![]() ![]() Psychopaths such as Kevin have zero degrees of affective empathy (they just don't care about someone else's feelings) but have excellent cognitive empathy (able to worm their way into someone else's mind by using their ability to figure out what someone else might think, want or feel able to manipulate others through deception). Two major ones are "cognitive" empathy (the capacity to recognise what someone else thinks or feels) and "affective" empathy (the capacity to feel an appropriate emotion in response to someone else's thoughts and feelings). ![]() The science also tells us that empathy is a complex skill, with several components. ![]() ![]() In people who end up as psychopaths, brain regions connected with empathy are under-active. The science confirms that environmental and emotional factors do also play a role in the development of antisocial personality disorder, but teasing apart cause and effect in such hard-to-parent children is a tall order. It hints, disturbingly, at the role of psychological conflict in Kevin's mother, about whether she is trying to love him without truly loving him. And yet, the film (like the science) does not want us to settle too comfortably into the idea that the cause of psychopathic low empathy is purely genetic. ![]()
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