fear

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Speaker 1: of our own children come for us. And and as

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Speaker 1: a father now I have to say I feel a

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Speaker 1: lot of that, you know, I mean you when you

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Speaker 1: have this strange creature becoming more and more human and

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Speaker 1: your your life, you think about that you can't help

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Speaker 1: but worry about about all the things that could go

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Speaker 1: wrong um or or you know, all the problems that

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Speaker 1: could arise. And so I definitely want to to drive

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Speaker 1: home that that's in my mind the whole time. So

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Speaker 1: I don't want anyone to come into this thinking that

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Speaker 1: we're gonna take a real callous approach to it that

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Speaker 1: we're all just about, you know, talking about horror movie

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Speaker 1: tie ins for the topic, because obviously it's a very

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Speaker 1: it's a very sensitive issue and if anyone out there

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Speaker 1: who is planning to have children already has a child

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Speaker 1: and watching that child developed, that this is something that

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Speaker 1: could topic that could produce a fair amount of anxiety. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but I also think to like from reading the literature,

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Speaker 1: that there's a lot to be learned here too if

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Speaker 1: you're a parent, right both about Uh, we're definitely going

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Speaker 1: to be talking about nature, not versus nurture, but and

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Speaker 1: nurture they're working together here, right, And there's things to

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Speaker 1: look out for. But there's also ways techniques of parenting

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Speaker 1: that work especially well, especially if you know, you think

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Speaker 1: that your child may have the traits of being callous

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Speaker 1: or unemotional in the way that we're going to describe

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Speaker 1: here that subsequently lead to some of these attacks. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I do want to say the original idea for this

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Speaker 1: did come from our October marathon of doing things that

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Speaker 1: were kind of related to Halloween, and it was just

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Speaker 1: one of the things that I couldn't get in under

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Speaker 1: the deadline. I was thinking about the premise of Michael

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Speaker 1: Myers and the Halloween movies, which is that he was

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Speaker 1: a kid who killed members of his family, was taken

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Speaker 1: away to a mental asylum for that and when he

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Speaker 1: was like nine years old or something like that. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and and then subsequently grew up escaped and you know

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Speaker 1: it was a serial killer. Yeah, but he's just essentially

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Speaker 1: a black hole of of emotion. Yeah. And so what

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Speaker 1: I wanted to look into there was is that actually possible?

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Speaker 1: Is Michael Meyer the the idea there of a child

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Speaker 1: first of all of a and it's hard to find

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Speaker 1: this under search term, but the term that's used clinically

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Speaker 1: is juvenile homicidal offender because when you type in child killer,

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Speaker 1: it usually is associated with people who kill children, not

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Speaker 1: children who kill um. And so I was looking to see,

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Speaker 1: you know, what's the likelihood of this actually happening. And

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Speaker 1: then also, you know, in the case of the Michael

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Speaker 1: Myers myth, what's the recidivism look like? So when these

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Speaker 1: children are released as adults, you know, what what do

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Speaker 1: their lives look like? Yeah? And ultimately we're also going

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Speaker 1: to discuss the bright side and some of the treatment

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Speaker 1: options that are becoming available that are showing promise because

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Speaker 1: it's easy to get hung up on just the trope,

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Speaker 1: right on the idea of the oh, this is a

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Speaker 1: bad seed, this child is just a black hole of

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Speaker 1: emotion and there's no altering that. But that's the myth

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Speaker 1: and that's what the media loves to grab onto anytime

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Speaker 1: we have one of these incidents happen, especially in the

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Speaker 1: United States. And it's way more complex than that, right.

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Speaker 1: The thing that's really interesting is, like you said, like

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Speaker 1: as we study this further and further and understand the

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Speaker 1: biology behind it, we also find it really interesting ways

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Speaker 1: to treat it. So just to get out of the way.

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Speaker 1: Some of the more common versions of the trope of

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Speaker 1: the bad seat trope that we see, um, you have

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Speaker 1: a Damien from the Omen, that's a big one, the

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Speaker 1: kids from the Village of the Damned. Um, there's the

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Speaker 1: Bad Seat itself, which was the ninety six theatrical film,

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Speaker 1: uh and a TV movie. And five you have the

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Speaker 1: good Son, you have the Ring. You have Peter Wiggin

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Speaker 1: and or some Scott Cards enters game who like to

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Speaker 1: torture animals and physically and mentally tormented siblings and the

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Speaker 1: animals thing is real as well as we'll talk about

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Speaker 1: there's a there's a murderous newborn in Ray Bradberry's short

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Speaker 1: story Small Assassin. Uh, there's the young Tom Riddle and

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Speaker 1: Harry Potter, of course. Uh, there's Aaliya and Dune. There's

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Speaker 1: a Mordred to Shame and Stephen King's at Dark Towers series.

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Speaker 1: You could probably count Stewie Griffin. Um. But but yeah,

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Speaker 1: so we have this trope of this child that is

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Speaker 1: just unredeemably bad, that that that is that is evil

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Speaker 1: in a in some inhuman way, generally with some sort

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Speaker 1: of magical scenario backing up whither that way. I think

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Speaker 1: it's particularly helpful actually here to use Halloween and John

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Speaker 1: Carpenter's vision for Michael Myers as what isn't happening? That's

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Speaker 1: the fantastic version, right, and that John Carpenter is always

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Speaker 1: referred to that character as the shape. Right. He's not human,

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Speaker 1: it's he's not a product of upbringing or things, you know, uh,

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Speaker 1: mental problems necessarily as much as it's just a body

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Speaker 1: full of evil. Right now, Rob Zombies version that ultimately

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Speaker 1: changes that in the remake, we don't really need to

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Speaker 1: go down that Rabbit hole. But but I think that

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Speaker 1: it's important to say that's not what's going on here

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Speaker 1: with children who do kill, right, and and just to

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Speaker 1: get it out of the way, psychopathy in general, like

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Speaker 1: what is the psychopath? The psychopath demonstrates significantly reduced empathy

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Speaker 1: with the feelings of others, uh, and supporting the theory

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Speaker 1: that this uh, that this deficit makes it easier for

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Speaker 1: them to inflict pain on victims their mirror neurons or

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Speaker 1: two out of whack for them to feel their victims pain,

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Speaker 1: making the most you know, cold blooded of homicides a

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Speaker 1: little a little easier to to to commit. So it uh,

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Speaker 1: it has to do with a lack of empathy and

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Speaker 1: a callousness in nature. But it's it's a a neurological

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Speaker 1: condition and certainly not some sort of supernatural occurrence. So

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Speaker 1: let's get this out of the way to start off

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Speaker 1: with and answer you know what my initial question was,

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Speaker 1: which is really how likely are juvenile killers? And in fact, uh,

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Speaker 1: the U. S. Department of Justice has plenty of statistics

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Speaker 1: about this on their website, so you can go there

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Speaker 1: and find this. But I'll share a couple of with

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Speaker 1: you here that I think are important The first is

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Speaker 1: that in so that's as far back currently as our

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Speaker 1: our data shows. Uh, the known juvenile offenders that were

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Speaker 1: involved were in six hundred and ten murders in the US,

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Speaker 1: and so that sounds like a lot, I know, but

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Speaker 1: that represents seven percent of all known murder offenders from

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Speaker 1: that time, so it is relatively small. Actually. Also, as

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Speaker 1: of the number of juvenile homicidal offenders is at its

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Speaker 1: lowest level in thirty four years since we started tracking this,

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Speaker 1: which is pretty wild. Uh. And in fact, I really

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Speaker 1: recommend going to the to the Department of Justices site

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Speaker 1: and looking at the charts that they have built out

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Speaker 1: of this, because apparently the real spike for this was

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Speaker 1: in the nineties, UH and ninety four were particularly bad,

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Speaker 1: and you just see this huge spike. But we are

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Speaker 1: right now, as we're recording this episode, at an all

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Speaker 1: time low, or I guess all time in terms as

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Speaker 1: long as they've been recording it. UH. Homicide offending also

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Speaker 1: increases with age, so it's less likely that it's going

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Speaker 1: to happen if you are, say, under fifteen years old.

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Speaker 1: Only ten percent of the offenders were under fifteen, whereas

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Speaker 1: seventies six of them were sixteen or seventeen years old.

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Speaker 1: And in my mind when I was thinking about this,

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Speaker 1: I was thinking more along the lines of like preteens, juveniles,

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Speaker 1: like under thirteen. I guess, um, and that does happen,

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Speaker 1: but it is again significantly small. In the Justice Department

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Speaker 1: released information saying that twenty nine children under the age

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Speaker 1: of fourteen, So this is more along the lines of

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Speaker 1: what I was thinking had committed homicides that year. And uh.

