Psychopaths do possess empathy, but they need to intentionally feel it in order for it to trigger. This is according to research published in the journal Brain: A Journal of Neurology.

Psychopathy is a type of mental illness used to describe an individual who is incapable of feeling guilt, remorse or empathy for their actions.

Researchers from the Netherlands used modern “high-field functional magnetic resonance imaging” in order to analyze the brains of psychopathic criminals while they watched other people’s emotions.

The study, which was conducted in three parts, involved 18 participants with psychopathy alongside a control group of 26.

The researchers explain that all participants watched a series of short movie clips of two people interacting with each other, zooming in on their hands.

Share on Pinterest The researchers performed hand interactions with the participants to see how they would emotionally respond to touch. Photo credit: Dr Keysers

The clips showed the two hands touching each other in four different ways:

painful

loving

socially rejecting

neutral.

The participants were then instructed to view these scenes just as they would when watching one of their favorite movies.

In the second part of the experiment, the participants were then asked to watch the same movie clips again, but this time the researchers asked them to empathize with one of the actors in the movie and attempt to feel what the actor might be feeling.

Share on Pinterest The participants’ brain patterns were monitored while watching a series of emotional movie clips. Photo credit: Dr Keysers

In the third part of the experiment, the participants were asked to lay down as a brain scanner actively measured their brain patterns while the researchers performed hand interactions with the participants themselves.

Harma Meffert, first author of the study, explains:

“We wanted to know to what extent they would activate the same brain regions while they were watching the hand interactions in the movies, as they would when they were experiencing these same hand interactions themselves.”

Results of the experiment reveal that by default, psychopathic individuals feel less empathy compared with the control group. However, when the psychopaths “try” to empathize, they have the ability to switch to “empathy mode.”