Am I a psychopath?

CrowdScience - A podcast by BBC World Service - Fridays

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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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