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Speaker 1: The other interesting thing is that the victims are more

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Speaker 1: likely to be acquaintances. So as of data, thirty seven

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Speaker 1: percent of them were acquaintances, while twenty percent of them

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Speaker 1: were total strangers. So the idea of a young child

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Speaker 1: going completely psycho and murdering a total stranger is rare

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Speaker 1: and unlikely. Now, male juvenile homicide offenders varied substantially, but

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Speaker 1: female juvenile homicide offenders have a steady rate um accounting

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Speaker 1: for a very small share. Less than one hundred were

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Speaker 1: implicated in homicide since two thousand two, and in two

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Speaker 1: thousand twelve, of the eight thousand, five fourteen people arrested

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Speaker 1: for murder in the US, only one was a girl

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Speaker 1: under thirteen. In two thousand thirteen, the number was is

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Speaker 1: to at its lowest since at least nineteen eighty and

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Speaker 1: there is no evidence that homicide among young girls is increasing.

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Speaker 1: And this is uh, I think important to note because

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Speaker 1: as some of our listeners will probably have immediately come

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Speaker 1: to mind, I believe it was in well it's related

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Speaker 1: to the creepypasta episode. Yeah it was, I can't remember,

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Speaker 1: but uh, you know, two young girls who were fascinated

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Speaker 1: with the creepy pasta stories about Slenderman tried to murder

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Speaker 1: one of their peers. Uh, and we're unsuccessful. But that story,

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Speaker 1: like you know, when for these stories pop up, scared

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Speaker 1: a lot of people and made them think, oh my god. Uh,

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Speaker 1: look at this, this evidence that young girls are becoming murderers,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, that's not the case if you look

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Speaker 1: at all the data. The other important thing to remember

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Speaker 1: here to data wise, is that a lot of this

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Speaker 1: activity happens in groups. Remember that I mentioned that it

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Speaker 1: was two girls in the slender Man case. Wasn't just

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Speaker 1: one girl on her own. About half of the number

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Speaker 1: of homicides committed by known juvenile offenders as of involved

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Speaker 1: multiple offenders, So that's important to realize. You know, children

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Speaker 1: are more likely We've all been kids. And even if

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Speaker 1: you're a child, if you're under fourteen listening to this

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Speaker 1: show right now, you know you're more likely to do

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Speaker 1: things that you together than you would alone. I'm sure.

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Speaker 1: I well, I know I did things that I regret

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Speaker 1: that I have done on my own that I did

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Speaker 1: with a group of friends. Yeah. So it's easy to

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Speaker 1: imagine us in any variety of scenarios in which a

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Speaker 1: younger individual is just roped into some sort of horrible

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Speaker 1: situation with older children. Yeah. And you know, the kids

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Speaker 1: can kind of ramp one another up in this exactly,

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Speaker 1: it becomes reality through them talking, and then ultimately peer

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Speaker 1: pressure leads to these risky choices. And many children don't

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Speaker 1: even really understand what dead means. You know, a lot

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Speaker 1: of the kids that are interviewed after they commit these murders,

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Speaker 1: they don't understand that this is a permanent thing. They

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Speaker 1: think of it as sort of being magical. Uh. So

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Speaker 1: that's important to remember as well too, that there's a

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Speaker 1: lack of understanding here of of the crime that's being committed.

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Speaker 1: Uh And and lastly, before we get into the you know,

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Speaker 1: the meat behind what's going on inside juvenile homicidal offenders.

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Speaker 1: It's important to note that in June of the Miller

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Speaker 1: versus Alabama case that was heard by the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: ultimately decided that juvenile murders did not have to serve

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Speaker 1: their lives in jail for crimes. The tight decision was

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Speaker 1: a five four decision in which they chose to ban

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Speaker 1: mandatory life sentence says of life imprisonment for juvenile offenders.

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Speaker 1: So now as as as of that, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: a decision there can those who are convicted of these

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Speaker 1: murders have a possibility of eventual freedom. This is in

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Speaker 1: the US. Mind you that, you know, this stuff happens

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Speaker 1: in other countries as we'll talk about as well, but

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Speaker 1: you know, we're here in America. A lot of the

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Speaker 1: research was done in America. So that's, you know, what

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Speaker 1: I'm going to base our information off of. As of

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Speaker 1: right now, the Supreme Court is waiting to hear Montgomery

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Speaker 1: versus Alabama, which is another UH case that will basically

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Speaker 1: see whether or not they can apply this retroactively, meaning

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Speaker 1: that children who were in prison for life for murders

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Speaker 1: before the twelve decision will eventually be able to be released. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and obviously it's It's such a tough situation to weigh

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Speaker 1: in on because you you're ultimately dealing with adults and

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Speaker 1: and trying to figure out how to treat this adult

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Speaker 1: who in their youth, in their childhood even uh committed

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Speaker 1: a fact but before they actually were fully formed as

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Speaker 1: if an individual. So there's a few examples here that

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Speaker 1: let's get out of the way of just you know,

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Speaker 1: known cases where this has happened that have been popularized. One,

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Speaker 1: obviously the you know Michael Myers being the inspiration for

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Speaker 1: looking into this research, is a guy named Edmund Kemper.

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Speaker 1: There's also a person who is known only as girl

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Speaker 1: A in Japan. She was uh fourteen years old and

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Speaker 1: killed in eleven year old in Japan in n and

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Speaker 1: mounted his head outside their school. So when this happened,

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Speaker 1: the country's parliament actually lowered the age of criminal responsibility

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Speaker 1: from sixteen to fourteen. So you can see how these

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Speaker 1: singular incidents, which are horrible, by the way, I get

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Speaker 1: a lot of press coverage and then it becomes an

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Speaker 1: issue for politicians to exact exactly. So we've seen just

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Speaker 1: in the last you know, five minutes, how both Japan

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Speaker 1: and the United States have changed their laws based on these.

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Speaker 1: There's a slender man girls that we were talking about earlier.

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Speaker 1: And one thing I'd like to mentioned here just as

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Speaker 1: an anecdote. I don't want to dive into that whole affair,

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Speaker 1: but that one psychiatrists interviewed one of the children who

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Speaker 1: was responsible. She said that she believes in unicorns, that

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Speaker 1: she can communicate with Lord Voldemort and the teenage muntant

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Speaker 1: Ninja turtles. And she also believes that she has the

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Speaker 1: ability of vulcan mind control. So that helps you to

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Speaker 1: kind of put into place here. This is a child

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Speaker 1: who's fantasizing about things. I don't think that she quite

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Speaker 1: understood what was going on. Yeah, I mean she this

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Speaker 1: seems to illustrate a real inability to distinguish fantasy from reality. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And one last example that I want to throw out there,

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Speaker 1: especially because um one of our fans UH mentioned it

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Speaker 1: on Facebook earlier this week, is Mary Flora bell Uh.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty eight, she strangled two young boys when

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Speaker 1: she was a child. She took a new name and

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Speaker 1: started her life over when she was released from prison

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties. I believe that she's British, UM,

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Speaker 1: so that would explain why you know, she was released.

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Speaker 1: She and her daughter she now has a daughter, were

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Speaker 1: promised a lifetime of anonymity, and this is now referred

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Speaker 1: to over there as a Mary Bell order. So basically,

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Speaker 1: if you commit a crime as a child and they

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Speaker 1: you know, deem that you're able to be released, you

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Speaker 1: are and you can live your life in anonymity if

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Speaker 1: you so choose so that you don't have to you know,

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Speaker 1: have that hanging over your head. I guess now from

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Speaker 1: from some of the readings I had about Mary Bell,

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Speaker 1: apparently she was somehow involved in a book about her

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Speaker 1: life and received money for it, and that somehow subsequently

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Speaker 1: let her daughter know about her past actions. So there

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Speaker 1: was a little bit of conflict there and a little

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Speaker 1: bit of controversy about the fact that she was being

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Speaker 1: paid to talk about these horrible acts that she had done.

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Speaker 1: So obviously with as with any topic dealing with with childhood,

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Speaker 1: this is a big there's a big discussion of nature

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Speaker 1: and nurture here, like how much of this is genetics,

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Speaker 1: how much of this is just uh, you know, tendencies

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Speaker 1: that are going to be inherent in you as a person,

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Speaker 1: and then how much of it is the nurturing. How

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Speaker 1: much of it is is that the level of attention,

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Speaker 1: the level of of of parental presence and parental guidance

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Speaker 1: that are present there Where, Where does this behavior emerge from?

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Speaker 1: And how can either side of the scenario curve it.

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Speaker 1: There's a quote from a book about this that I

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Speaker 1: want to use as sort of a guiding principle for

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Speaker 1: us going forward. It's almost like a thesis statement of

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Speaker 1: what I think that the data and research reveals. And

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Speaker 1: it's by Deborah Niehoff. She's the author of a book

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Speaker 1: called The Biology of Violence. And her quote is behavior

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Speaker 1: is the result of a dialogue between your brain and

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Speaker 1: your experiences. So it's not just your biology and it's

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Speaker 1: not just your experiences. It's those two interacting together. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And we you know, I remember, especially in school, often

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Speaker 1: being told about the nature v. Nurture argument, you know,

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Speaker 1: most like a Supreme Court Supreme Court case, which one

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Speaker 1: is and it's both, especially in this situation. Um, So

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Speaker 1: think about it this way. Childhood development essentially works like this.

