Heroes and Sociopaths

Just caught the tail end of 60 Minutes--a story about men and women honored by the Carnegie Foundation for heroism.  Very interesting! 

The people who saved a life by risking their own said, "I didn't think about it. I just did it."  One ran into the ocean to rescue a drowning boy, then went back for a second (who was unable to be saved).  Six years later, he says, "A real hero would have saved the second boy." 

A teenaged girl saved by a hero when her car spun out of control in heavy traffic is now a neuroscientist who studies the brains of people with high empathy and people without empathy.  Sociopaths have no empathy.  If you show a photos of people in distress, it barely registers with viewers  incapable of empathy. They simply do not do "feeling with" other people. 

She showed brain imaging that showed the brains of high-empathy people and sociopaths.  In the area of the amygdala, they do not look the same!  Maybe we are hard-wired to either respond to people in pain or look away? 

One of the heroes who broke a windshield to extricate a woman in a burning car had a prison record.  Yet when he acted on his better impulses, he didn't stop to consider his safety.  After his act of heroism, he resolved to care for other people, and he donated a kidney to a stranger. 

One act doesn't necessarily define a person.  Maybe empathy can be learned?  I'm not an expert, just thinking about the implications as we wrestle with the astounding increase in mass shootings.