WEBVTT - The Bad Seed 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:13.520 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:16.120 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:18.880 And today we're talking about bad kids, but not just 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:23.280 bad kids. That this idea of the evil child or 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.680 the psychopathic child. To use the French the enfante teri 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.320 blay right, which comes from the title of the gene 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.040 cock to the novel that's en fonts Terry blows from. 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:36.360 It's a trope that we see again and again in fiction. 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:39.680 Just to name a few, There's Damien from the Omen 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.400 bad Kid, not really his fault. He's the anti Christ, right, 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:45.080 it can't be helped. They are the kids from the 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:47.280 Village of the Damned. I seem to remember they were 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:50.640 aliens or something. Spoilers all around here. Sorry, there's the 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:54.560 bad Seed personal favorite. As a little about this one. Okay, 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:56.760 so this is I guess maybe did start as the 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:59.200 stage play, but I have seen the movie and it 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:03.080 is set up stage play, and it's very kitchy, and 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:05.319 it centers around this little girl. I don't know, maybe 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:07.280 she's seven years old. I don't remember the details. I 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:11.080 can't remember her name. But she's terrifying because here is 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:14.360 this little blonde, perky girl with long braids. You know, 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:17.560 she's got the checked dress on and kind of like 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.760 a dream child. The dream child. Yeah, I mean she 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:23.800 talks to adults and she smiles and she's so sweet. 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:25.880 But then you began to see that this child is 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:30.960 like cold and calculating, and she wants some of their 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:35.399 kids pin like the pen lapel pin, and she murders 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:38.120 for it. It is very convincing, even though it's you know, 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:40.200 at the time, it's very kitchy. But what I think 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.240 it's fascinating about that movie is that it definitely captures 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.160 an era in which society was starting to look more 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:48.040 inward and really looking at the dark side of the 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:51.160 human nature. You've got the Betty Page going on. You 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.000 begin to see more images of what people are thinking 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:59.480 about that's not some nineteen fifties. Yeah, you know, the 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:02.880 shades of Santa Masochism coming out, or at least people 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.600 beginning to say like, well, this is an interesting part 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:09.000 of our experience or what we're thinking anyway, there's this 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.960 sort of delving into the human mind, into the psyche, 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:15.360 and all of a sudden, people start to consider children 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:19.280 as not necessarily these innocent butterflies of our human nature, 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:23.600 but possibly you know, containing the seeds of well, in 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.880 this case, the bad seed of psychopathy. Yeah, and this 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:29.640 idea too, that the child is the seed of a 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:31.880 bad person to come, that all the things that are 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.280 immoral are corrupt in the eventual adult, are present in 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.040 the child. Other examples from fiction that are kind of fun. 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:41.160 There's the good Son I believe that was Macaulay Culkin. Yes, psychopath. 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:43.919 There's The Ring where the character in the ring video 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:46.800 is a ghost of a rather troubled child. There's Peter 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:50.040 Wiggan and orson Scott Cards Game, who likes to torture 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:53.000 animals to death and physically and mentally torment his siblings 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:55.360 highly recommended his game. By the way, if you haven't 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:57.760 read that, Ray Bradberry had a couple of short stories 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:02.000 Small Assassin personifies concept I've read. If we look to 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:04.440 Harry Potter, there's good old Tom Riddle and pretty much 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:07.720 most of the Slytherin Gang. I guess, yeah, varying shades 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.480 of bad seededness. In the doone universe, there's Aaliyah and 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.520 Stephen King's The Dark Tower series there's Mordred at least 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:16.440 early on when you've seen as a kid, and then 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:19.280 on Family Guy, they're Stewiet Griffin, kind of a comedic 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:22.160 take on the idea of the nefarious, uber intelligent and 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:25.600 uber manipulative youngster. You forgot the Full House twins? Oh yes, 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:29.480 those girls that grew up to be actresses right right, right? 