Components of Psychopathy Essay

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by abnormal social behavior expressed through violence, aggressiveness, and lack of empathy and often criminal behavior. Individuals who exhibit these characteristics and others are referred to as psychopaths. Psychopathy can either be intrinsic meaning that it is transmitted through genetic composition or it can be adopted during the upbringing and adaptation by the environment. Among the universal adapters is subjection to torture and abuse during childhood making children adopt aggressiveness towards other people and objects in their environment. Although a majority of the world population have psychopathy traits, it does not make them psychopaths. Other reasons may include withdrawal from family during childhood and lack of parental guidance and substance abuse by parents or the children themselves. Psychopaths exhibit a combination of many abnormal behaviors that make them distinct from other people.

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One of the observable characteristics of psychopaths is that they have few or no emotions. By this it means that they do not feel happy or sad about anything, they act without empathy and not regret their actions. Due to lack of emotions, psychopaths do not form deep relationships, neither do they invest their emotions on anything or anybody unless it is for their benefit. People regard them as cold-hearted or heartless because they are sometimes and most often a threat to the people they live with. Lack of emotions explains why psychopathic criminals such as killers can keep up with their character and still fit in the society (Hare, 2003). They do not feel regret, and therefore they can kill and a short while afterward they resume their normal activities. If one has not witnessed the scene of the crime, it is hard to believe that the person has committed misconduct because unlike in ordinary persons, it is hard to see it in their eyes.

Psychopaths exhibit very shallow emotions to benefit themselves. For example, they can make friendships when they want to gather information about someone which will help them turn against that same person. For instance, a psychopath can become close to someone of their target and walk around with them for some time so that they can know where to get them quickly. Psychopaths have a careless and disorderly sexual behavior often referred to as promiscuous. Those in marriage are known to have multiple partners who they are not emotionally attached. They can easily infect other people with genital and general infections knowingly because of their callous attitudes. They are not concerned about what their partners feel; they are only concerned with their sexual gratification (Babiak & Hare, 2006). They turn off immediately their needs are gratified without really considering the next person. Psychopaths are known for being poor in the family keep. Their marriages break so often because they do not provide the much-needed attention for family upkeep. Most of them cannot cater to the financial needs of their families. They do not recognize the need for their presence in the family and the impact of their absence. They are also very violent which makes them abuse their partners and children. All these factors combined make their marriages break so often.

Psychopaths have a way to conceal their personality from the general public. They are very cunning, and they are known for lying in almost all their actions. They rarely tell the truth, and therefore it is hard for people to know what happens behind the scenes. Even when they are seen performing the acts, they will not readily accept that they did it. These people always point at others without enough evidence and claim that they are the ones who have made the mistakes. This portrays the callousness and self-centeredness in them because they don't mind if other people are punished for their mistakes, as long as they remain free (Babiak & Hare, 2006). They are never ready to take responsibility for their errors, and it is probably the reason they do not accept them. If they are punished for an offense they have committed, they always look for a way to revenge and get back whatever they have lost for example, through court fines. Ability to hide their real selves from the world makes them more dangerous because they can commit very many crimes and remain hidden. The society may take a long time identifying them and punishing them. By the time they are being discovered, they have already committed very many crimes.

Psychopaths also have a parasitic lifestyle whereby they want to use other people and feed on them. This is successfully done through the utility of the fake and short-lived emotions that they develop (Hare, 2003). Due to this character, they are often referred to as self-centered and egocentric. They are very knowledgeable, and they utilize their knowledge to slowly but steadily use other people's resources. They have short-term goals and therefore do not mind about breaking relationships after they are done with one person. They also do not care much about the repercussions of their actions because they do not see beyond the act itself. Most of their plans are unrealistic because they end as soon as they start.

They view the world as a personal item that can be manipulated at will. They do not regard with any respect the societal norms and the standards that the society has put in place. Their glib understanding makes them fearless about the rules and the consequences of breaking them (Babiak & Hare, 2006). Psychopaths always repeat their mistakes over and over again because they do not feel the impact of punishments, or because they have a way to revenge for their losses. To them, this is a proof of smartness.

