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Introduction
Hello, guys. I recently read a great article by @abigail-dantes, which inspired me to write this one. She discussed the topic about empathy which in simple language, as her title state is our ability “to put ourselves in other people’s shoes”. It got me thinking – there are people who are low on empathy skills and others who are constantly affected by other people’s misfortunes and are literally called “empaths” – okay but what about those who indicate the emotion, but choose to ignore it and are actually able to live with it and control their responses? Are they psychopaths or extremely emotionally intelligent people? Where is the borderline between the two?
Today I would like to discuss with you two topics in psychology which at first glance seem as complete opposites: psychopathy and emotional intelligence.
Both of these concepts have been extremely popular in the past 20 years – the term “psychopath” has inspired a lot of great books, movies, TV series and other literature, while emotional intelligence has been often discussed as the most important cluster of features a person should possess and that being emotionally intelligent is more important that having a high IQ.
But what these two terms actually mean? How much of their image is influenced by media? Could these characteristics coexist within a person? Is there such thing as emotionally intelligent psychopath? If there is, how could we recognize these people and protect ourselves from them?
These are all interesting questions to which I would try to find answers in this article, backed up with scientific research and discussion on the topic.
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Emotional Intelligence (EI)
Emotional intelligence as a term was not so popular in academic circles until around 1995 when Daniel Goleman’s book called “Emotional Intelligence’’ was published. The book became really popular to scholar and general audience, but in the field of psychology it was already known as the model proposed by the two psychologists John D. Mayer and Peter Salovey, which identified four different levels of emotional intelligence:
• The ability to perceive emotions;
• The ability to reason using emotions;
• The ability to understand emotion;
• The ability to manage emotions.
The ability to perceive or recognize emotions
is in many cases related to understanding nonverbal signals such as body language and facial expressions.
The ability to reason using emotions
is based on the understanding that emotions help us to focus our attention reaction to certain stimuli. While some people argue that humans are more rational than emotional, when it comes to taking an important decision, that’s not entirely true. We tend to respond emotionally to stimuli that require our attention.
The ability to understand emotions
helps us interpret emotions and seek for their source. For example if the person in front of us is expressing anger – we could stop and think about what could’ve been the reason behind this current emotional state and if it’s possible to make it better at the moment, or just remain inactive, because we cannot change the current situation.
The ability to manage emotions
is considered to be in the core of being emotionally intelligent and is a and ability of highest level. Being able to regulate your emotions, respond properly to stimuli and other people’s emotions is the true form of emotional intelligence.
The creators of this model state that the four elements are
> "arranged from more basic psychological processes to higher, more psychologically integrated processes. For example, the lowest level branch concerns the (relatively) simple abilities of perceiving and expressing emotion. In contrast, the highest level branch concerns the conscious, reflective regulation of emotion." [1]
Meaning that not all people actually reach the level of being able to control your emotions and respond properly to others’.
Being emotionally intelligent means that you are able to identify, understand, and manage emotions – yours and other people’s. While there are a lot of debates on what emotional intelligence actually is, how to measure it and could you develop it, everyone agrees that being emotionally intelligent is something positive and everyone could use such a person around them to make their life better.
Quite the opposite happens when we talk about psychopaths – nobody wants such person around them. When a person hears the word “psychopath” an image of a serial killer locked in a straitjacket emerges in their mind.
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Psychopathy
And while this is the image of the psychopath Hollywood has successfully integrated in our minds, the actual construct of psychopathy is considered a clinical syndrome, which include both personality and behavioural factors such as lack of remorse, arrogance, antisocial behaviour, deceitfulness, incapacity for love and a lack of emotional empathy. [2]; [3]
In reality – you don’t have to be a serial or mass murderer to be a psychopath. In fact, I personally think that psychopaths who were imprisoned for their deviations are not the most dangerous one. I could even say that they are not good psychopaths at all. Bear with me on this one.
Primary and secondary psychopathy
Although there is still a debate, scholars recognize two categories of psychopathy: primary and secondary (Karpman, 1948; Skeem et al. 2003). [4];[5]
Individuals who score high in secondary psychopathic attributes are more likely to be highly anxious and impulsive, are more guilt prone, and often display antisocial behaviors such as acts of violence and criminal behaviour (Vidal, Skeem, & Camp, 2010). [6]
Primary psychopathy is considered to what Cleckley describes as classic psychopath - it refers to individuals who demonstrate a general lack of empathy for other peoples’ misfortunes. They also exhibit less guilt regarding misdeeds that they commit against others. “Primary psychopaths” are generally thought to be low in anxiety. They demonstrate antisocial behavior; however, it is thought to be more planful and less impulsive. and this may help them avoid the social deviant label and channel their manipulative behavior into socially acceptable ways.
Psychopathy and empathy
It’s not a surprise to anyone that the lack of empathy is an essential feature of psychopathy. A lot of research has been done to explore the relationship between psychopathy and empathy. Similar to psychopathy, empathy is also considered a multidimensional construct.
From one side we have what is called “cognitive empathy”, which refers to the ability to accurately detect the emotional cues of other people, and from the other side we have what is called “affective empathy” and it refers to the ability to actually feel what another person is feeling (Mullins-Nelson et al., 2006). Sounds familiar? Because it is. Look up at the theory about emotional intelligence.