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:32.400 Or actually they just billionaires, that's where they grew up 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:34.840 to be. We want to look into this idea, this 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.880 idea of nature versus nurture, about whether or not this 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:41.440 is something that's hardwired in individuals. And this came to 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.320 our attention recently because we read an article from New 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:47.000 York Times called Can You Call a nine year old 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:51.000 a Psychopath? Yeah? By Jennifer con Nice, long in depth 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:53.200 article excellent reading. Will include a link to it in 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:55.760 the blog post that accompanies this podcast, and it raised 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.119 a lot of questions, like I saw spinoff blog post 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.800 spinoff stories about this in other in US because it 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:04.040 really examines the idea, is it possible that a child 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.880 that has various emotional and behavioral problems is in fact 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:10.600 not just an eventual psychopath, that they already have the 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.200 psychopathic qualities, right, and we'll talk about that a little 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:15.680 bit more and why that's actually problematic to even ask 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:20.040 the question. But let's discuss psychopathy and the fact that 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.480 on some level we are all psychopaths. Right, not all 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:26.240 the time, because that would actually make us true psychopath 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:28.360 but all of us are guilty of lying at one 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:31.640 time or another, or manipulating someone, or feeling a lack 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:34.760 of empathy in a situation. But these are usually fleeting 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.680 moments for most of us. It's not a constant state. Well, 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.080 the more you look at psychopathy, it it kind of 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:43.039 feels like like we're on a board game. Like society 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.120 is this board game, and they are rules, they're hard 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:48.680 and fast rules about what you can do, and then 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.039 there's this layer of honor code on top of it. 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.560 There's very much in tune with what we're ethically capable 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.240 of doing and willing to do. And so to a 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:02.479 certain extent, psychopathic sociopathic individuals are just sort of free 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.160 of this top level of honor system, right right, Like 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:07.479 they're free of the constraints in a way, you know, 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:10.560 in a certain way, they are more free in society 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.039 to exploit the lower level of rules and ignore the 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.960 higher honor system level of rules. Well, that's what happens, right, 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:20.359 if you don't react to shame, if you're not interested 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:24.240 in how someone perceives you, if you don't have any empathy. Yeah, 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:28.160 no impulse control, No impulse control, although you can still 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:31.479 be calculating and have a measure of impulse control if 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:34.040 if the reward is there, you just don't care about 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:36.600 getting caught. Yeah, right, that's what you're saying. That's the 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:39.000 sort of alternate game here. Like to put this in 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:41.479 like twinkie terms, you would have no shame about eating 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.880 six twinkies. Yeah, there would be no impulse control to 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:47.400 kick in and say I shouldn't eat six twinkies. You 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:50.160 would lie to get that fifth and six twinkie. You 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:52.559 would steal the fifth and six twinkie from a friend, 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.240 a co worker I supposed loved one, and then if 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:57.640 confronted about it, you'd be like, yeah, I ate six twinkies, 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.000 what are wow? So all we need really is such 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.800 twin commater to see where we fall on this spectrum. 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:04.840 You would charm somebody for the twinkie. You would kill 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:06.839 for a twinkie because you're a getting removed from that 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:11.400 top layer of rules concerning twinkie acquisition. All right, Okay, 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:13.719 I think this this has legs that we need to 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.799 explore later. But let's talk a little bit more about 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:20.919 the cost of psychopathy. Recent estimate by the neuroscientists can't 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.919 keep placed the national costs of psychopathy at four hundred 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.880 and sixty billion dollars a year. It's about ten times 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.840 the cost of depression. And in part that is because 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:33.400 psychopaths tend to be arrested repeatedly. Again, lack of shame, 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:37.720 lack of concern for getting caught. These tend to be 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:40.920 elements that land people into jail, right, Yeah, because it 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.280 comes down to there are things I want in life. 