Boing Boing

New test purportedly spots psychopathy in babies

doll-heads

Does your little bundle of joy prefer looking at a red ball over a human face? If so, they might be a psychopath. Psychologists at King's College London studied ball-vs-face-tracking in 213 five-week-old babies. When the babies were 2.5 years old they tested which kids displayed "callous-unemotional traits" (such as "limited empathy, a lack of guilt, and shallow affect"). Callous-unemotional traits are "a proposed precursor to adult psychopathy." The researchers concluded that "lower preferential face tracking predicted higher callous-unemotional traits."

Reduced Face Preference in Infancy: A Developmental Precursor to Callous-Unemotional Traits?

Image: Shutterstock

Exit mobile version