Matthew Stuckey here, and I wanted to give you another one of the traits of psychopaths as part of the psychopathy checklist.
And I want to talk to you about the shallow affect, which is the second of the affective characteristics of being a psychopath.
And here's the description of the shallow affect. It says,
Psychopaths don't show many emotions, at least not genuine ones.
They may appear cold and unemotional much of the time, but when it serves them well,
they might exhibit a dramatic display of feelings. These are usually short-lived and quite shallow.
For example, they may show anger if they can intimidate someone, or they might show sadness to manipulate someone.
They don't really experience these emotions.
And so, it's not that psychopaths don't have any emotions, but a lot of their emotions are just faked.
They're just not real.
And so, for example, it talks about how they might show sadness in order to manipulate someone.
So a situation might come and they might act like they're overly filled with grief,
but it's fake in order to manipulate. It's not real.
It's not genuine.
What the shallow affect, though, is, is when a situation comes up that is very terrible,
and their reaction to the situation that should be at this level of emotion is actually down here.
So it's said in this description about them being cold.
It's like they don't care. They're uncaring or unfeeling toward other people.
An example would be if somebody gets a phone call and finds out, out of nowhere,
tragically, that their parents died in a car crash,
and their reaction to it is just one of, eh, it's not a big deal.
They might say, oh, that's terrible,
but then they'll hang up the phone and go back to eating and not think about it because they don't really care.
They don't actually care about that person.
And so, the shallow affect is when, basically, their emotional level should be here.
They have a very shallow, superficial, or faked emotion to an event.
So sometimes you can see with people that are psychopaths where an event will happen
and everybody else has a very similar reaction, but their reaction is completely different,
and it could be a sign that they might be a psychopath.
A great example in the Bible is with Jonadab.
You know, there's the classic sermon title that Amnon had a friend,
and Amnon's friend was a reprobate Jonadab, a psychopath.
Now, Amnon fell for his half-sister, Tamar, and Jonadab sees that Amnon is depressed,
and here's what he says in verse 4 of 2 Samuel 13.
And he said on to him,
Why art thou being the king's son lean from day to day?
Will thou not tell me?
So he's saying, why are you so depressed?
Why are you so sad from day to day?
You're the king's son.
As the king's son, you should not be depressed.
Now, this is a fake emotion that Jonadab is throwing out there.
He's acting like he actually cares about Amnon, but he does not.
This is in order to manipulate Amnon.
Amnon says he fell for his sister, Tamar.
Then, of course, Jonadab basically puts Amnon in a bad position,
gets Amnon to force Tamar, or basically puts him into a situation where he does something stupid.
Well, later on in the chapter, Amnon ends up being dead.
He ends up getting killed by Absalom.
Now, Jonadab supposedly was close friends to Amnon.
I mean, he cares so much about Amnon that when Amnon is just sad,
Jonadab is overly filled with grief and is, why are you so sad?
And you would think later on in the chapter, when he finds out Amnon is dead,
that he would be incredibly emotional, but actually, you see the shallow affect where there is no real emotion.
Now, David finds out about his son, Amnon, dying, and he actually gets wrong information
because he hears that all of his sons are dead, and then, of course, he's depressed, he's sad, he tears his garment.
Everyone around him as well feels terrible for David.
They feel sad about the situation, but you also have Jonadab there, and he does not feel sad about the situation.
Now, somehow, Jonadab had the inside information that it was just Amnon that was killed and not the other sons.
So, somehow, Jonadab basically was able to break the news story before it became official
because, obviously, he was inside of the inner circle of gossip, and he was a bad person, okay?
But it says in 2 Samuel 13, verse 31,
Then the king arose and tear his garments, and lay on the earth, and all his servants stood by with their clothes rent.
Everybody tears their clothes.
And Jonadab, the son of Shimei, David's brother, answered and said,
Let not my lord suppose that they have slain all the young men the king's sons, for Amnon only is dead.
So, Jonadab says to David, hey, don't feel bad like all of your sons have been killed, only Amnon's been killed.
Not only that, but he says, for by the appointment of Absalom, this hath been determined from the day that he forced his sister, Tamar.
Not only that, but he says, hey, only Amnon is dead, and he deserved it, and he was killed by your other son, Absalom,
because Amnon forced his half-sister, Tamar.
These are all the kids of David, and you would be an idiot to say something like this to someone, or just not care about them at all.
What you're seeing is actually inside of the heart of Amnon. It's called the shallow affect.
And so this is something they've noticed with people that are psychopaths or murderers,
where they commit some terrible crime, and they get interviewed about it,
and, you know, they'll act really emotional, like they're really sad, but it's fake.
But then all of a sudden, you know, there'll be some detail about the situation that will be horrible.
It doesn't affect them at all. They don't really care about it. It's just fake emotions. It's not real.
So some examples of this would be, let's say, for example, you're by the side of the road, and some kid tragically gets hit by a car,
and there's like 15 people to witness it. Everybody's normal reaction would be one of horror and being really sad and scared for the child.
A psychopath, they might present the same reaction because it's fake or feigned.
They're just trying to fit in with what everyone else does, but their natural response will not be to have that sort of reaction.
They basically would just not think anything of it, because it doesn't affect them. They don't really care.
Because psychopaths have what's called the shallow affect, and this is something that people have noticed before,
where people that are murderers are, you know, at the funeral, and they're not admitting guilt, but people think they might be the one who did it.
And the people that are psychopaths, they'll be at the funeral and just not really have any emotions.
They seem like they don't care about the whole situation, and people are looking around at them thinking everybody else is crying.
They're upset. It's like, why does this person not have this sort of reaction? It's called the shallow affect.
And so I think this is something that a lot of us notice from people that are bad people,
where sometimes they just don't have the proper emotion, and it just doesn't sit well with you.
And sometimes you think, well, maybe their emotions are confused, or it's just a situation they're struggling to deal with.
And of course that might be true from time to time, but it also might be a sign that that inner feeling,
that inner gut feeling that's telling you someone's a bad person, or that they're having a shallow affect,
that they really shouldn't have that sort of reaction, it might actually be a sign that they are a psychopath.
Anyways, thank you, and God bless.