Pieter Hintjens - The Psychopath Code - Cracking the Predators That Stalk Us

This points us towards a new metaphor for psychopathy. Predator is a good functional model. It has many useful properties, as a model. Yet it dehumanizes. To describe him as an animal is accurate in many ways, yet it suggests he is worth less than Alice or Bob.

Mallory is not subhuman. Neither is Mallory superhuman. Psychopaths are no more or less successful, on average, than social humans. In the long arms race between the two strategies, neither can ever win . It is a race to equilibrium. For every trait that makes Mallory more successful, he has a weakness. For every weakness that Alice or Bob show, they have balancing strengths.

Psychopaths are neither demons nor demigods. They are just different in perplexing and difficult ways.

So here is that new metaphor: psychopathy is a third sexual identity , a distinct gender. Social humans differentiate to either male or female gender identities. Psychopaths differentiate to their own sexual identity. While male and female do their particular dances, psychopathy romps around them both. For all his sexual intensity, Mallory is asexual in a profound way.

It was our eukaryote ancestors, common to plants, animals, and fungi, that invented sex. Much later, our ancestors invented parental investment. It’s a trick that animals have rediscovered many times. Plants and fungi less so. 80% of birds form stable couples where both parents invest in the young, and about 6% of mammals do this. All mammals care for their young if you disregard the father. In many species of fish, reptiles, and invertebrates, both parents look after their young. Such species tend to form monogamous couples, at least per breeding season.

As any parent knows, childcare is hard work with few obvious short-term rewards. Kids tend to grow up oblivious to the efforts of their parents. If they think about it at all, it tends to be "I could have done better." Yet the genetic payoff for investing in children and grandchildren is huge.

The genes' solution is to blackmail and bribe us with mood-altering chemicals. These are seratonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins. When we do the "right" thing we get a soup of chemicals that makes us feel good. When we do the "wrong" thing, we get a different soup that makes us feel terrible. These affect our whole body, not just our brain. 80% of our seratonin is in our intestines. That "gut feeling" is real.

This carrot-and-stick machinery sits out of sight of the conscious mind. With knowledge and practice, you can hack into it and steer it. It is like learning to control your heart rate. The moment you stop trying, your subconscious takes over again.

The machinery is, of course, the emotions. The predator, defense, and sexual emotions focus on orchestration. Family needs more abstract emotions. This group covers three kinds of bonds that evolved together. These are the bond between a couple, between parents and children, and between siblings. In general the emotions drive the family to stick together.

These emotions are confusing to most people. So I’ll use the same approach as for previous groups. This is: take each piece of the puzzle, identify it, and then name it:

❂ Love - the emotion of being close to a family member. We establish "closeness" by mutual physical contact. The kinds of contact depend on the relationship. The closer you are to another person the more you feel the emotion. Your eyebrows rise, your pupils widen, you smile and laugh and feel happy. You use open and dominant body language. You are more childlike: playful and uninhibited. You seek more contact. You need less sleep.

❂ Longing - the emotion of being far from a family member. You’re feeling the symptoms of oxytocin withdrawal. You obsess about reuniting with your loved one. You may feel alone. Your pupils shrink. You use closed and submissive body language. You are serious, less childlike. You sleep more than usual.

❂ Loss - the emotion of losing a loved family member. Your metabolism slows down. Your sight and hearing work slower than usual. You may feel "nothing," an empty or dead feeling. Your pain response lowers, thanks to the endorphins suppressing your oxytocin withdrawal. You seek other family members. You may feel longing or sadness later. Your face shows no expression except inattention.

❂ Happiness - the emotion of being in a good situation. Psychologist Martin Seligman [82] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness lists five aspects of such a situation: pleasure, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments. My experience says you also need good health, security from threats, structure, and freedom. You also feel happiness by empathy from other people. When you are happy, you smile, laugh, and use open body language. Your pupils widen, and blood flows to your skin, making you glow.

❂ Sadness - the emotion of being in a bad situation. I’d argue it’s what we feel when we lack one or more components of happiness. If you fall ill, or are constantly threatened, or have few accomplishments, or see no meaning in your life, you feel sad. You also feel sadness through empathy for others. When you are sad, you show closed body language. Your pupils shrink. Blood circulation slows in your skin, making you look pale and cold. You may pout, or weep.

❂ Fear - the emotion of asking for help from a threat. Fear is how you signal danger to your parents or siblings. Alone, you feel suspense or terror . Your heart and breathing speed up. Adrenalin pumps into your blood, and your muscles get ready for action. Your eyes open wide, as your vision and hearing focuses on the threat. If you can, you make the characteristic shout or shriek of fear . If you must remain silent, you mime fear . You open your mouth and eyes wide and stare at the threat, hands raised like claws.

❂ Distress - the emotion of being lost or threatened. This has a juvenile and a parental form. Juvenile distress is a call for help from a parent or older sibling. Parental distress is a call to a missing child. Distress is a display emotion. A child will shriek, wail, cry, or call to its parents. Every parent knows their child’s distress calls. Distress triggers similar physiological shifts as anger and rage : red face, loud voice. Distress leads to anger and rage . Its universal body language is: shoulders and head slump down, eyes peer up.

❂ Jealousy - the emotion of competing for attention. Jealousy is how you signal that a parent, partner, or friend is neglecting you. You feel someone else is receiving attention that should be yours. You frown, and imitate other emotions: sadness , anger , despair , or disgust . The imitation is a warning to the person giving the attention. Watch out, it says, or this is how I will feel towards you, for real.

I’ve not listed hate here. While this emotion does exist in families, I believe it’s a more recent evolution. There is no function for hate in a family without the tribe. It is a luxury that depends on other people. We cannot reject a family member, no matter their crimes, unless they have somewhere else to go. I place it in the group of tribal emotions that I cover next.

With parental investment, we also get the deeper evolution of empathy. The mechanism is clear: one person feels some emotion, perhaps being sick or lost. The emotion causes the person to make distress calls and show visible signs of distress . This triggers the matching emotion in a parent or sibling, pushing them to help.