The Psychology of Dexter - Bella DePaulo [18]
Brian was similarly indifferent to human suffering. He hacked off part of Tony Tucci’s legs with no signs of remorse and then played doctor and attached prosthetics. His demeanor by the patient’s bedside was more reminiscent of a mechanic who had just installed a car engine than a butcher who had recently honed his knife skills on another human being. This callousness Dexter and Brian share is what allows them to engage in their psychopathic killing. It’s part of their nature.
Debra, on the other hand, is not genetically related to Dexter, so she is not expected to share heritable traits like callous-unemotional with him. Quite the contrary, Deb openly expresses pain, joy, anger, fear, loneliness, jealousy, and sadness. In many ways she served as a point of contrast in season one to both Brian’s heartlessness and Dexter’s detached stoicism. Brian expressed no compassion while mutilating Tony Tucci, but Deb empathized with his tragedy. When Tony worried that he would no longer be able to attract girls, Deb arranged for one of her prostitute friends to pay him a visit. Deb seeks to alleviate others’ pain. Her nature is distinct from Dexter and Brian’s.
Another trait that we see in Dexter, fearlessness, is similarly heritable and evident in infancy. Fearless children are not deterred by danger. Whereas a callous child does not regret mischief, a fearless child engages in mischief even in the face of a penalty. Children with normal levels of fear may hesitate before doing something that could result in punishment, but fearless children are not deterred by negative consequences.
Biologically, more aggressive children tend to have a lower than average resting heart rate. Fearless and callous children’s heart rates remain low even in risky or terrifying situations. In “It’s Alive!” (2-1), when Dexter nearly shot Harry, he was amazed to learn that Harry’s heart began pounding. Dexter had never experienced exhilaration. Seeking this sensation, Dexter stood precariously at the edge of a rooftop in an attempt to get his pulse to race but to no avail. Dexter is unflappable. On several occasions when spying on a prospective victim, Dexter has been caught trespassing. Rather than become flustered, Dexter offered a plausible, poised explanation for his presence. At a killer’s junkyard, Dexter was just looking for a headlight for an old car he was fixing up. When caught stealing the ashes of his dead father from a morgue, Dexter deftly escaped and seemed unfazed by this near miss when Brian drove up beside him and offered him a ride.
Like Dexter, Brian easily carried out actions that would cause most of us great fear or anxiety. At the height of the police search for the Ice Truck Killer, he walked right into the lion’s den, appearing in the police station with a dozen white roses for Deb, the very person trying to track him down.
As a contrast, Deb reflects typical levels of anxiety in appropriate circumstances. She trips over words when addressing the entire police department, indicating ordinary fear of public speaking. At a crime scene where a woman was murdered in front of her young daughter, a shaken Deb asked Dexter how he could remain so composed. Genetically unrelated to Dexter, she does not possess a fearless temperament, and she expresses normal levels of compassion, fear, and displeasure.
Beyond Nature
Although psychopaths often inherit several traits that predispose them toward antisocial behavior, possessing these traits alone does not predict psychopathy with certainty.