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:46.840 I don't feel held back from doing what I need 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.719 to do to get them, and then confronted by it. Yeah, 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.080 I did this, so I did this horrible thing. Also, 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:55.520 it's worth pointing out psychopaths for estimated to make up 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:59.240 one percent of the population the general population general population 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:04.279 going to prison, however, the offenders, and that's a disproportionate 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:08.880 the number of the brutal crimes and violent offenses and murders. Yeah, 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.960 and let's unpack the definition of this. Broadly speaking, there 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:15.360 are people who use manipulation, violence, and intimidation to control 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:19.200 others and satisfy selfish needs. They can be intelligent and 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:23.760 highly charismatic narcissistic, but they display a chronic inability to 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:26.880 feel guilt, as we said, remorse or anxiety, and this 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:29.880 is important anxiety. We'll talk about that about their actions. 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:32.760 And as a result, they tend to why much of 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.280 the time and sometimes for no reason at all. Yeah, 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:37.640 I mean, it's not like all psychopaths are gonna be murders, 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:39.640 and many of them are going to lead train wrecked, 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:43.120 self absorbed lives. Or they may be in the financial 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.400 world exactly. There may be in a in a world 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.400 where all of the things that are quote unquote wrong 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.200 with them line up perfectly with the values of that 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.040 given institution, right well, And there are some people who 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:56.520 say that Bernie made Off, for example, is a good 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.600 example of someone who is a psychopath just kind of 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:03.160 cruising around in the financial world, certainly building people o 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.680 their money, not feeling any shame. And it made me 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:09.400 think about this documentary called The Corporation, and it talks about, well, 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:11.440 if you were to take a corporation and run it 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:15.160 through as a person through a battery and our personality 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.520 according to them. According to the law, if you're to 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:22.400 run them through a battery personality test, a corporation will 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:27.280 come out as a just steal cold psychopath. There's no if, 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:29.720 ands or buts about it. So it is interesting to 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:33.200 know that there are some psychopathic personalities that do gravitate 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:35.040 toward the financial world. That is not to say that 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:37.480 people in the financial world, which is a vast widespread 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:40.480 that everybody in it is a psychopath. That's far from 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:42.640 what we're saying. We're just saying that, you know, it 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:44.920 does line up a bit. Yeah, the quick aside, You know, 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:46.480 we should really come back and do an episode on 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:48.800 personhood at some point. There are number of different areas 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:50.840 to explore there. So let us know if you're interested 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.120 in that, Let's look at the brain. Let's look at 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:56.160 the brain and psychopathy. What exactly do we think is 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.439 going on in the mind that causes this rule breaking 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:02.679 system of behavior to surface. Well, if we look at 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:05.240 m r I scans on the brain and brains of 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:10.079 adult psychopaths, we can see significant anatomical differences in certain areas. 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:14.520 For instance, there's a smaller subgenual cortex and a five 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:18.280 to ten percent reduction in brain density in portions of 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:22.200 the paralympics system. These are regions of the brain associated 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.760 with empathy and social values. So again very much that 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:28.720 top level of honor system rules. Yeah, and really those 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:31.040 are the parts that are active in moral decision making. 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:34.880 According to James Blair, a cognitive neuroscientists at the National 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.880 Institute of Mental Health, two of these areas, the orbitofrontal 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.920 cortex and the caudate are critical for reinforcing positive outcomes 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:46.920 and discouraging negative ones and callous, unemotional children. And we'll 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.400 talk about this, that's the term for what you would 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.280 maybe say pre psychopathic children. Blair says that connection may 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:57.000 be defective, with negative feedback not registering the way that 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:58.920 it would in a normal brain. And that's an interesting 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.320 way to look at this. You know, the operating system 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:04.280 is a bit off. Researchers have also linked coblad behaviors 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:08.080 to low levels of cortisol and below normal functionings of 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:10.600 the amigola. Always talked about the amigola before. This is 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:13.160 a portion of the brain that processes fear and other 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:17.120 aversive social emotions such as shame. We discussed there's a 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:20.640 lack of shame six no shame, right, And we know 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:24.080 that cortisol is there are hormone that is related to stress, right, 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:26.480 So if you're fearful of something, if you have anxiety, 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.080 of course your cortisol levels would shoot up. And that 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.040 is what I think is so interesting about this is 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:34.200 that these are below level, these kids and adults who 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:39.480 will kids that maybe I should say psychopaths or pre psychopaths, 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:43.880 and adults that have the profile, they actually have sort 0:10:43.880 --> 0:10:47.760 of insensitivity to this anxiety. There is one study that 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.640 compared the criminal records of twenty three year olds with 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:54.800 their sensitivity to unpleasant stimula at age three. And that study, 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:56.680 the three year olds were played a simple tone and 0:10:56.679 --> 0:11:00.320 then exposed to a brief blast of unpleasant white noise. 