We know that empathy capacity varies in human beings. But we also know that the mere capacity for empathy does not make a socially conscientious human being. Empathy must be nurtured. That’s often a very challenging task for individuals who lie somewhere on the character disturbance spectrum. And there’s mounting evidence that it’s most likely an impossible task for those at the extreme end of the spectrum.
It’s one thing to think really highly – perhaps even too highly – of yourself and to be self-centered. But it’s quite another to view others with disdain or even contempt because, after all, they’re just not you. A pathological degree of grandiosity (i.e. malignant narcissism) is always at the root of bigotry.
The “smoothness” or social facility psychopaths display is generally not matched by congruent and concomitant emotion. They may have a very easy “way with words” (sometimes accompanied by equally charming nonverbal gestures), but usually their smooth talk is not accompanied by any emotion that matches what they’re saying or that can be sensed and felt by others as genuine.
Psychopaths are the most extremely disordered characters on the spectrum of character disturbance, and are the most ardent and skilled manipulators. And they lie for many hard to understand reasons, and sometimes they lie for reasons that don’t seem to make any sense at all. That’s just one feature of their makeup that led early researchers to conjecture that psychopathy is really a form of insanity. But psychopaths are, for the most part, in their right mind. And when you look more deeply, there’s actually method to their apparent madness.