Hello all and welcome back to week 3’s blog post. This week we were tasked with finishing Baron-Cohen’s book “The Science of Evil”. Within these chapters emerged a prominent theme, which was empathy. Empathy is described as having 2 components; one of recognition and the other being response. This entails that we identify with how someone is feeling and then using appropriate emotions to respond. When viewing empathy, it should be displayed upon a spectrum rather than a yes or no. At the low end of the spectrum, you might have individuals who are permanently evil (denoting why they are placed here) but you also have individuals who reside there due to current predicaments or situations (they are not inherently evil). This low end is defined as zero-degrees of empathy.
Figure 1: (This image provides some perspective on how empathy could reside on a spectrum versus a yes or no model)
At zero-degrees, people tend to lack any form of empathy. They tend to have an atypical empathy circuit, this circuit involves 10 interconnected brain regions. One area that could be affected is that of the amygdala, this area is responsible for emotional learning and regulation. However, at this low end of the spectrum there are two types that reside here; a negative and a positive. The zero-degrees negative involves 3 different types of personality disorders; borderline (type B), psychopath (type P) and narcissistic (type N). At zero-degrees positive, the people that reside here are individuals who have Asperger’s. They differ from the zero-degrees negative, due to possessing affective empathy, meaning that they are distraught when hearing someone is suffering and that they want to help, which zero-degrees negative doesn’t possess. They however, lack in cognitive empathy (the ability to read how another is feeling), which negatives possess. Overall zero-degrees negative can see that something is wrong but don’t do anything about it. Compared to zero-degrees positive which cannot detect that something is wrong but they still try to help. Individuals with Asperger’s tend to also reside on level 6 for systemization, which is the highest level of interest in information about patterns. People at this level find any type of change toxic and this could be due to their focus being set on precision rather than emotion.
Baron-Cohen also describes the notion about an internal pot of gold, the best gift a parent can give a child. This gift is about providing children with positive emotions, so that they are able to deal with challenges and show affection throughout their life. Within the last chapter, Baron-Cohen describes banality of evil and super empathy. Banality of evil is when normal factors add up, which leads to performing an act of evil. An example that perfectly summates this, is the roles of Nazi’s on the way to the gas chamber. While their individual acts weren’t evil, their roles all contributed to people being killed. The other idea involved super-empathy, which was described using archbishop Desmond Tutu. He listened to victims describe how their loved ones have been killed by officers and guards. While he was distraught, he didn’t share his emotions because it would take attention away from the victims. However, how is it empathetic to suppress appropriate emotional responses?
Figure: 2 (A portrait by Banksy’s, titled “the banality of the banality of evil”. It depicts a Nazi solider, and playing on the idea on how men follow orders blindly or follow others)
While these points were involved in this discussion, a key point addressed was if animals should be considered evil? In my own opinion they are not evil, since animals lack the appropriate communication to denote something as being evil. When chimpanzees for example kill others for territory, they are not doing so to be evil but to survive, which involves their basic instincts. Animals also lack empathy, since humans are able to take other perspectives and emotions into consideration, whereas animals cannot. Overall, animals just don’t possess the same degree of empathy as humans. The last portion of the discussion involved what we believed to be positives and negatives surrounding Baron-Cohens book. This included;
| Positive | Negative |
| Defining cognitive and affective empathy (this was helpful) | Affective and cognitive empathy (could have been described differently or have other factors than just these) |
| Neurological functioning (such as empathy circuit) | There was also the problem of oversimplification (such as recognition and response) |
| Intersectionality | |
| Role of environmental factors | |
| That evil might not exist |
A news article I came across “there are 3 distinct types of narcissists – here’s how to spot them” alluded to narcissists, an important part of this week’s discussion of zero-degree negatives. The article explains that to have narcissistic personality disorder, an individual must express 5 out of 9 characteristics, often lack of empathy is demonstrated. There is also 3 distinct types of narcissists, exhibitionist (think they are smarter, powerful and better looking than others), closet (feel special by association, but are insecure) and toxic (these ones crave chaos and destruction, are sadistic and enjoy hurting others, capable of evil). A key point they brought up is that when these individuals are angry, they don’t see the context of their relationship but only display hatred or try to hurt their partner. After reading Baron-Cohen’s book, I would assume these individuals would be level 0 (zero-degrees) or 1 by reading their characteristics.
I was able to come across a research study by Book, Visser and Volk (2015) that looked at characteristics such as psychopathy, narcissism and machiavellianism (a different characteristic from Baron-Cohen’s borderline). The prediction for this study was that the hexaco model (a model similar to the big five personality model) would outperform the other measures (Book et al., 2015). The researchers conducted 2 studies containing around 300 participants in each. They include measures such as the dark triad, big five personality, fast life history strategy, a hexaco personality model and also included the zero-empathy model (the one Baron-Cohen discussed). Key findings included those who had high extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness tended to be rated higher for narcissism. The hexaco model did out preform the other measures (Book et al., 2015). The study also mentions that people might have predispositions of hexaco traits which could be modified by environmental cues, resulting in personalities, such as the dark triad in adulthood (Book et al., 2015). It is also important for future studies to look at environmental events that could lead to the development of evil traits.
Figure 3: (These are the 6 categories of the Hexaco model)
This study also referenced Baron-Cohen’s zero-degrees of empathy. Stating that the idea is flawed, by being descriptive rather than predictive, having no evidence that negative and positive zero-degrees of empathy have the same neurological pathways and the overall, incomplete explanations. The importance of the news article was to demonstrate what the general overview of how people see narcissists, about their upbringing and what makes up this personality. The important category from this was the toxic category that is capable of committing evil. The research study was able to take this further by showing the different models researchers use to assess the personality disorders and that maybe another model than just zero-degrees of empathy could explain their behaviour. It is important to understand what borderline, psychopathy and narcissism are made up of, what degree of empathy they have and if they are able to commit evil acts? While hexaco did outperform the others, zero-empathy still showed significance. Maybe combining multiple models to understand empathy could work? Overall, a good week for discussions and important topics. Hope you all have a fantastic week and keep thinking critically.
This also might be of interest to some but a friend of mine within this course, showed a website that measures the dark triad personalities (narcissism, psychopathy and machiavellian). If you feel like seeing how much you possess of each, click the link: https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/SD3/
References:
Book, A., Visser, B.A. & Volk, A.A. (2015). Unpacking “evil”: claiming the core of the dark triad. Personality and Individual Differences, 73, 29-38.
Dodgson, L. (2018, January 19). There are 3 distinct types of narcissists – here’s how to spot them. Business Insider. Retrieved from: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-spot-different-types-of-narcissist-2018-1
The Monsters Within 