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.400 And though all the children developed the ability to anticipate 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:05.960 this going on um, most of the toddlers who went 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.640 on to become criminals as adults didn't show the same 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.000 signs of a version. And we're talking about tensing or 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:14.600 sweating when the advanced tone was played. So again here's 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:18.800 this idea that it's physiological, that it is something in 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.839 the brain that's just not processing fear, and in fact, 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:24.720 we know too that in psychopath that it's harder for 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:28.079 them to recognize fear and others as well. So there 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.520 also is this idea that psychopathy might be a learning disability, 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:34.640 which again is a different way to come at this subject, 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:36.160 and I think it's really interesting to come in it 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.439 this way because the consensus really is is that there's 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:43.240 no treatment for psychopathy. Right, it's a dead end road. 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:47.800 There's nothing that someone can do, behavioral or pharmaceutical, and 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.960 that's really depressing, right. But Joseph Newman believes that it 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:54.760 is a type of learning disability or informational processing deficit 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.960 that makes individuals oblivious to the implications of their actions, 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.199 but just when their focus on task that promised instant reward. 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:05.680 So what we're saying here is that when there isn't 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:09.439 that instant reward, they can sometimes engage in empathy or 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:11.920 have a little bit more of an understanding of the situation. 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:14.880 But if there is that instant reward, all bets are off. 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:18.360 In a study he repeated in different prison populations, Newman 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:22.400 observed how quickly psychopathic and non psychopathic individuals responded to 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.760 a series of mislabeled images. So he'd have a drawing 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:27.800 of a pig with a word dog on it super 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:30.880 imposed on it, and then researchers would flash each image 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:33.120 and then they would time how long it took for 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:36.800 subjects to name what they saw. So the really interesting 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:40.719 thing here is that non psychopathic subjects subconsciously stumbled on 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:44.480 the mislabeled images and they took longer to name the images. 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:48.480 But the psychopathic subdors barely noticed. The discrepancy wasn't important 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:53.000 to them, and they consistently answered more quickly. So what's 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.360 really cool about this cool interesting about the study is 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.880 that it doesn't have anything to do with fear or anxiety, 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:00.600 and this is what people have been for gusing on 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.320 in the past. So the idea is that it supports 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:07.800 this notion that a psychological deficit could be at play, 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.319 and this is what Newman says. He says, people think 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:12.760 psychopaths are just callous and without fear, but there is 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:17.040 definitely something more going on. When emotions are their primary focus, 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:20.720 we see that psychopathic individuals show a normal emotional response, 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.559 but when they're focused on something else, they become insensitive 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.240 to emotions entirely. So a lot of it is just 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:30.520 what happens to be their focus. So again there's this 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:32.520 idea that you could get in, you could intervene, you 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:35.240 could change the hard wiring, especially if you get in 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:37.600 there early enough. So we're gonna take a quick break, 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:39.160 and when we come back, we're going to really get 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.080 into the idea of callous and unemotional children and the 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:46.200 idea that we could potentially find psychopaths while their children 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:48.640 and actually do something about it while their minds are 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:55.280 still forming. All Right, we're back. One thing that my 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:56.920 mind kept coming back to is we were looking at 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.360 this podcast was the show Madness, which I know you've 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:01.880 seen a few episo