Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience

Children as young as three can show patterns of behavior that, left unchecked, may later harden into psychopathic traits. That is the conclusion of Professor Essi Viding, a psychologist who has spent years studying how empathy, or the absence of it, takes root in the earliest stages of life.

Psychopathy is not a disorder that suddenly appears in adulthood. Rather, researchers say, it is shaped over time, blending inherited tendencies with lived experience. The hallmarks include a chilling lack of empathy, disregard for others, and, in severe cases, a slide into harmful or criminal behavior.

What Viding and her …