Well, those two statements are somewhat in contradiction. I think this book was fun and interesting despite it's flaws. Sometimes I found myself a bit bored reading all the personal bits, of course it was interesting to read a book about psychopathy written by a psychopath but at times I felt like personal stories were a bit too much. Leah Hager Cohen holds the Jenks Chair in Contemporary American Letters at the College of the Holy Cross, teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing, Why is it easier to ruminate over hurt feelings than it is to bask in the warmth of being appreciated? For the most part, he explains them quite well. 386 Words2 Pages. About The Author: James Fallon is an American neuroscientist. His writing oscillates between hes just having fun and nobody got hurt, with thinking that maybe he hurt others and simply didnt notice because its out of the realm of his personal experience due to his brain, or maybe at times he did hurt others but just didnt care. But then again, he adds, that wouldnt change the nature of the underlying behavior. What he says in the book aligns with much of what I've read about sociopathy and psychopathy, but he delves deeper into the anatomical, structural, and functional defects in the brain that cause these disorders. Dr. Fallon studies brains. Pamela D. Wait. Because psychopaths dorsal systems work so well, they can learn how to appear that they care, thus making them even more dangerous. They have little interest in understanding their underlying motives and their origins. He could go on a killing mission and then be a loving man once the mission was over. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. It would lead to passivity and wipe us out. The first guest was James Fallon, an author of The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain and a professor of psychiatry, neuroscience, BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | This guy has been the worst of the bunch. He was going through brain scans of his family, done to check for for a totally unrelated medical issue, when he saw this scan that looked just like it belonged in one of his other projects, the psychopath studies. For example, by being less emotional and more surgical in their operations. He is the author of The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientists Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. {js=d.createElement(s); October 31st 2013 That means that psychopaths lack emotional empathy, but have cognitive empathy. It deepened my understanding of psychopathy and dark-triad traits, and also slightly shift my personal position when it comes to psychopathy. Yuck. Fallons book is full of fascinating stories and insights into the minds of these dangerous individuals. Psychopathy stands on the lowest rung of this disease-disorder ladder, since no one agrees on what defines itor if it exists at alland so there is no professional agreement as to the underlying causes. PSYCHOLOGY | People who are twenty-five or thirty on the Hare scale are dangerous, but we need a lot of twenties aroundpeople with the chutzpah and brio and outrageousness to keep humanity vibrant and adaptableand alive. However, it was still good and worth reading, especially if you're interested in psychopathy and the nature vs. nurture thing. Psychopaths are often manipulative and charming, and they can be very successful in life. Perhaps full psychopaths, those scoring 30 points or more on the Hare Checklist, are just a statistical fluke or a roll of the dice in the genetic casino, amassing too many of the genes that are helpful individually. But guess what -- he "softens" later because NOT to accept such grant money seemed "silly" given the "good research" his lab produces. On a larger scale, it benefits civilization to have groups take chances, because some will succeed and move civilization forwardjust as biological evolution benefits from mutations, even though many of them are deadly. Fallon says that psychopathy is popular in business because people expect quick returns on their investment.I quote him: The general public wants to make that quick and easy buck and, while lacking their own combination of high risk and knowledge, use hired guns like Madoff and other investment mavens to do their dirty work for them. To him, his young children were just "dolls", only after they grew were they interesting, and thus worthy of his time and attention. Psychopathic tendencies are particularly hard to fight, and attempted cures may make only small differences. While he attempts to justify, alleviate, and avoid blame and shame, his own observations reveal his true nature. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as lazy: We dont want to think rigorously about something. //