I read somewhere in a book review about genetic predispositions to crime (I forgot where though) that one of the signs of psychopaths is that they have an attached earlobe.
Adrian Raine is one of the world’s leading authorities on the APD/sociopathic/psychopathic mentality. In The Psychopathology of Crime he does cite several studies which demonstrate an inverse correlation between criminality and physical attractiveness, but he doesn’t mention anything specifically about earlobes. He does mention protruding ears, though. Does having an attached earlobe cause the ears to stick out?
These two studies provide most of the general background for this theory.
In short, minor physical anomalies (such as attached earlobes) appear to be strongly related to violent crime, but only if the person was also raised in an unstable home environment.
The theory is that central nervous system damage, perhaps impossible to detect on its own, may occur along with whatever caused these minor defects. This damage appears to predict future violent crime if the person is also exposed to an unstable early home life.
In contrast, it seems that rather like eye colour, there is no simple way to classify earlobe attachment, let alone correlate that with other traits (and, I would suggest, especially character traits).
In Myths of Human Genetics - a useful site for all kinds of suppositions - McDonald relates a number of pieces of research into earlobe attachment and concludes that
I recall an article showing Bill Cinton’s fleshy, dangly earlobes as proof of his promiscuity. Sounded like one of those Desmond Morris claptraps that reasoned if your earlobes were like ballsacks it meant only one thing. Like how Kirk Douglass’ chin made women think about his dick.
Both psychopaths and sociopaths are covered under the umbrella term of Anti-social Personality Disorder in the DSM 4. But they are not the same thing.
A psychopath is not necessarily a criminal, but rather someone who is not encumbered by a conscience. They have no conscience at all and are not capable of empathy, sympathy or pity.
Such a person is capable of doing terrible things without experiencing guilt, and many do. But that doesn’t mean that any particular individual will do terrible things. There are other reasons for living within society’s rules. It also doesn’t mean that any one who commits a crime is a psychopath - most are not.
