The Psychology of Dexter - Bella DePaulo [4]
Dexter can often fake a feeling without actually experiencing it. When it comes to emotions, a psychopath “knows the words, but not the music,”5 a sentiment that Dexter shared with Lila before killing her. It would be oversimplification, however, to say that psychopaths experience no emotions whatsoever. Rather, their emotional reactions are typically more limited and shallow than those of others. Dexter does experience bursts of anger, anxiety about getting caught, curiosity, and even excitement over his kills.
Because their emotional states are so shallow, many psychopaths are driven by short-term rewards and engage in thrill-seeking behavior such as gambling, theft, or physical risk-taking without fear of the consequences. However, the emotional rush that comes from these thrills is limited and rarely lasts long, resulting in increasingly risky behavior to regain that fleeting excitement. The rush that Dexter gets from killing and evading capture is one of his few genuinely emotional experiences, meaning that like a drug addict seeking a fix, he is unlikely to stop for too long. Like other lethal predators, Dexter is able to cover his tracks and even contain his killing impulses when the risks appear to be too great (such as when Sergeant James Doakes was on his tail), but too much restraint leaves him impatient and edgy.
However, Dexter doesn’t perfectly match all the traits of psychopathy. For example, he doesn’t show the kind of grandiosity typically seen in psychopathic individuals. Sure, he’s had fantasies of parades being held in his honor, heralding him as a hero, but he is rarely boastful and would much rather blend into the crowd than stick out as the center of attention. He often refers to himself as a monster and seems acutely aware of his human defects and shortcomings. If anything, Dexter could even be seen as somewhat lacking in the self-esteem department. On the other hand, he does show moral grandiosity over his victims, imbuing himself with god-like control over who deserves to live or die, and you can’t help but feel he takes pride in the elaborate mask he’s constructed to fool everyone.
Also, Dexter is much more reliable than most psychopaths. Psychopathic individuals often wander through life aimlessly, hopping from job to job and relationship to relationship. They will typically bolt at the first sign of conflict or of getting caught in their lies and petty cons. Psychopathic individuals have even been known to have multiple marriages and families at the same time in different cities. Their unreliability and willingness to skip town often leave behind a trail of broken hearts and empty bank accounts. But not everyone fits cleanly into distinct psychiatric categories, especially when talking about personality. Dexter holds a steady job that he performs well, and although he has alluded to some quickly abandoned romantic relationships, he maintains relatively stable work and family relationships. So isn’t the fact that Dexter is able to maintain these relationships and show caring or even fiercely protective behaviors toward his family and coworkers evidence that he’s not a detached and uncaring psychopath? Not entirely. A notable real-life example is Dennis Rader, known as the BTK (Bind-Torture-Kill) killer, who was responsible for systematically stalking and remorselessly slaying ten people. Rader was faithfully married for thirty-three years, raised two children, and held a respectable position in his Lutheran church.
“True enough, psychopaths are sometimes skillful in pretending love for a woman or simulating parental devotion to their children,” Dr. Hervey Cleckley wrote in The Mask of Sanity , his classic 1941 work on the psychopathic personality. Even if the psychopath is not entirely aware of the shallowness of his or her attachment, Cleckley wrote that this “pseudolove . . . consists in concern for the other person only (or primarily) insofar as it enhances or