In childhood, most psychopaths exhibit violent characteristics towards animals and the people surrounding them. They are hostile, and they go beating animals off their paths. To them, animal life does not matter, and they do not even feel guilty about killing or hurting them. In schools, the children are bullies and are always having cases which after they are resolved, they perform the mistake again to revenge, or they do a more severe one. At home, psychopathic kids want to rule over everyone else because they feel like they matter than everyone and they should be catered for before the needs of the rest (Babiak & Hare, 2006). These kids lie about everything even when it is not necessary to do it. They argue a lot to defend themselves and to prove that they are good kids who cannot harm others even when they do. Unfortunately, these people do not bully fellow psychopaths. Instead, they go for the soft, the weak and those who cannot fight back because their pleasure is to see other people suffer. These and others are the traits that are carried forward to adulthood, and they are the most prevalent with all psychopaths. They use these traits to disturb the peace and cause tension in the society.

Psychopathic people are known to have very high self-esteem believing that they are better than others. They see themselves as smarter, and it is the esteem that drives them to lies and manipulation because they think that it is hard for others to discover the truth. Some of them are very attractive both physically and technically because they are charming (Hare, 2003). They use this characteristic to con people and steal their belongings. Due to the exaggerated self-worth mentality, they think that all the right things should belong to them and therefore they envy other people in possession of a good thing that they do not own. This envy makes them to immediately start planning of either a smart way or a violent way to take away that possession. They do not care about hurting the other person or what they will feel after they are deprived of their belongings. Psychopaths steal and behave like everything is normal because in the real sense, to them there is nothing abnormal.

Psychopaths are known to find solace in weird extreme conditions such as stress and boredom. They enjoy it when they are bored than when everything looks cool. They are therefore always looking for things to bore them or make them feel stressed (Babiak & Hare, 2006). This fact explains why they do not fear confrontations with the police or the law in general. The encounters give them comfort and make them happy for one; they are chances to showcase their smartness and superiority. They use law enforcement organs as platforms to show the public what they are capable of doing. Because they rejoice at boredom, they will do anything that will irritate other people so that they react. Research shows that id psychopaths are a given two options to choose between the path that leads to good and the one that leads to evil, they would gladly pick the one that leads to crime because that is where they find solace. In other words, they rejoice at doing wrong and seeing people suffer the consequences of their misbehaviors.

Another characteristic with psychopaths is that they are all power hungry. The kind of power that they thirst for is not the power to benefit and develop other people or their communities. Psychopaths want to be in control for the sake of their self, to grab and appropriate it to fit their standards. They want to be in power so that they can be in control of everyone so that nobody is above them to question their actions (Babiak & Hare, 2006). They also like being in force so that they can eliminate anyone who poses a threat to their power for example by interrogating their misuse of power. What psychopaths crave for is a division of systems so that they can take advantage of the chance to gain maximum benefits for themselves. Due to the desire for power, observation shows that psychopaths compose most leaders for local groups and organizations. They are always in the lead and community readily accept them before they learn their real character.

Psychopaths have a criminal history whereby most of them are associated with crime severally (Hare, 2003). Crime is enhanced by their 'don't care' attitude, pathological lying and lack of emotions which make them act as they feel and not as they should. Law enforcement in most countries has put in place programs to train psychopaths to change their way and to respect the law although it has almost proven impossible. More strategies are being put in place to treat psychopathy whereby psychologists and neurologists are working day and night to bring up the cure. However, this is still difficult because the individuals know for sure the right and wrong actions, only that they do not think that the law applies to them as well.

Another characteristic of psychopaths is that they are very temperamental. One minute they behave like good friends and the next minute they are angry yelling at others. They will not only yell but yells and harm the next person without giving it much thought because they don't care about other people's safety. The society considers psychopaths as harmful people who should not be publicly left with vulnerable persons who are incapable of fighting back as this will lead to losses when the psychopath turn against the next person. On the roads, psychopaths do not like people who get on their way. They have a history of being reckless and causing many road accidents because they get annoyed without any reasonable causes. For example, traffic jams are a reason enough to annoy them and make them act on impulse.

Psychopaths are troublemakers. They blend so well with other people who like causing trouble. Their charm makes them very attractive, and they impassionate the people they feel that they match their character. For example, they are used in institutions to fight for the rights of employees because they are go-getters and risk takers. They can confront any author...