Criminal Gifted

Gifted people who commit acts of violence against themselves and others are relatively few in number. In the past decade, neuroscience has given us far greater awareness of the underlying biochemical correlates of our emotional states and the behaviors they arouse in us. People differ greatly not only in the expression of these states and behaviors, but also in the balance of a variety of neurotransmitters in the brain. When certain neurotransmitters are out of balance in an individual's central nervous system, he or she can become hypersensitive to life's tribulations and react in unpredictable and dramatic ways. In addition, it seems that true psychopaths (those with antisocial personality disorder) habituate so quickly to stimuli that they are forever bored and restless. Nothing can arouse them much, so they seek greater and greater stimulation to achieve some measure of arousal, some thrill that will make them feel alive. Recent discoveries of mirror neurons, the structure in the brain that permits empathy, have led to the hypothesis that psychopaths are deficient in or have defective mirror neurons. [Page 222]Finally, there are conditions in which brain damage has destroyed those parts of the brain that inhibit aggression or allow for the development of empathy.

Biologically predisposed people usually also have psychological shaping for violence as well. It is also true that a gifted youth without much of a personality for aggression can be shaped in that direction. Violent behavior occurs as a response among smart young people for the same reasons it occurs among all people: hurt, frustration, and anger. Hurt can be physical or in the form of psychological injury, such as humiliation in front of a group. Violence in response to a threat of bodily injury is a long-identified expression of a fight-or-flight reaction to danger. Frustration can result in an explosive attempt to break down the real or perceived barriers to one's desired progress. And anger is one of our fundamental emotional states. Of course, hurt, frustration, and anger are part of everyone's daily lives. Some individuals differ in the spectrum of reactions they experience when they are hurt, frustrated, or angry.

Stoics, the strong and silent types, are usually able to keep a “poker face.” They simply do not show their emotions, especially to their adversaries. They shove their feelings down inside of themselves and cut off their awareness of them. This coping mechanism can work for quite a while. When it fails, however, an explosion of mighty force can erupt. Feelings kept in a pressure cooker can burst out in an expression of violence. At the other end of the continuum is the person for whom hurt, frustration, and anger trigger immediate and catastrophic episodes of violent acting out.