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CrowdScience: Am I a psychopath?

Discussion & Talk

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23/07/2021 GMT

Am I a psychopath?

BBC World Service - CrowdScience, Am I a psychopath?

A CrowdScience listener wants to know if she is a psychopath.

A CrowdScience listener thinks she empathises less than her friends and family and it leaves her wondering if she is a psychopath.

One CrowdScience listener finds herself unconcerned about much of the world’s problems, it leaves her wondering: am I a psychopath?

Inspired by a previous episode on empathy, this listener asked is it true that psychopaths don’t empathise and what are the character traits of psychopathy? 

Marnie Chesterton talks with a diagnosed pro-social psychopath to find out. 

She also pays a visit to the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and gets into an MRI scanner to discover what is happening in her brain when she empathises.

Studies suggest around 1 percent of the general population exhibit traits associated with psychopathy and that rises to 3-4 percent in the world of business. But is this really the case?

Why is there so much stigma associated with psychopathy and do psychopaths even exist or is it just a convenient term to label those whose emotional range sits outside of the “norm”? 

Presented by Marnie Chesterton and produced by Caroline Steel for the BBC World Service.

Guests:
Julia Shaw
Jim Fallon
Valeria Gazzola 
Kalliopi Ioumpa


[Image credit: Getty Images]

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