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Speaker 1: In our preteen and teenage years, both girls and boys

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Speaker 1: develop intense social relationships. Especially when we're adolescence, we like

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Speaker 1: to you know, become independent, and we feel everything really intensely. Right.

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Speaker 1: What's going on there is that our prefrontal cortex, is

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Speaker 1: the part of our brain that's in charge of critical thinking, judgment,

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Speaker 1: and deliberation hasn't fully developed. In fact, like even when

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Speaker 1: we're adolescence. You know, some of us like to think

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Speaker 1: of when I was fifteen, I was basically an adult

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Speaker 1: or whatever. I don't know. I don't want to look

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Speaker 1: back that I was an idiot. But uh uh, that's

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Speaker 1: essentially what's going on. Our brains are still developing, so

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Speaker 1: there's lots of room for how they develop, right. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And one of the quotes about this from a researcher

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Speaker 1: looking into it said, it's like they're in a muscle

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Speaker 1: car without breaks. I like that analogy. That's that's what

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Speaker 1: high school felt like for me. That sounds I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's easy to forge it. Just how much is going

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Speaker 1: on in the high school mind. Um, it seems like

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Speaker 1: so high schoolers can seem so alien. Teenagers can see

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Speaker 1: seems so alien, and in a sense they are like

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Speaker 1: they're they're they're thinking and changing, uh, in some very

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Speaker 1: dramatic ways. National Institute of Health Projects scanded over a

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Speaker 1: hundred teen brains as well as some younger individuals and

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Speaker 1: some older ones. And they found that as we grow,

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Speaker 1: our brains undergo just massive reorganization between our twelfth and

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Speaker 1: twenty five year That's crazy to think, like, even up

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Speaker 1: until twenty five, we are still maturing and developing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean and my I look back and I'm like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that that totally totally at least being older than now. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I can definitely look back. I remember being twenty five though,

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Speaker 1: and thinking like I got this under control, totally didn't. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I've seen it described as a slow wave. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: subsequent imaging work has has shown that these the physical changes,

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Speaker 1: they all start in the brain's rear and they moved

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Speaker 1: towards the front from areas close to the brain. Still

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Speaker 1: that that look after older, you know, more basic primal functions, uh.

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Speaker 1: And then move forward through our our ability to process

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Speaker 1: all that stimuli. And then during this period two you see, um,

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Speaker 1: you see this idea that that the teenage brain also

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Speaker 1: is going to be super obsessed with making social connections

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Speaker 1: with other individuals. Um. And I've seen this argued is

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Speaker 1: kind of an evolutionary advantage to where the teen is

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Speaker 1: has evolved to leave um it's family and find a

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Speaker 1: home with new people. And therefore the brain is looking

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Speaker 1: for that example, and it's willing to take more risks

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Speaker 1: in order to carry it out. This brain development is

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Speaker 1: definitely something that I have to wonder if it's more

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Speaker 1: recent for humanity in that like that we're developing up

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Speaker 1: until the age of I mean that somewhat makes sense

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Speaker 1: for us now, and that like we don't in our

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Speaker 1: current culture in America, we don't consider ourselves quote adult

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Speaker 1: until we're eighteen, right, but like uh, responsibilities of children

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Speaker 1: in much earlier ages, even just going back to the

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Speaker 1: medieval age, we're so much earlier. You know, I wonder

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Speaker 1: if over time that there was a gradual progression of

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Speaker 1: getting to this point where the brain was allowed to

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Speaker 1: develop more and more and more as we got older,

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Speaker 1: or you know, you can think of it in terms

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Speaker 1: of something like a butterfly. All the stages that take

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Speaker 1: place in order to reach that point where a butterfly

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Speaker 1: is just around to to breed and do its thing

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Speaker 1: and die. So you could say that really past twenty

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Speaker 1: five or not too much past twenty five is just

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Speaker 1: kind of extra time. Uh, just the you know, the

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Speaker 1: landingstrip everything we got after. That's why after twenty five

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Speaker 1: you're like a village elder. Yeah. Yes, that's scary, isn't it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: But I mean the bottom line is that, yeah, a

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Speaker 1: ton of of of mental development takes place during this

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Speaker 1: time span. And uh and the brain of the child,

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Speaker 1: the brain of the team even know on up in

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Speaker 1: year old, is a different beast than the adult brain. Yeah. Absolutely.

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Speaker 1: So let's get into psychopathy then, specifically in kids, right,

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Speaker 1: So right up front, I want to distinguish like psychopathy

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Speaker 1: and being psychotic are two totally different things. We are

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Speaker 1: talking about psychopathy and psychopaths today, and there's also those

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Speaker 1: are basically the same thing as sociopathy, right, So when

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Speaker 1: these terms are thrown around, it's important to remember that

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Speaker 1: that there's there's a difference here. But so it gets

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Speaker 1: back to what we were talking about earlier. They referred

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Speaker 1: to in some corners as see you kids, right because

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Speaker 1: their callous and unemotional. H they show a little empathy

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Speaker 1: for others or remorse for their own actions, and like

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Speaker 1: you said earlier, they're prone to violence. Yeah. And the

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Speaker 1: c U thing I think is important to when it

429
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:53,479
Speaker 1: comes to labeling, so that in the treatment of these

430
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:56,080
Speaker 1: children who have something other than psychopath to throw around,

431
00:23:56,080 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 1: which is such a loaded, superloaded and it's especially uh,

432
00:24:00,560 --> 00:24:03,919
Speaker 1: you know, just to have to be a parent and

433
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:08,440
Speaker 1: to have that term applied to your kid is terrifying,

434
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:11,000
Speaker 1: not only because of you know, the implications, but also

435
00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:15,439
Speaker 1: because that is a label that is going to determine

436
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:17,959
Speaker 1: the outcome of their life. And I think the research

437
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:20,440
Speaker 1: is showing more and more that psychopathy is it's not

438
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,159
Speaker 1: that that situation where oh, this this child has the

439
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:25,919
Speaker 1: mark and this one present, but rather they're varying levels.

440
00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:29,679
Speaker 1: There's a spectrum upon which vast majority of people are

441
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:31,879
Speaker 1: going to pop up in a lot of ways. I

442
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:34,399
Speaker 1: saw it compared in the literature to both autism and

443
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:39,120
Speaker 1: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and not that there are similar

444
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 1: things going on in the brain, in fact, they're not,

445
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:45,359
Speaker 1: but but that, like you said, there's gradations, uh, and

446
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:48,879
Speaker 1: there's different ways in which that affects the person's ability

447
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:52,840
Speaker 1: to interact with their community, right. Uh. But at the

448
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:56,439
Speaker 1: same time, there are also different and growing ways to

449
00:24:56,960 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 1: treat and uh, not cure necessarily, don't think that's the

450
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:05,040
Speaker 1: right word, but to to help these children grow out

451
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 1: of it, right, So how do they figure that out.

452
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:10,880
Speaker 1: They've got a couple of different tools that are essentially

453
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:14,080
Speaker 1: tests that they give them. One is the Inventory of

454
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:17,399
Speaker 1: Callous Unemotional Traits. I really wish we had access to

455
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:20,880
Speaker 1: one of these, uh we could have taken before the beast,

456
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 1: because I I have to wonder if I where I

457
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 1: would uh score on these. The other is the Child

458
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:30,879
Speaker 1: Psychopathy Scale, and then they use a modified version of

459
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:34,560
Speaker 1: a test for adults. It's called the Antisocial Process Screening Device.

460
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:37,280
Speaker 1: So all these are various, i think written in oral

461
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: tests that essentially tell psychologists, you know, kind of where

462
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:43,639
Speaker 1: on the spectrum these children fall. Now, this is a

463
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 1: crazy statistic right here. A recent estimate by the neuroscientist

464
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 1: Kent Keel placed the national cost of psychopathy this is

465
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:56,440
Speaker 1: in the US at four hundred and sixty billion dollars

466
00:25:56,520 --> 00:26:00,199
Speaker 1: a year. That's ten times the cost of depression. And

467
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:03,480
Speaker 1: the reason why is because in part, psychopaths tend to

468
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 1: be arrested repeatedly, So that leads us to you know,

469
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 1: we're jumping ahead a little bit, but that insinuates that

470
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:12,639
Speaker 1: there's a bit of recidivism that goes on here. So

471
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 1: setting Aside the examples you've seen in movies and whatnot,

472
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 1: here's some actual examples of this kind of behavior one

473
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:25,120
Speaker 1: might encounter with with cu kids. So cows and emotional

474
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:29,639
Speaker 1: children tend to be highly manipulated. Um. And again this

475
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 1: is this is one of those situations where you can

476
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:34,360
Speaker 1: look at any child and you can see levels of manipulation.

