Empathy, Psychopaths, Nature and Nurture: All in 1200 Words

Re: 'Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty’ by Simon Baron-Cohen

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I haven’t actually read this book yet, which isn’t a promising start. So if this isn’t a book review, what the hell is it? Well, it’s a brief attempt to combine the main plank of the book (the clue’s in the title) with a discussion on the nature/nurture debate topped off with a completion of my rather long previous post on Personality Disorder. The latter was in fact so long I fear some readers actually died and decomposed long before they got to the end. Apologies to you if you’re reading this in the after-life.

Professor Baron-Cohen is a well-known specialist in the study of autism, and yes, if you’re trying to place the surname it’s his cousin Sacha’s various alter egos doing the jumping around in G-Strings and spoofing ‘da voice of da yoof. Innit’.  As a mental health trainer I’ve often referred delegates to the professor’s work whenever autism is discussed, but his latest theory takes a slight step away from the study of disorders such as Aspergers Syndrome and zooms down to one key aspect of the human condition: empathy. Or rather, lack of it.

Most people have a basic understanding of empathy. The ability to see the world through the eyes of another person or to understand how it might feel to be ‘the other’ is the key construct of an individual empathy rating which Baron-Cohen calibrates from zero to six. If you’re the sort of person who instinctively knows when your friends really can’t cope with your 407^th holiday snap or you descend into floods of tears before Holby City has even got past the opening credits, you probably score in the upper regions of Professor Baron-Cohens empathy scale.

Looking at the reviews and in particular the commentary from Guardian readers, it would appear the unfortunate professor has been left with a bit of a scorched arse, at least from the more liberal end of the mental health/psychology spectrum. Firstly, he dares to suggest that something as subjective and nebulous as ‘empathy’ can be scored and rated with a questionnaire. Secondly, and perhaps even more heinously to some, he suggests the existence of an ‘empathy circuit’ consisting of various interconnected brain bits which are either turbo-charged, mid-range saloon or phutting away like an old Skoda. In the latter case (the ‘zero empathy’ range), we have the ‘psychopath’. This is the man or woman who simply doesn’t understand why the elderly lady whose fingers they’re breaking could possibly get upset: “Look, I’m only after the housekeeping money. What’s yer problem, luv?”

This ‘hard science’ approach to the explanation of complex mental disorders is often described as  ‘biological reductionism’ and is to many mental health professionals, sociologists and service users the psychiatric equivalent of a devastating fart in a crowded lift. Hence the less than favourable reviews from those for whom the ‘social model’ of mental health is sacrosanct.

We live in an age where huge brain scanners are soon to be miniaturised to the size of hat. These will no doubt be available at PC World with a Wi-Fi link to YouTube, leading to multiple postings from Baz in Thurrock: “This is my brain while I’m doing a poo”. Yeah, can’t wait for those clips. But more seriously, the previously complex and highly secretive brain is opening up to neuroscience like a ripe melon. 


Advances in genetic research are another major tool in the investigation of mental illness. In the not too distant future our personal genome will be available to anyone who wants to know how much Viking they have rattling around them, or more seriously, how susceptible they might be to Alzheimers Disease or Schizophrenia. Look out for the ‘Test your Genome Here’ booths at Tesco.

So far, so biological, but as a very experienced mental health professional I’m also only too aware of the devastating effects that trauma, abuse and childhood neglect have on the adult mind. Our surroundings, our circumstances and the events to which we’re exposed are crucial in determining whether we crash and burn with a handful of Seroxat or skip gaily through life like one of those ridiculously smiley people at folk festivals.

I like to think that, when asked to explain the causes of this or that psychiatric disorder, I can give a reasonably balanced overview from both sides of the ‘medical v social model’ debate. But even my balanced approach hasn’t always prevented me getting the ‘stare of death’ treatment at the merest mention of a gene, MRI scanner or (say it very quietly) Serotonin.

But here’s the thing. The ‘versus’ part of the ‘nature v nurture’ debate is gradually becoming as redundant as the public phone box. Remarkable evidence has been hitting the journals of the malleability of the brain long into adulthood. We’ve known for some time now how, for example, the memory circuits of London cabbies literally rewire themselves during ‘The Knowledge’. These changes can be observed with MRI scanners, although as far as I’m aware a predilection for TalkSport radio and an opinion on immigration has yet to evidenced by neuroscience. Even our genetic make-up is far from being the indelible clump of Cs, Gs, As and Ts formed at conception. Like our brains, our genes are susceptible to ongoing renovation long into adulthood and courtesy of the outside world.

Those of us who have worked with Baron-Cohen’s ‘zero empathy psychopaths’ will be all too familiar with the histories of childhood neglect, trauma and abuse described by patients/clients/service users. But can we infer a cause of personality disorder from these stories?

Of course not. Lots of people have experienced awful childhoods which haven’t turned them into serial killers, ethnic cleansers, concentration camp guards or sadistic sexual predators. There has to be some other factor gnawing away at the nascent mind to generate what some may refer to as ‘evil’. And if you’re a sociologist thinking ‘infamous Stanley Millgram experiments’ around about now, I did promise to keep this post brief.

Recent evidence is not pointing at previously simplistic nature or nurture explanations for psychiatric disorder, but toward a ‘perfect storm’ of environmental conditions, genetic predisposition and physical brain changes. There is certainly a worthwhile body of evidence that, in the case of Personality Disorder, a congenital potential for anti-social, callous and non-empathic behaviour exists in many of us at birth. Whether or not this genetic On-Off button is left on standby or blows up the microwave is highly dependent on the sort of environment we experience both as we grow up and long into adulthood.

I would like to think that someone as undoubtedly insightful as Professor Baron-Cohen doesn’t  seriously consider a wonky neural empathy circuit as the sole cause of human barbarity and that he’s been unfairly ‘dissed’ (to quote Ali G) by opinions which are perhaps not empathic enough to see both sides of an argument. But to find that out for sure I’d better get out the debit card and head over to Amazon books.



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