I stumbled upon a short clip of a documentary on a six-year-old that had showed numerous signs of psychopathy. Based on this, I am curious as to how the attachment theory is correlated with the upbringing of a psycho or sociopath. How does the attachment theory help or negate the emotions and actions of individuals that show signs of psycho/sociopaths. And does understanding theories such as these actually help in the understand of psycho/sociopaths?
This link has the video attached and some information about psychopathic tendencies. The six-year-old, Beth, tended to stab objects, family members, and animals with pins in her own attempt to kill them. She had even once beat her brothers head against cement ground over and over again with no intentions to stop. In the video, she is speaking with a psychologist. It amazes me at how calm she was with owning up to what she has done. There was no remorse in her eyes or voice. To me, that seems like a direct trait of a psychopath.
Toward the end of the video it talks about how the parents sent Beth to a home directed by a woman that harbors these young minds and tries to mold them into more of a model citizen rather than a cold blooded killer. She explains how it has to do with the attachment theory and how the child is handled at a young age by the parents. Thus, my question arose. How exactly does the attachment theory correlate when it comes down to adolescents and their behavior within society? For those who don’t know, the attachment theory is the theory that a strong emotional and physical attachment to at least one caregiver is vital for development.
Now my main question due to more research has shifted. What characteristics do psychopaths show from an early-on age? So here, I dived into a little more research and what I saw was that psychologists have changed what they research. Rather than looking at the characteristics they lack, they focus on the ones they have an ample amount of. By doing this, researchers can understand how their brains work. A main characteristic that psychopaths show is impulsivity. Acting upon impulse is something that psychopaths do which leads them to make irrational decisions and causes them to not be able to stop themselves from acting out on ideas that could cause harm to others. Now, once something like this happens, psychopaths cannot feel real, serious remorse because they weren’t even able to evaluate the action that came to mind before actually doing it.
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