477
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,199
Speaker 1: So it's it's easy to get carried away in uh

478
00:26:37,359 --> 00:26:40,720
Speaker 1: in diagnosing the children in your life, trying to get

479
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:43,960
Speaker 1: that cookie right, kind of manipulate a parent into letting

480
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 1: them do this or that. Yeah. And I would imagine

481
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 1: too that there are times, not being a parent myself,

482
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: but I would imagine there are times when you are

483
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:54,199
Speaker 1: a parent that your patients is running thin, and you

484
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:57,680
Speaker 1: might be more prone to just say, wait a minute, yeah,

485
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 1: I gotta get this little psychopath to me a psycho path. Yeah.

486
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:05,199
Speaker 1: So you kids also may lie frequently, uh not, just

487
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 1: to avoid punishment, as all children will. That's important to

488
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 1: distinguish or to just get out of brushing their teeth.

489
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 1: Your kids lie, Yeah, It's like it's like something out

490
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 1: of the wire, like all children lie. Yeah, I mean

491
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:23,439
Speaker 1: the power of discovering the lie, you know, the almost

492
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:26,320
Speaker 1: magical nature of it. You can say a thing and

493
00:27:26,359 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: in doing so kind of make it true. Like that's

494
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:31,360
Speaker 1: big magic, even as an adult and as a kid

495
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 1: all the more. But with see you children, there's going

496
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:36,879
Speaker 1: to be more likelihood that they're just gonna lie for

497
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 1: the sake of line for no reason. Um, you're gonna

498
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 1: see poor impulse control and I should probably just go

499
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:45,399
Speaker 1: ahead drive home. The impulse control is something that that

500
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 1: you see sort of gradually come online as well. Yeah,

501
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:52,680
Speaker 1: it's gonna vary from child the child, but generally speaking,

502
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:55,919
Speaker 1: the younger the child, the less impulse control. Uh. And

503
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 1: then as they can fell up, it's going to improve.

504
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 1: That makes sense. Yeah, by generally by age fifteen, Um,

505
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:06,879
Speaker 1: a an individual taking an impulse control test are going

506
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:10,640
Speaker 1: to be able to do as well um as as

507
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: an adult about of the time. Um, if they're applying

508
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: themselves and you know and thinking about it. Um. But

509
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:22,000
Speaker 1: with with see you kids in particularly poor impulse control, also,

510
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 1: you're gonna see see that they're unrepentant in their behavior.

511
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:28,240
Speaker 1: They're they're not gonna you know, cave and say they're

512
00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:32,679
Speaker 1: sorry about something. And like adult psychopaths, they can seem

513
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 1: to lack humanity for you know, for to an outside observer,

514
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 1: they might they might seem like that Michael Myers kid. Um.

515
00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 1: But of course there's a lot more going on. Yeah. Absolutely,

516
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:46,720
Speaker 1: So I'd like to add here before we go on

517
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:51,200
Speaker 1: that a really great piece that we found for the

518
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 1: literature for this episode was in the New York Times

519
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 1: magazine actually, and it was published in the article is

520
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: called can you Kill Sorry? And you call a nine

521
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 1: year old psychopath? And I posted it to our Facebook

522
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 1: page this week, but you can easily google that if

523
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: you want a really fascinating long form read that this

524
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 1: journalist embedded herself in a family with a child I

525
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 1: can't remember how old he was, but who was diagnosed

526
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 1: as being see you, potentially a psychopath and was actually

527
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 1: attending a I don't know what school isn't the right word.

528
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 1: It was like a center. It was more of a

529
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 1: like a summer camp program, a summer program, it was

530
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:34,479
Speaker 1: kind of it was an offshoot of a program aimed

531
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: at children with autism, and this was in this branch

532
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 1: of the camp was aimed at children see you kids. Um. Yeah,

533
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 1: the piece and we're discussing here is excellent, Uh, and

534
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:49,880
Speaker 1: it really puts a human face on absolutely, it goes,

535
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 1: it goes very in depth into the experiences of this

536
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 1: child's mother and father, uh and and also his siblings

537
00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 1: as well as well as into the data and talking

538
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:04,360
Speaker 1: to psychologists. I just I was very impressed with the

539
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 1: work in there. Yeah. Incidentally that the camp that we're

540
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 1: talking about was held by a Florida International University. Yeah,

541
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 1: And speaking of the heredity of the kid, we kind

542
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: of come back to the nature side of it here

543
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:21,360
Speaker 1: and heredity, the heridability of callous and emotional traits might

544
00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 1: be as high as eight percent and if and from

545
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 1: that piece, what I remember is they spoke to his

546
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 1: father and the father said, Yeah, when I was a kid,

547
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: I also had social issues. I also was unemotional and unresponsive,

548
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 1: but I grew out of it. Yeah. And in the

549
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 1: piece they also quote to produce psychologist Donald Line them

550
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: and he points out that it's no higher than the

551
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 1: Herida heritability for anxiety and depression, and both of those

552
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 1: conditions have large genetic risk factors, but of course we

553
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 1: can we can treat them. And so the idea, the

554
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 1: idea here is that there's there's a lot of a

555
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 1: lot of hope and a lot of data that supports

556
00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 1: the notion that this is treatable as well. This is

557
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: not um, you know, cosmic black mark on an individual

558
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 1: that can't be addressed. Right, absolutely, even though it sounds

559
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:09,400
Speaker 1: like it. Again, I think there's a stigma attached to

560
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 1: the word psychopath, right Um. In fact, I almost think

561
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 1: that it would benefits psychology to come up with a

562
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:21,160
Speaker 1: different term. And maybe that's why they use see you kids.

563
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, definitely, um, because because it doesn't cling

564
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 1: to this kind of outdated notion that you know, that

565
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 1: it can't be treated, that it can't be cured. And

566
00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 1: we're seeing more and more research that shows that yes,

567
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: there are ways there, there are treatments that can work

568
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 1: with adults, even to um to bring some level of

569
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 1: compassion online. Whereas the term psychopath implies culturally, this child

570
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: is evil, nothing will do anything about it. Well, and

571
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:51,239
Speaker 1: so we talked about how it's assessed, but you know,

572
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 1: I threw out those tests earlier. But in fact, there's

573
00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:57,200
Speaker 1: no standard way to just figure this out. Uh. In fact,

574
00:31:57,560 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 1: some psychologists believe that it's a distinct neural logical condition, uh,

575
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: and that you know, maybe we'd be able to identify

576
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 1: it and children as young as five years old. But

577
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: it's difficult, right, especially because their brains are still developing,

578
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 1: and because normal behavior at these ages can sometimes be

579
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:18,840
Speaker 1: misinterpreted as psychopathic. I could totally see that. My my

580
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:22,960
Speaker 1: interactions with under five year olds is limited. But you

581
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: have quite a few. Yeah. Yeah, it's like I say,

582
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 1: there there are days when you think of they're all

583
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 1: complete psychopaths, but really, yeah, they're they're kids sor right.

584
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: While you may have a genetic disposition for these behaviors,

585
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 1: childhood trauma and a lack of connection with other people

586
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 1: helps bring them out. Okay, So this is the nurture

587
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: side of the angle. This is the experiences side of it.

588
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 1: So psychologists try to work on intervention with kids who

589
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 1: have early signs of psychopathy so that they can prevent

590
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 1: those experiences from exacerbating it. So, yeah, we think that

591
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: there's a genetic component that's involved. You're in antisocial personality disorders,

592
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 1: but depending on how we grow up that can either

593
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:09,800
Speaker 1: exaggerate those problems or help us straighten them out. That

594
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 1: that's the terminology that that some people use straighten it out.

595
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:14,560
Speaker 1: I think the idea was that sort of like a

596
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: rubber band right in adults. Real life psychopathy doesn't always

597
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 1: lead to violence either too, so that's important to distinguish.

598
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:27,320
Speaker 1: Some successful members of society would be deemed psychopaths if

599
00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:29,680
Speaker 1: they were assessed by a clinician. In fact, this reminds

600
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:31,719
Speaker 1: me our colleagues that stuff they don't want you to know.

601
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 1: Did a video one time on I believe it was

602
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 1: on corporate CEOs and the psychopathy scale and where they

603
00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 1: would fall on it, and in a lot of times

604
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 1: I believe the thesis of their video, who is that? Yes, uh,

605
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 1: those who tend to be successful also tend to be

606
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 1: to rate as psychopaths. It reminds me of the study

607
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 1: that we were talking about in our episode on the

608
00:33:54,160 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 1: Ignoble Prizes about CEOs who had experienced disastrous natural disasters

609
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 1: where um, where there were fatal incidents and those who

610
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:08,279
Speaker 1: hadn't uh seen those repercussions were more likely to take risk. Yeah,

611
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:11,400
Speaker 1: so you have the idea that the CEO themselves is

612
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:14,560
Speaker 1: a psychopath. The I think, of course, studies would say

613
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 1: that a company as a whole is essentially a psychopath,

614
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:20,400
Speaker 1: and it's it's policies and it's treated as a person

615
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 1: as treated as a person and U. Yeah, And on

616
00:34:23,160 --> 00:34:24,719
Speaker 1: top of that, I feel like that the more you

617
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 1: read about actual psychopathic traits and and and how actual

618
00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:32,759
Speaker 1: sociopaths function, you begin to just see more and more

619
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:37,680
Speaker 1: of them around you in your tailor life. Yeah. Absolutely. Um.

