Being a psychopath can have advantages, according to a study

When we talk about people with a high degree of psychopathy, we often think of individuals with a tendency to delinquency and to destroy everything they touch. However, traits linked to a preference for manipulating others may have been an evolutionary advantage.

In fact, recently an investigation has found evidence that in certain settings, psychopathy is reproductively positive. In the end, what serves to perpetuate the genes does not have to mean that society improves.

• Related article: "Psychopathy: what happens in the mind of the psychopath?"

Psychopathy as an advantage

Psychopaths are usually seen as people with a mental disorder, individuals in whom there is something "wrong". Nevertheless, as a behavioral pattern, whether something works or doesn't work depends on whether it fits the context And, although we can decide if something is appropriate or not depending on its morality, there is another possible criterion: does it help to survive and reproduce?

Psychopathy may express itself through undesirable actions, such as lying, emotional manipulation, or even abuse, but the hard The truth is that, in theory, this does not have to mean that you will live less, as you would expect from someone who has a disease serious, or

as is commonly understood, a personality disorder.

• You may be interested: "The genetic and biological bases of psychopathy"

Greater chance of having offspring?

If psychopathy is an evolutionarily adaptive trait, that means that variants of genes that cause it to appear (psychopathy alleles) are treated favorably by natural selection, at least in some contexts.

For this research, a sample of 181 inmates from prisons in Serbia was used, and psychological tests were administered to measure psychopathic traits (Among the prison population, these characteristics tend to be more present than among the rest of humanity).

The results obtained showed a curious trend: prisoners with higher scores in psychopathy were more likely to have more sons or daughters. Specifically, the psychological characteristics that seemed most advantageous when transmitting genes were the tendency to manipulate and inflated self-image, while insensitivity and coldness were only found in men who had lived in harsh contexts and with a lot of competition.

• You may be interested: "Psychological profile of a psychopath, in 12 unmistakable traits"

Why can it be advantageous?

This result does not indicate that being a psychopath is a good thing or that it helps to find a mate and have more offspring, without more. From the point of view of evolution, the value of a personal property always depends on where you live and the type of relationships with other individuals.

In the same way that in a place with little food, strong and large animals do not survive, in some places psychopaths will have more trouble adapting. The question is to know if, in practice, the most frequent is that the contexts that give privileged treatment to psychopathy are more or less frequent.

It must be borne in mind that, in current contexts, most people in Western countries live in places where cooperation and non-aggression pacts prevail.

Thus, there are reasons to believe that in general terms, people with high psychopathy would not have to have it more easy to spread their genes (and, specifically, those linked to the propensity to develop those patterns of behaviour).

Create more collaborative societies

This study serves to draw attention to an important fact: what seems to us morally undesirable does not have to be “punished" by nature.

If we do not create societies in which cooperation or good behavior are rewarded, manipulation, deception and individualism can be one more option to live through, something as valid as the altruism. That is why we must do our part to make, among all, that being collaborative is worthwhile.

There is no automatic mechanism that leads to punishing bad behavior, but there are ways to create contexts in which we all take care of each other. If the human being is famous for modifying the environment to adapt it to his needs, he should also be famous for changing the context in which he lives to modify the very society in which he lives.