as of um and I remained 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:05.320 pretty current on it. Great television show, very deep, very 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:08.960 into its characters. But the producer, Michael Winer has said 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.440 in a few different interviews that his approach to the 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.280 children on the show, the child characters on the show, 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:18.200 is to approach them as creatures capable of the full 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:21.400 range of human emotion. Their children. Yes, But and even 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:24.760 if they're treated as this kind of second class creature, 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:28.640 this unfinished person, uh, they're they're still there are things 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:30.880 in life. They want their things in life. They're afraid 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:33.400 of that. They're anxious about that, they're scared of that, 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:36.360 they're trying to figure out, and so they're processing this 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.320 adult world around them. They're trying to understand it, but 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.080 they don't necessarily have all the tools, um all the 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.320 emotional tools to deal with it that adults have. So 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.320 I think it's important to really go into any examination 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.880 of how children are thinking with that in mind, that 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:53.000 there is a lot going on and and a lot 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.440 more going on than just the surface level of childhood simplicity. 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:58.360 It's easy to look back on our childhoods and just 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.160 see it in the simple terms. Well, and a lot 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.440 of child psychologists will say to that. The reason why 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.640 it's so important to have a strong foundation for a 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:10.960 child is that by age five, a lot of the 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.480 way that they perceive the world and understand the world 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.480 is already established really strongly. And it makes sense because 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:19.400 just as you said, like you know, all that stimula 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:21.120 is still going to bombard them, they're still going to 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:23.600 have all the same abilities that the adults do in 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.240 terms of Okay, I perceive this, I see this, but 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.520 not a context and not the tools for it. So 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.120 that is really why there is this level of flexibility 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:38.040 to change your destiny right before this age five, and 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:42.600 why it is so important that we create these positive blueprints. 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.760 And that's why repetition is so important at that age too. 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:48.800 And I see that in my own daughter. She's constantly 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.040 playing out all these different scenarios because she's trying to 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.480 get a hold on what reality is. So what happens 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:57.880 when you have a kid and the idea hears that 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:00.560 callous unemotional children again, this is the term for what 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.520 you could say is pre psychopath that you can actually 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.480 sort of identify them as young as five years old 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:09.840 right now. One of the problems with any of this 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:13.160 identification is of course that again children are capable of 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.560 all these human emotions. They are very complex individuals. It 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:19.080 is very easy to diagnose some of their actions as 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:23.240 psychotic or psychopathic because they are going to have issues 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.840 with anger and issues with testing their boundaries, and a 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.640 lot of this just falls under the normal parameters of 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:31.320 what it is to be a child. So you get 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:33.480 into questions were like, all right, is this child truly 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:37.800 a psychopath? I mean, are these actual callous unemotional traits 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:40.840 in this child or are they simply lashing out an 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.720 acceptable fashion? For instance, when you act out as a 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:45.920 child and you're getting a rise out of people say 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:49.640 you're angering your mom or your dad. You're exercising a 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:52.720 certain amount of control in a universe that you may 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:56.119 not feel that in control of. Again, it's a repetition 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:57.560 to what if I do this over and over again, 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.200 what's going to happen? It's testing the boundaries and you right, 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:02.240 this like some of this is such a great area 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:06.280 because kids are naturally narcissists and impulsive, So you can't 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:08.080 look at a kid and say, oh, that's a psychopath 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:10.120 right there. Yeah, but I mean up to a certain age, 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.119 children are not really capable of empathy. They would fail 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:17.800 that Blade Runner Android tests New play Runner coming out, 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:19.919 by the way, really I just read that the other 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.520 really Scott miss thinking about it anyway, Well, let's see 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:26.520 how Prometheist does first. Yeah, Okay, here's the deal. There 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.439 is no standard test for psychopathy and children, which probably 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:32.080 isn't a surprise because this isn't really all that well 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:35.000 studied and hasn't been studied long enough as well, because 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:36.640 with any of these topics, you need to be able 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:39.199 to look at a child's development over time or an 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:43.880 individuals development over time, to actually accurately evaluate what's happening. 