620
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:40,320
Speaker 1: And and here's the thing too, especially if you're a parent.

621
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 1: So some parenting can actually make child psychopathy worse. And

622
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:49,400
Speaker 1: it depends on how you're parenting, right, So, uh, you know,

623
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 1: some psychologists say that by punishing your child for behaving

624
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: violently or callous lee, that actually leads the child to

625
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:58,600
Speaker 1: acting out in even more extreme ways. And in that

626
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 1: New York Times article certainly saw that with the child

627
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:04,400
Speaker 1: that was the case study there. But there's therapies for

628
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: intervention and therapies that can kind of help parents out too, uh,

629
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 1: sometimes starting as young as when the child is two

630
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 1: years old, which kind of blows my mind because I

631
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:17,560
Speaker 1: can't imagine being able to diagnose a two year old

632
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 1: with this. But it is very difficult to identify, not

633
00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:25,439
Speaker 1: just in at risk children, but especially because they haven't

634
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 1: started socializing yet, right, So it's only up until they

635
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 1: start socializing that you're gonna start seeing the callousness and

636
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 1: the unresponsiveness. UM. And also, like as we talked about earlier,

637
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:39,240
Speaker 1: kids with autism or a d h D maybe similarly antisocial,

638
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:42,440
Speaker 1: but that's a whole totally different kind of brain structure.

639
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:45,640
Speaker 1: So there's screening tests, there's the oral and written tests

640
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 1: that we talked about, uh, and they'll help a clinician

641
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 1: identify psychopathy, but there's still a lot of complications involved.

642
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 1: And lastly, I just say that parents who are withdrawn

643
00:35:56,760 --> 00:36:01,040
Speaker 1: or remote are also risking shaping a child shuts down emotionally.

644
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:04,359
Speaker 1: And this is difficult when you think about the hereditary aspect, right,

645
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:11,280
Speaker 1: because if a parent had some unemotional, potentially callous behaviors

646
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 1: in their nature, then it's going to be even more

647
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 1: difficult for them to be interactive and not shut down

648
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 1: emotionally with your children. Right. So it's sort of a

649
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 1: you know, this is a silly term, but it's a

650
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:26,759
Speaker 1: vicious cycle. Yeah. I mean because if the if the

651
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:32,400
Speaker 1: nature is already skewing psychopathic, uh, then the nurture is

652
00:36:32,760 --> 00:36:35,000
Speaker 1: likely going to as well from the parent contributing to

653
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 1: those genes. Yeah. So uh, in the same way that

654
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,880
Speaker 1: punishment can contribute to it. And neglect can also contribute

655
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:46,160
Speaker 1: to it that it can actually impair cortex development. And

656
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:49,719
Speaker 1: this is the stuff that controls the feelings or belonging

657
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:53,880
Speaker 1: an attachment in our brains. And that is a perfect

658
00:36:53,880 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 1: segue into talking about brain anatomy. But first, let's take

659
00:36:57,080 --> 00:37:06,839
Speaker 1: a quick break. We'll be right back. All right, we're back.

660
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 1: So according to m R I scan, psychopaths tend to

661
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:14,719
Speaker 1: have smaller sub genial cortex, five percent reduction in brain

662
00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:18,240
Speaker 1: density and parts of the paralympic system that's where empathy

663
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 1: and social values and moral decision making takes place. And

664
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:26,560
Speaker 1: this includes the orbitofrontal cortex UH and the call date.

665
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:30,480
Speaker 1: These are all critical for reinforcing positive outcomes and discouraging

666
00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:33,280
Speaker 1: negative outcomes. So this gets down to just the basic

667
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:36,920
Speaker 1: uh principles of why do I behave the way that

668
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:40,799
Speaker 1: I behave? What's what's encouraging me to do the right

669
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:43,959
Speaker 1: thing and feel responsible from actions? Yeah, it really made

670
00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 1: me consider, huh, like I wonder what the shape of

671
00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:50,680
Speaker 1: my brain is and how it's contributing to my behaviors

672
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:53,319
Speaker 1: and characteristics and things like that. It's it's not something

673
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:55,279
Speaker 1: that we usually is human beings going to back up

674
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 1: and think about you know, it's difficult to do right

675
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 1: viewed into that whole blind brain idea that the brain

676
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:03,840
Speaker 1: can't really perceive itself and we're trying to two. We

677
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:06,759
Speaker 1: can't stand on the outside of self and look in uh,

678
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:10,360
Speaker 1: so we have this kind of backdoor mirror way of

679
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:16,319
Speaker 1: trying yeah, yeah, which is often distorted. So there's one

680
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:21,160
Speaker 1: really great study that I think contributes to the dialogue

681
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 1: about children with psychopathy, specifically juvenile homicidal offenders and how

682
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: the biology is working here. And this came out in

683
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:36,000
Speaker 1: It was published in NeuroImage Clinical volume four, and the

684
00:38:36,080 --> 00:38:37,880
Speaker 1: article has a ton of authors, so I'm not going

685
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:40,759
Speaker 1: to list them all, but it was called Abnormal Brain

686
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:44,400
Speaker 1: Structure and Youth who commit Homicide. So essentially, this group

687
00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:49,360
Speaker 1: of researchers looked at young incarcerated homicidal offenders uh and

688
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 1: they found that they have reduced gray matter volumes in

689
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:58,120
Speaker 1: their medial and lateral temporal lobes, including the hippocampus and

690
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 1: the posteer insula. And this is relative to compared youth

691
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:07,239
Speaker 1: who are not homicidal offenders. So from this we know

692
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 1: that their brains are shaped differently and they have less

693
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:13,280
Speaker 1: gray matter. That's the essential discovery here. The growing research

694
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:17,080
Speaker 1: indicates that the temporal polls are responsible, that these are

695
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: the areas where there is less gray matter for social

696
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:24,760
Speaker 1: and emotional processing. And this included detecting deception and moral

697
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:28,839
Speaker 1: decision making, as well as inferring the emotional states of others.

698
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 1: So that makes sense in terms of thinking about the

699
00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 1: traits of psychopathy that we talked about earlier. So these

700
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:38,880
Speaker 1: are the regions of your brain that cover critical cognitive

701
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 1: control and emotion. And they cited some other studies here too.

702
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:47,360
Speaker 1: One was that mail youth with conduct disorder had reduced

703
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:51,960
Speaker 1: gray matter in their left amygdala and interior insula compared

704
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:55,920
Speaker 1: to the healthy control subset, and these reductions were related

705
00:39:55,960 --> 00:40:00,120
Speaker 1: to aggressive behaviors. And yet another study adolescent males with

706
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 1: conduct disorder had reduced gray matter in the left orbital

707
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:07,880
Speaker 1: frontal cortex and bilateral temporal lobes, as well as the

708
00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:11,520
Speaker 1: left amygdala and the hippocampus. So all of this together

709
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 1: is kind of saying, all right, they had previously looked

710
00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:18,920
Speaker 1: at boys with conduct disorder. They had looked at, um,

711
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 1: you know what kind of gray matter they were missing,

712
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 1: And they said, well, wait a minute, conduct disorder seems

713
00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:29,360
Speaker 1: to be connected to homicidal incidents with juveniles, Is the

714
00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 1: same thing going on there? And yes it is. It's

715
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:34,239
Speaker 1: less gray matter, it's just in different parts of the

716
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:38,320
Speaker 1: brain essentially. So in this specific study, the way that

717
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: they analyzed the brain structure was they took youth who

718
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 1: committed homicides and they did m R I scans on them,

719
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:47,479
Speaker 1: and they introduced the following variables into their data set.

720
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 1: They added their i Q, their age at the time

721
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:53,319
Speaker 1: of scan, the number of traumatic brain injuries they had

722
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:56,760
Speaker 1: received with a loss of consciousness. They used a test

723
00:40:57,080 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 1: for psychopathy called the Hair Psychopathy Test List, and they

724
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 1: used the quote youth version. I guess there's separate versions

725
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:07,680
Speaker 1: depending on how old you are, whether or not these

726
00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:12,320
Speaker 1: kids had substance dependences, the years of regular substance abuse

727
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:16,320
Speaker 1: that they had, and what their psychiatric diagnoses and violent,

728
00:41:16,440 --> 00:41:20,560
Speaker 1: non violent drug and total other convictions were. So all

729
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 1: of these things combined right now. Like I said, prior

730
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:26,240
Speaker 1: work showed that there was reduced temporal pole gray matter

731
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:29,560
Speaker 1: that was related to psychopathic traits. But the interesting thing

732
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:32,759
Speaker 1: in this particular study is that the homicide group and

733
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:37,760
Speaker 1: the non homicides subsample did not differ in psychopathic traits

734
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:40,439
Speaker 1: per the scores that they took on that test there

735
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 1: that I mentioned earlier, the psychopathy, the hair psychopathy youth version.