Research shows no relation in the expected direction between empathy and psychopathy as the theory suggests (Mullins-Nelson et al., 2006). [7] These results could be because of the reason that such research uses self-report or measures empathy explicitly. We all know that some people have the tendency to answer such self-reports in a socially-desirable fashion (Mullins-Nelson et al., 2006). But from another point, is it possible because of their psychopathy, especially if primary that these people answer in a way which is socially-desirable?
A research from 2005 actually suggests that lack of empathy may help a person to succeed in business. In the study senior business managers revealed the same interpersonal qualities of psychopathy which suggested that certain psychopathic traits including a lack of empathy.
Actually there is a lot of research which examines “the dark side of emotional intelligence” or how someone could use their emotional abilities to manipulate others and obtain benefits for themselves, with little or no regrets.
In another more recent research it is discovered that people who exhibited certain narcissistic traits were actually really good in making first impressions. The study suggests that they were able to achieve it by using humor and charming facial expressions.
This case is an example of how people who know what they want from you could actually make you like them in the first place.
Other research from 2013 suggests that people who have show the tendency to exploit others for personal gain were actually good at understanding other people emotions, especially when it comes to negative ones.
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So, this raises the question:
Is there such thing as an emotionally intelligent psychopath?
Criminal psychologist and professor Robert Hare has been studying psychopaths his whole life. He created one of the instruments to measure psychopaty - PCL-R- along with pathological lying, a grandiose sense of self-worth, cunning manipulation, a lack of behavioral control and remorse, and an unwillingness to accept responsibility for actions (among others).
He supports the theory that psychopathy is dimensional. According to him:
> "There are people who are part-way up the scale, high enough to warrant an assessment for psychopathy, but not high enough up to cause problems. Often, they're our friends, they're fun to be around. They might take advantage of us now and then, but usually it's subtle and they're able to talk their way around it."
Traditionally, we have been taught that psychopaths aren't capable of feeling empathy. But that is not entirely true. As we previously mentioned there are two types of empathy – cognitive and affective. Psychopaths are “experts” in cognitive empathy. They understand what other feel, but they choose to ignore it. And that’s when they are in a good mood – in other cases they use your emotions against you.
A study examining 21 convicted psychopaths suggests that they can turn their emotions on and off. The results show the activation of emotional brain regions was much lower in the patients with psychopathy than in the normal subjects.
Additionally, psychopaths do not experience fear in the same way a normal person does. And they are aware of that, meaning that they could often use exaggerate certain events and manipulate you into being afraid of something even more, achieving their initial goal.
Enough is enough. How to protect yourself from ‘successful psychopaths’?
Back to Emotional Intelligence
Remember that emotional intelligence (EI) can be trained. There are a lot of studies on this topic and a lot of schools and coaches who sell all sorts of trainings based on developing emotional intelligence. It seems that developing high EQ is not only necessary to become successful, but to survive in the modern social jungle.
When a person who can influence your emotions appears in your life, try to remain calm and keep your attention on the present moment. Evaluate your current emotional state and actions which might follow. Once you do this, ask yourself the questions why and what made you feel the way you did about this person? Was it because you saw something, or because they wanted you to see something? This is the first level of emotional intelligence. When you gain control of what you feel, you would easily recognize and control what others feel – thus making it really hard for other people to manipulate you.
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Conclusion
The topic about the relation between emotional intelligence and psychopathy without a doubt would be discussed more in the the field of psychology. I personally think that when it comes to emotional intelligence, it is important to have 360 degree view of the concept and understand that there might be people who are using their intelligence against you. Being emotionally intelligent could help you prevent malicious influence by others and recognize them when they attempt such actions towards other people.
What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with the relation between EI and psychopathy? Please discuss in the comment section :)
Pictures:
Sources:
[1]. Salovey, P. & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 9, 185-211.
[2]. Cleckley, H. (1964). The mask of sanity: Fourth Edition. St. Louis, MO: The C. V. Mosby Company Cohen, D., & Strayer, J. (1996). Empathy in conduct-disordered and comparison youth. Development Psychology, 32, 988-998.
doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.32.6.988
[3]. Rogstad, J. E., & Rogers, R. (2008). Gender differences in contributions of emotion to
psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder. Clinical Psychology Review, 28, 142-148. doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2008.09.004
[4]. Karpman, B. (1948). The myth of the psychopathic personality. American Journal of Psychiatry, 104, 523-534.
[5]. Skeem, J. L., Poythress, N., Edens, J. F., Lilienfeld, S. O., & Cale, E. M. (2003). Aggression and Violent Behavior, 8, 513-546. doi: 10.1016/S1359- 1789(02)00098-8
[6]. Vidal, S., Skeem, J. & Camp, J. (2010). Emotional intelligence: Painting different paths
for low-anxious and high-anxious psychopathic variants. Law and Human Behavior, 34, 150-163. doi: 10.1007/s10979-009-9175-y
Vitale, J.
[7]. Mullins-Nelson, J. L, Salekin, R. T., & Leistico, A. R. (2006). Psychopathy, empathy,
and perspective-taking ability in a community sample: Implications for the successful psychopathy concept. International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, 5, 133-149. doi: 10.1080/14999013.2006.10471238
[10] Psychopathic criminals have empathy switch
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