# Psychopaths **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 17, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychopaths/693392 "2014-07-17T19:56:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 1
**Author:** ![Daz\_the\_burner\_Rush](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dc4da7/32.png) [@Daz\_the\_burner\_Rush](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daz_the_burner_Rush)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychopaths/693392/1 "2014-07-17T19:56:06Z")
Here’s a thought. Is psychopathy a basic, unaltered human condition? Please nobody answer who, after reading the word ‘psychopath’ thinks ‘mindless serial killers’. These days many of us are aware that psychopaths walk among us. In fact, it has been said that 1 in every 100 of us are psychopaths, or at the very least have psychopathic traits. Those traits can be; lack of empathy, lack of ability to follow o ‘life plan’, unreliability. I was thinking that these so-called psychopathic traits, and others, are traits that i think people are probably generally born with, and that it is learned behaviour that subsequently causes these traits to diminish. Even the lack of fear thing, I know that people who know about this stuff put a lot down to an abnormality in the amygdala, but if an individual was never civilized, could he/she be considered a pychopath? --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/psychopaths/693392)._