736
00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:48,319
Speaker 1: So they, the authors of the studies say there is

737
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:53,319
Speaker 1: no observation that can be made that psychopathy is involved here. Right,

738
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:56,280
Speaker 1: We can't we can't say that. What we can say

739
00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 1: is that juveniles who commit murder have less of the

740
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 1: gray matter. Okay, so yeah, it becomes the increasingly more

741
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:05,720
Speaker 1: difficult to try and say this, this is the brain

742
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:10,800
Speaker 1: of a homicidal young offender. This it's far more complicated

743
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 1: than me. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, uh And but here's the

744
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:16,480
Speaker 1: good news. Other research has shown that our gray matter

745
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:20,720
Speaker 1: is malleable. Right, So one study shows that fifteen minutes

746
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 1: of daily mirror reading for two weeks can increase the

747
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:29,319
Speaker 1: dorsolateral occipital gray matter. That's fascinating to me that just

748
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:32,399
Speaker 1: by doing that you can change the shape of your

749
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 1: brain or the volume of Yeah. So it's possible that

750
00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:39,880
Speaker 1: through cognitive training like this or possibly you know, uh,

751
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:44,920
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical interventions or therapy or other types of behavior modification,

752
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:49,239
Speaker 1: that you can help these kids to develop out of

753
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:53,400
Speaker 1: these behaviors that could potentially lead to them killing someone. Now,

754
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:55,360
Speaker 1: there does seem to be a link between low levels

755
00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:58,960
Speaker 1: of cortisol and below normal function of the amygdala. That's

756
00:42:58,960 --> 00:43:01,640
Speaker 1: the part of our brains the processes fear and shame.

757
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 1: So usually we want to avoid these sensations, and that

758
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:08,480
Speaker 1: plays a big role in our behavioral motivation. So it

759
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 1: gets down at route to just how our brains function

760
00:43:12,640 --> 00:43:14,720
Speaker 1: uh in the in the face of fear and shame,

761
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:17,839
Speaker 1: and how how much of our behavior is aimed at

762
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:23,319
Speaker 1: avoiding those sensations. So when researchers have looked specifically at

763
00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:26,000
Speaker 1: areas of the brain that are associated with fear and empathy,

764
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:30,359
Speaker 1: they found a couple of things. Sheila Hodgkins or Hodgens,

765
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:33,239
Speaker 1: she's a professor of psychology at the University of Montreal.

766
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:36,359
Speaker 1: She conducted experiments. You know, a lot of this comes

767
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:38,799
Speaker 1: down to basically m r I scans uh. And in

768
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:41,840
Speaker 1: this case, she did MRI I scans on adult psychopaths.

769
00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:45,319
Speaker 1: I don't believe that they are homicidal offenders. Uh, And

770
00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 1: she found that even if they're non violent, their brains

771
00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:52,920
Speaker 1: are different. UH. They have abnormal connections between their posterior

772
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:57,319
Speaker 1: singulate and the insular cortex. Similar structures were found in

773
00:43:57,360 --> 00:44:00,880
Speaker 1: preteon preteen boys with callous unemotional dates. So I believe

774
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:04,879
Speaker 1: that that's referring to those other studies before, the one

775
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 1: looking specifically at juvenile homicidal offenders. Um. But these brains are,

776
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:13,280
Speaker 1: like we said, they're malleable, they're highly plastic. Uh, kids

777
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:15,080
Speaker 1: can grow out of these Remember what we were talking

778
00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:17,359
Speaker 1: about earlier. I mean, we're our brains are developing until

779
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:20,520
Speaker 1: we're twenty five years old. Like, this is something we

780
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:23,200
Speaker 1: we can take action. Yeah, it's it's worth remembering that

781
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 1: in a Clockwork Orange, Alex essentially grows out of his

782
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:29,399
Speaker 1: behavior in the Yeah, I think they left that last

783
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 1: chapter out of the movie. But getting so, okay, we're

784
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:34,360
Speaker 1: talking a lot about the brain part here, right, but

785
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:38,120
Speaker 1: let's remember that there's the nurture part as well. So. Uh,

786
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:41,239
Speaker 1: young brains, especially those from zero to three years old,

787
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: are especially vulnerable to hurt. Right, And that's you know,

788
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:48,520
Speaker 1: probably part of why culturally we're so averse to the

789
00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 1: idea of anybody hurting Uh an infant or a toddler, right. Uh,

790
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 1: So children who suffer physical abuse, stress, neglect, or terror

791
00:44:57,600 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 1: can absolutely have changes in their brains. From this, the

792
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:04,520
Speaker 1: flood of stress chemicals resets how the brain is triggered

793
00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:08,920
Speaker 1: during fight or flight situations. Right, So in some cases

794
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 1: they'll be triggered too much, in some cases they won't

795
00:45:11,640 --> 00:45:14,719
Speaker 1: be triggered at all. Uh, it can lead to impulsive aggression.

796
00:45:15,120 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 1: So yeah, not abusive parents can lead to youth violence.

797
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:22,279
Speaker 1: That makes sense, right, especially given like I guess, our

798
00:45:22,280 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 1: world experience. But also remember it's not just abusive parents

799
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 1: doing this. It's also that there's there's something going on

800
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:32,359
Speaker 1: with the brain ahead of time that contributes. And it's

801
00:45:32,360 --> 00:45:34,520
Speaker 1: also worth noting that the conditions that we mentioned there

802
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:39,880
Speaker 1: can often line up, unfortunately with institutionalized care in the

803
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 1: form of orphanages, So that's also a factor to take

804
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 1: into account here. And so you know, on the other

805
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:48,719
Speaker 1: end of that, it could lead to antisocial personalities when

806
00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 1: the brain system of stress has just become totally unresponsive.

807
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:54,440
Speaker 1: So typically these kind of kids, and I think this

808
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 1: is the uh c U type kids, they have low

809
00:45:57,600 --> 00:46:02,320
Speaker 1: heart rates, uh, they have impaired emotional sensitivity. Right. In fact,

810
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:05,920
Speaker 1: Paul Frick, a psychologist at the University of New Orleans,

811
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:09,439
Speaker 1: has studied the risk factors for psychopathy and children for

812
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:14,160
Speaker 1: twenty years. And he described one boy who used a

813
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:17,399
Speaker 1: knife to cut off the tail of their family cat,

814
00:46:17,560 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 1: bit by bit over a period of weeks. This is

815
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:22,560
Speaker 1: from that New York Times article. In fact, the parents

816
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:24,920
Speaker 1: didn't even notice. It took them quite a long time

817
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:27,000
Speaker 1: because it was so small. I don't think the cat

818
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 1: was like, uh, in pain and letting them know, or

819
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 1: bleeding or something like that. Um. But this gets back

820
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 1: to kind of what we insinuated earlier, is that a

821
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 1: common symptom in these traits of see you kids is

822
00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:42,719
Speaker 1: that they will abuse animals. Yeah, and of course it's

823
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:46,040
Speaker 1: important to note to that some level of like if

824
00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:49,000
Speaker 1: your child hits the cat or steps on a bug,

825
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:51,839
Speaker 1: a certain level of this is just a natural way

826
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:56,239
Speaker 1: in which a child figures out how pain works, how

827
00:46:56,400 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: the limits of its body and its powers to impact

828
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:03,280
Speaker 1: it's in environmental surroundings, how all of that functions. So,

829
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:05,200
Speaker 1: so don't freak out if you listen to this and

830
00:47:05,200 --> 00:47:07,839
Speaker 1: then you you catch a child slapping at the cat.

831
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 1: You know out there you can make judgments about a

832
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:13,960
Speaker 1: childhood me. Uh, but I believe I was like maybe

833
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 1: three or four years old, and I took the family

834
00:47:16,120 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 1: cat and put him inside my toy chest and just

835
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:21,320
Speaker 1: closed him in there. I mean it was a big chest.

836
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:24,360
Speaker 1: It wasn't like a tiny thing. But I didn't understand.

837
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:26,080
Speaker 1: I was just like, oh, he goes in here now

838
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 1: with the toys, and uh my, my parents are like,

839
00:47:28,960 --> 00:47:31,759
Speaker 1: where's the cat, and they find the cat in there,

840
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 1: you know, and uh, I just didn't. I didn't get it,

841
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:38,400
Speaker 1: you know. I I would hesitate to say that at

842
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 1: any point I've been callous or unemotional in my life.

843
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:44,960
Speaker 1: That's probably the opposite. Uh See, we've curved a lot

844
00:47:44,960 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 1: of that by just having a largely callous in an

845
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 1: emotional cat. So oh yeah, that's perfect. So she lashes

846
00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:54,040
Speaker 1: out against our sign and then just bats him occasionally.

