Psychopaths May Feel Regret But Still Lack Remorse, New Study Says

Psychopaths are known to be heartless people who have zero empathy for others. They may rarely show a bit of concern, but it is only there for a selfish purpose that they want to accomplish.

While psychopaths are described as unemotional people, a new study revealed that people with psychopathic nature are, in fact, capable of having feelings of regret and other negative emotions especially when they are directly affected by the circumstance.

"The popular view of psychopaths is that they are cold, callous, and simply don't care what happens to themselves or anybody else," said Yale psychologist Arielle Baskin-Sommers, the study's co-author, as quoted by Yale News. "But this research shows they can experience negative emotions - if they are impacted by the situation."

Although psychopaths could feel regret, this doesn't mean that they are open to learning from their experience. A strong factor in their nature is still their huge lack of remorse or feeling sorry of what they have done to hurt others.

"Regret is self-focused, whereas remorse involves another," she added.

So how do you know if a person is a psychopath? According to The Independent, the Hare Psycopathy Checklist enumerates the behaviors and characteristics of a person who could possibly have a psychopathic nature.

These are superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth, excess need for stimulation, strong proneness to boredom, pathological lying, cunningness or manipulation, lack of guilt and emotions, apathy, parasitic lifestyle, poor behavioral controls, promiscuous sexual behaviors, lack of realistic long-term goals, cruelty since childhood, extreme impulsiveness, high level of irresponsibility and failure to accept own faults.

For psychopathic criminals, they tend to commit juvenile delinquency, revocation of conditional release and criminal versatility.

Psychopaths are also known to have a predatory instinct. So in case you know someone who has scored high on this behavior test, just make sure you protect yourself from his or her charm and cunning manipulation.