Chapter 7 - Inhibition

Summary

Inhibition can be reduced by stress and ingesting alcohol, making it more difficult to employ working memory, such as recall of instructions on how to avoid trouble. Alcohol tends to induce alcohol myopia; that is, a focus on the present and away from potentially future troubles. Some lust killers display ambivalence about offending, suggesting that excitation and inhibition are competing in strength. As with excitation, inhibition is organized in layers involving the Old Brain and New Brain. A distinction is drawn between cognitive empathy (the ability to simulate the mind and moves of another) and emotional empathy (feeling the pain of another). Lust killers are not deficient in the former but show serious deficiencies in the latter. Lust killers fit the role of dehumanization and employ neutralizing techniques of the kind ‘she should not have been out at night’. They have commonly experienced brain damage, which might explain the compromised empathy.