847
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:58,000
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, that's how my cat treats my dog. But

848
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 1: so okay, to be serious about this, Without unconditional love,

849
00:48:02,400 --> 00:48:06,160
Speaker 1: children can fail to develop the right neural circuits that

850
00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:11,520
Speaker 1: control their capability to feel or form healthy relationships. Uh.

851
00:48:11,560 --> 00:48:15,560
Speaker 1: And in particular, this makes them especially hyper sensitive to

852
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:20,719
Speaker 1: perceived injustice uh and also often accompanied by when they're

853
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 1: feeling powerless as well. So we saw that in the

854
00:48:23,640 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 1: New York Times article. There was a lot of examples

855
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:28,640
Speaker 1: of this with the child Michael that was the case

856
00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:32,040
Speaker 1: study in which he perceived an injustice against himself and

857
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:34,840
Speaker 1: he perceived powerlessness, and so he would lash out against

858
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:37,359
Speaker 1: his siblings or he'd lash out against his parents. Are

859
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,319
Speaker 1: other kids in the program that he was in. Now,

860
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:42,840
Speaker 1: there's some other brain pathologies that can lead to violence

861
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 1: as well. Lesions of the frontal lobe can induce apathy

862
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 1: and distort judgment and emotion. The singulate gyrus that curves

863
00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 1: through the center of the brain is hyperactive in murders

864
00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:56,440
Speaker 1: and it just shifts from one thought to another. When

865
00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:59,719
Speaker 1: it becomes impaired, people get stuck on one thought comes

866
00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 1: in the obsession. The prefrontal cortex is sluggish in murderers

867
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:07,360
Speaker 1: as well, and these damages to the brain can result

868
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:10,440
Speaker 1: from head trauma as well as exposure to toxic substances

869
00:49:10,560 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 1: like like alcohol, even during the gestation. Okay, so I

870
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:16,440
Speaker 1: think that what we've established up to this point is

871
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of evidence that damage to the brain,

872
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:24,440
Speaker 1: however it occurs, can contribute to this, but that also

873
00:49:24,960 --> 00:49:30,279
Speaker 1: experiences in childhood can also contribute not only to your behaviors,

874
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:32,960
Speaker 1: but how your brain is formed. Yeah, the the human

875
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 1: mind is a nature nurture cocktail and a rather complicated

876
00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:39,120
Speaker 1: recipe at that there are a number of things that

877
00:49:39,160 --> 00:49:41,279
Speaker 1: can throw it off whack. And even if it's off whack,

878
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:43,880
Speaker 1: even if the drink recipe is a little different, it

879
00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:45,960
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's not drinkable. That doesn't mean it can

880
00:49:46,200 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 1: fully function within society. So now let's let's get to

881
00:49:50,520 --> 00:49:52,480
Speaker 1: the third part of the question that I wanted to

882
00:49:52,520 --> 00:49:55,399
Speaker 1: answer when we started out on this, which is how

883
00:49:55,600 --> 00:50:00,799
Speaker 1: likely is juvenile homicide recidivism? Right? Remember we were talking

884
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:06,280
Speaker 1: at the beginning about that girl uh In in Britain

885
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:10,080
Speaker 1: who had committed murder as a young child in sixties

886
00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:14,200
Speaker 1: and then was released and was anonymous Mary Bell and

887
00:50:14,680 --> 00:50:17,680
Speaker 1: had a child. In fact, I think she's a grandmother. Now, um,

888
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:20,400
Speaker 1: how how likely is it? You know, in her case

889
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 1: she didn't recede, But what about other children? Well, unfortunately,

890
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:29,160
Speaker 1: this is really hard to predict. In fact, the fourteen

891
00:50:29,320 --> 00:50:32,960
Speaker 1: national report from the National Center for Juvenile Justice in

892
00:50:33,000 --> 00:50:37,560
Speaker 1: the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention says that

893
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:42,000
Speaker 1: there is no national recipivism rate for juveniles. The reason

894
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:45,680
Speaker 1: why is that each state has a very different juvenile

895
00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:51,200
Speaker 1: justice system that differs in organization, administration, and data capacity,

896
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:55,759
Speaker 1: So we can't pull all this data together and make

897
00:50:55,920 --> 00:50:59,440
Speaker 1: national judgments on it, is essentially what they're saying. UH.

898
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:03,239
Speaker 1: And in fact, eleven states in the United States don't

899
00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:07,680
Speaker 1: even report data on juvenile offenders, so it's really difficult

900
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:09,960
Speaker 1: to make any kind of you know, judgment call in

901
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 1: the United States. But what about other countries. Well, there

902
00:51:12,600 --> 00:51:15,960
Speaker 1: is a study out of the Netherlands that indicated that

903
00:51:16,239 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 1: male juvenile homicidal offenders and those in particular that maintain

904
00:51:21,680 --> 00:51:26,279
Speaker 1: relationships with delinquents are at a greater risk for reoffending.

905
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:29,800
Speaker 1: So it is possible. Uh, that is a very different

906
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:34,200
Speaker 1: subsample that's just in the Netherlands, but in that particular study,

907
00:51:34,239 --> 00:51:38,040
Speaker 1: they did find that they're at a high rate for recidivism.

908
00:51:38,080 --> 00:51:39,919
Speaker 1: So another thing that came out of this New York

909
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:43,719
Speaker 1: Times study was a really interesting UH look into a

910
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:48,160
Speaker 1: researcher named Lee Robbins. He was a psychiatry researcher, and

911
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:50,839
Speaker 1: he conducted a series of studies on children who had

912
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:55,000
Speaker 1: behavioral problems and followed them into adulthood. UH, and his

913
00:51:55,040 --> 00:51:59,040
Speaker 1: studies revealed two things. The first was that nearly every

914
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:03,080
Speaker 1: psychopathic a alt was deeply antisocial as a child. The

915
00:52:03,120 --> 00:52:05,719
Speaker 1: second was that almost fifty percent of the children who

916
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:09,799
Speaker 1: scored high on measures of antisocial qualities did not go

917
00:52:09,880 --> 00:52:14,200
Speaker 1: on to become psychopathic adults. So, in other words, they

918
00:52:14,200 --> 00:52:18,879
Speaker 1: were necessary, but not sufficient in predicting who ultimately would

919
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:21,279
Speaker 1: become a violent criminal. So that's good to know. So

920
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:24,440
Speaker 1: these tests don't necessarily indicate if your child and you

921
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:26,719
Speaker 1: score high on them, that you're going to grow up

922
00:52:26,719 --> 00:52:29,279
Speaker 1: and become a violent criminal, right, because growing up is key.

923
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:32,560
Speaker 1: There's still so much growing up, so much development to come.

924
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:35,640
Speaker 1: This is not the finished product, all the experiences. Yeah,

925
00:52:35,719 --> 00:52:38,120
Speaker 1: and even again, like I keep coming back to that

926
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:41,279
Speaker 1: we're maturing. Our brain is maturing until we're twenty five

927
00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:44,840
Speaker 1: years old. That you know, in my experience, that's you

928
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:48,640
Speaker 1: get seven years out of high school where your brain

929
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:52,440
Speaker 1: is still maturing based on whatever experiences you have there. Yeah, totally.

930
00:52:52,440 --> 00:52:54,959
Speaker 1: I mean, just it forces you certainly to to reevaluate

931
00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:58,080
Speaker 1: your own life up till and maybe make you a

932
00:52:58,120 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 1: little more compassionate towards the the teenagers in your midst. Now,

933
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:04,360
Speaker 1: I think I understand why in America you have to

934
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:07,080
Speaker 1: be twenty five before you can rent a car. Oh, yeah,

935
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 1: that would make sense giving only full form your organisms.

936
00:53:12,120 --> 00:53:14,480
Speaker 1: So one of the big questions of course here is

937
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:17,680
Speaker 1: yet what extent is it treatable? So the big hope here,

938
00:53:17,960 --> 00:53:20,759
Speaker 1: and there's some good evidence to back this up, is

939
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:24,400
Speaker 1: that there's still a capacity for empathy uh and it

940
00:53:24,640 --> 00:53:27,440
Speaker 1: controlled by specific parts of the brain. Is still exist

941
00:53:27,640 --> 00:53:30,160
Speaker 1: in a weakened state, and then they can be strengthened,

942
00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:33,480
Speaker 1: especially if we act early enough to we rewire the

943
00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:36,880
Speaker 1: developing brain. And this UM, this brings to mind a

944
00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:39,240
Speaker 1: couple of studies that I've I've looked at in the past.

945
00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:43,040
Speaker 1: There's a two thousand thirteen both were two thousand thirteen studies.