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.720 But the psychologist do think it is a distinct neurological condition. 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.760 The psychologist Dan Washbush, He's is the person in the article. 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:54.840 Actually that's the main focus here. In terms of treatment. 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:58.320 He uses a combination of psychological exams and teacher and 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:02.439 family rating scales, including the Inventory of callous unimentional traits, 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.960 the Child Psychopathy Scale, and a modified version of the 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.439 Antisocial Process Screening Device. And these are all tools that 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:14.080 are designed to measure the cold predatory conduct most closely 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.439 associated with adult psychopathy. That is from the article that 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:19.320 we talked about. And a lot of this is measuring 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:21.159 some of these things we discussed earlier, for instance, so 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.240 what extent are they manipulating people? And again you look 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.360 at children, manipulation is part of it. It's testing, it's 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:30.560 testing boundaries. And in some cases, take children who have 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:33.960 spent any time in institutionalized care in an orphanage. There 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:37.439 in a situation where you're having to employ survival tactics 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:40.080 in this environment because you're dealing with in many cases 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:43.520 with a certain amount of stimuli deprivation, be that emotional 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:48.480 deprivation or sensory deprivation. So one may act out either 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.200 in a manipulative fashion, so in a charming fashion and 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:54.240 overly charming fashion to get some sort of an adult attention, 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:58.800 or may act out in an adverse way because negative 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:02.080 attention is still preferred. You no attention. It's endlessly complex. 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.359 When you start looking at the behaviors of children in 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:07.120 the formation of the childhood mind, you're absolutely right because, 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:08.879 as you said, if you're in a situation you're a 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.040 child and you don't, like say, an orphanage, and you 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:14.320 don't ever have a deep connection with an adult that 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:16.280 you can trust, that you feel like you can trust, 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:18.680 then that's something to see if narcissism. Right there, we 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:20.520 already know that. We know that if kids don't make 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:23.720 that connection, they start to turn inward, and that's really 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.360 what happens with budding narcissists. That's different from a psychopath, right, 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:29.560 So again it muddies the waters. How do you really 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:33.440 determine whether or not a child is pretty psychopathic. Let's 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:35.960 have a couple of examples of what we're talking about, 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:39.520 and these are both from that article, and the first 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.840 one is talking about this woman Anne and her husband 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:46.560 and their child, Michael and he is nine years old now, 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:49.840 but at age five she began to see a very like, cold, 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.600 calculating part of his personality emerge. And this is a 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:56.600 good example. She says that she recalled one argument over 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:59.879 homework assignment when her son, Michael, shrieked and wept a 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.000 she tried to reason with him. Quote, I said, Michael, 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:05.760 remember the brainstorming we did yesterday. All you have to 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:07.719 do is take your thoughts from that and turn them 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:11.160 into sences and you're done. He's still screaming bloody murder. 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:13.080 So I say, Michael, I thought he brings from this 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:15.680 so we could avoid all this drama today. He stopped 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.000 dead in the middle of screaming, turned to me and said, 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:20.720 in this flat adult voice, Well, you didn't think that 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:24.840 through very clearly than did you. Okay, that's creepy, right, Well, 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.400 I mean, but how many times has your child said 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:30.200 something creepy? I mean, well inadvertently, But she's never turned 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:32.840 to me said, mother, did you really think I'd eat 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:36.080 the cream corn? You really think that through? I mean, 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:38.359 you know, there's there's and I think what she's saying 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:42.560 is that here's this child screaming completely out of control, 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.640