A copy of Dr. van Dongen’s new article, The Empathic Brain of Psychopaths: From Social Science to Neuroscience in Empathy, is now available on the Members page of this website. Dr. van Dongen prepared this summary of her paper.
Dr. van Dongen is Assistant Professor of Forensic Psychology in the Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands
The aim of the review article was to give an overview of our current knowledge on the role of neuroscience in the study of empathy in psychopathic personality. First, the article clarifies some conceptual issues related to the nature of empathy and associated concepts, and then studies on the neural circuits involved in empathy are examined. Second, a short historical overview of psychopathy as a construct is given, as well as different theoretical models on this syndrome of personality disorder. In the third section, a review of the empirical evidence on psychopathy and empathy is presented which demonstrates the importance of social neuroscience in understanding psychopathy. Finally in the fourth section, the author discusses a new way forward in using neuroscience in the study of the “empathic brain” of psychopaths.
In the review, the author argues that empathy is a crucial human ability.. Empathy is seen as the natural capacity to share, to understand, and to respond with care to the affective states of others, and it appears to play an important role in social interactions, not only in humans, but also in other species. Moreover, empathy is thought to play an important role in influencing prosocial behavior and inhibiting aggressive behavior, and it has been found to be fundamental to developing a sense of morality. A review of the literature on empathy across several centuries shows that empathy is sometimes confused with, or used interchangeably with other concepts, such as sympathy and compassion. In the current review paper, empathy is distinguished from sympathy and compassion. One important distinction is that empathy not only includes other-oriented empathy (i.e., empathic concern), but also entails self-oriented responses (i.e., emotional distress and emotional contagion). Thus, empathy differs from sympathy and compassion in the sense that it includes feelings that are similar to the feelings that the other person feels and not just knowing how the other person feels.
A deficit in empathic abilities, especially in the affective (feeling) part of empathy, is thought to play an important role in psychopathic personality. Empathic abilities have traditionally been studied within the social and behavioral sciences using behavioral methods, but recent work in neuroscience has begun to elucidate the neural underpinnings of empathic processing in relation to psychopathy. In this review, current knowledge in the social neuroscience of empathy is discussed and a comprehensive view of the neuronal mechanisms that underlie empathy in psychopathic personality disorder is provided. Furthermore, it is argued that classifying people based only on overt behavior is not ideal. Such classification approaches risk failing to identify important mechanisms that underlie psychopathy. Therefore, the review paper proposes a bio-cognitive approach. This is an approach in which we use information from different levels of analysis (both the level of the physiological response and the level of behavior), to identify new categories in which individuals are grouped. Such an approach appears better for understanding the underlying (neurobiological) dysfunctions. Subsequently, these newly defined categories may be more effective in guiding interventions and treatment.
In the view of the author, the future understanding of the social brain of psychopaths lies in studying the complex neural networks in the brain in combination with the use of other levels of information (e.g., genetics and cognition). Based on information we obtain from all three levels of analysis, profiles of individuals can be formed that can be used to guide neuroscience-informed personalized treatment interventions that ultimately reduce violent behavior in individuals with psychopathic traits. To go forward, there is a need for a new approach in studying complex mechanisms, such as empathy, in psychopathic personality. The author suggests that the new way forward must be based on frameworks that underscore the need to integrate multiple levels of data types, including neurobiological information, to classify psychopathic personality. By doing so, a more precise (or personalized) approach to medicine will lead to a promising new treatment strategy that can guide social science, including psychology, in developing new and effective interventions for psychopathy.