946
00:53:43,040 --> 00:53:45,920
Speaker 1: Actually one was published in Frontiers and Human Neuroscience and

947
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:47,719
Speaker 1: the O there's a study from the Social Brain Lab

948
00:53:47,760 --> 00:53:53,600
Speaker 1: and of the University Medical Center in uh Growningen uh

949
00:53:53,640 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: and these looked at psychopathic inmates adults, UH and it

950
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:03,759
Speaker 1: looked a treatment opportunity. So the one NUTS and front

951
00:54:03,760 --> 00:54:05,840
Speaker 1: Ears and Human Neuroscience that I mentioned, they used f

952
00:54:05,960 --> 00:54:08,480
Speaker 1: m r I scans the brains add twenty one medium

953
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:12,719
Speaker 1: security prison inmates during the viewing of painful visual stimuli

954
00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:15,160
Speaker 1: stub toes, smashed fingers, that sort of thing, you know,

955
00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:17,360
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that makes you go out. The

956
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:20,160
Speaker 1: researchers then asked the stubdies to imagine the pain happening

957
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:23,239
Speaker 1: to themselves as well as to others. The results will.

958
00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:27,879
Speaker 1: When highly psychopathic subjects imagine the pain happening to themselves,

959
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:31,719
Speaker 1: brain regions involved in empathy for pain lit up like

960
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:35,480
Speaker 1: normal in their minds. But when they but when they

961
00:54:35,520 --> 00:54:38,200
Speaker 1: imagine the pain inflicted on others, the same regions failed

962
00:54:38,239 --> 00:54:40,759
Speaker 1: to activate. And this lines up with that with that

963
00:54:40,960 --> 00:54:44,040
Speaker 1: two thirteen study from the Social Brain Lab that they're

964
00:54:44,080 --> 00:54:47,640
Speaker 1: finding suggested that to pay the psychopaths, empathic abilities didn't

965
00:54:47,680 --> 00:54:51,719
Speaker 1: kick in automatically, but could be turned on by conscious will,

966
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:58,359
Speaker 1: by exercise, by repetition. So both of these studies, it's essentially, Yeah,

967
00:54:58,360 --> 00:55:00,160
Speaker 1: it's like it's like a muscle. Think of it is

968
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:03,080
Speaker 1: a muscle that needs to be strengthened as a default

969
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:05,239
Speaker 1: setting that is off rather than on, and there has

970
00:55:05,239 --> 00:55:07,840
Speaker 1: to be a little more conscious will and just requires

971
00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:10,440
Speaker 1: a little training and moments. Yeah. Yeah, they seem to

972
00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:14,080
Speaker 1: suggest that these sort of treatments, these mirror treatments, these

973
00:55:14,120 --> 00:55:16,759
Speaker 1: empathy treatments UH are going to show a lot of

974
00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:21,240
Speaker 1: promise with the individuals of varying ages the equipment there,

975
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 1: it's just a matter of making sure that it's turning on.

976
00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:27,759
Speaker 1: So all right, let's go back to where we started here.

977
00:55:27,880 --> 00:55:31,080
Speaker 1: We had three questions. The first was how likely our

978
00:55:31,160 --> 00:55:34,400
Speaker 1: juvenile homicidal offenders? How likely is it that there's that

979
00:55:34,520 --> 00:55:38,560
Speaker 1: children will kill people? And the answer is not very Yeah,

980
00:55:38,560 --> 00:55:41,320
Speaker 1: it's pretty pretty slim. They're blown out in the media

981
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:46,280
Speaker 1: and in our sort of cultural mythology, but realistically speaking,

982
00:55:46,760 --> 00:55:49,920
Speaker 1: slim chance. Yeah. And then the second question would be, well,

983
00:55:50,640 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 1: why is this happening? Why do they do this? And

984
00:55:53,239 --> 00:55:57,319
Speaker 1: the answer is that it's a very complicated mixture of

985
00:55:57,760 --> 00:56:00,879
Speaker 1: nature and nurture, right, brain act of it, as well

986
00:56:00,920 --> 00:56:05,399
Speaker 1: as their experiences and their interaction with their families and peers. Right.

987
00:56:05,960 --> 00:56:08,319
Speaker 1: And then the third question was, well, how likely is

988
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:11,879
Speaker 1: it that the very small amount of them UH that

989
00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:15,880
Speaker 1: do commit these crimes will recede if they're released from jail,

990
00:56:16,160 --> 00:56:19,680
Speaker 1: And the answer is that we don't know, Like maybe

991
00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:22,719
Speaker 1: the Netherlands, it seems to be the case that they might,

992
00:56:23,320 --> 00:56:26,359
Speaker 1: but u S data is all over the place, So

993
00:56:27,040 --> 00:56:29,120
Speaker 1: as of right, now, it's it's really hard to pinpoint

994
00:56:29,160 --> 00:56:31,680
Speaker 1: an answer on that one. They're just so many factors involved,

995
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:34,840
Speaker 1: and with each individual, it's not like the psychopath is

996
00:56:34,880 --> 00:56:37,399
Speaker 1: like a one clone of another. They're just oh, those

997
00:56:37,400 --> 00:56:40,600
Speaker 1: are psychopathic organisms. There. No, it's it's it's it's a

998
00:56:40,680 --> 00:56:44,880
Speaker 1: far more complex neurological condition. But so the good news though, is,

999
00:56:45,040 --> 00:56:47,760
Speaker 1: like what we were talking about just now and earlier,

1000
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:52,400
Speaker 1: the brain is malleable, that our behaviors can be formed

1001
00:56:52,480 --> 00:56:56,120
Speaker 1: and we can learn to better interact with other human beings.

1002
00:56:56,400 --> 00:56:59,760
Speaker 1: You know, it's a it's a taught thing, and and

1003
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:03,880
Speaker 1: and and the actual activity of doing that sort of

1004
00:57:03,960 --> 00:57:08,800
Speaker 1: rewires and reshapes things so that it's easier to do. Alright.

1005
00:57:08,800 --> 00:57:13,000
Speaker 1: So there you have it, Um, the psychopathic child, the

1006
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:16,520
Speaker 1: the homicidal child, the callous and emotional child, uh, A

1007
00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:21,240
Speaker 1: reasonably deep dive into what's going on inside their minds

1008
00:57:21,280 --> 00:57:24,120
Speaker 1: as far as we can tell, um, and what can

1009
00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:26,479
Speaker 1: be done to to cope with it. So I guess

1010
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:30,240
Speaker 1: the answer to my initial question is of is Michael

1011
00:57:30,280 --> 00:57:34,880
Speaker 1: Myers possible? Is yes, but not likely. Yeah, sure it

1012
00:57:34,960 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 1: could happen, but it's very unlikely. Now I know, we

1013
00:57:37,720 --> 00:57:39,280
Speaker 1: have a lot of listeners out there with something to

1014
00:57:39,320 --> 00:57:41,520
Speaker 1: share about this. We've all had childhood's the number of

1015
00:57:41,520 --> 00:57:43,720
Speaker 1: people out there have children as well in their life.

1016
00:57:44,120 --> 00:57:47,320
Speaker 1: Uh so then we may even have some some listeners

1017
00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:51,600
Speaker 1: who themselves have caluson emotional traits or have children with

1018
00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:54,000
Speaker 1: cawuson emotional traits. And we would love to hear from you.

1019
00:57:54,320 --> 00:57:57,960
Speaker 1: And certainly if you want your name to remain anonymous,

1020
00:57:58,040 --> 00:58:00,720
Speaker 1: just make a note of that and absolutely always respect

1021
00:58:00,720 --> 00:58:03,720
Speaker 1: with that. Uh. How to get in touch with us, well,

1022
00:58:03,800 --> 00:58:05,280
Speaker 1: you can always go to stuff to Blow your Mind

1023
00:58:05,280 --> 00:58:08,800
Speaker 1: dot com. That's where you'll find all of the podcast episodes.

1024
00:58:08,840 --> 00:58:12,200
Speaker 1: That's where you'll find blog post videos. Most important like

1025
00:58:12,240 --> 00:58:15,120
Speaker 1: links out to our social media accounts such as Facebook

1026
00:58:15,440 --> 00:58:17,520
Speaker 1: where We'll blow the Mind. Twitter, We'll blow the mind

1027
00:58:17,520 --> 00:58:20,000
Speaker 1: there as well Tumbler We're stuff to Blow your Mind.

1028
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:23,960
Speaker 1: All those pages have some way to interact with us

1029
00:58:23,960 --> 00:58:26,840
Speaker 1: as send us questions. Yeah, and if you want to

1030
00:58:26,880 --> 00:58:29,920
Speaker 1: just write us directly and have us read your mail

1031
00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 1: potentially in a listener mail episode or just respond to privately,

1032
00:58:34,560 --> 00:58:36,200
Speaker 1: we'd love to do that too. And you can always

1033
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:38,680
Speaker 1: reach us at blow the Mind at how stuff works

1034
00:58:38,720 --> 00:58:50,920
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

1035
00:58:51,160 --> 00:59:07,840
Speaker 1: Is that how stuff works? Dot com man fo