Ever wonder why psychopaths are, well… psychopaths?

Apparently, it all comes down to two personality traits.

According to new research, which studied 49 inmates at a psychiatric hospital, the way psychopaths makes choices is considerably different to how the average person makes a choice.

The study was carried out by Dr Josh Buckholtz, a neurologist at Harvard University, and he explained how people get confused with the feelings and emotions of a psychopath.

"For years, we have been focused on the idea that psychopaths are people who cannot generate emotion and that's why they do all these terrible things.

"But what we care about with psychopaths is not the feelings they have or don't have, it's the choices they make."

Dr Josh conducted brain scans on the 49 inmates and found out two things:

• The brains of psychopaths are extremely receptive to rewards

• They barely factor in consequences when making a decision

As we all know, consequences play a major part in the decision making process of the average person, and sometimes it's the only factor we include when given a choice.

Dr Josh continued: "Even though psychopaths are often portrayed as cold-blooded, almost alien predators, we have been showing that their emotional deficits may not actually be the primary driver of these bad choices.

"Because it's the choices of psychopaths that cause so much trouble, we've been trying to understand what goes on in their brains when they make decisions that involve trade-offs between the costs and benefits of action.

"In this most recent paper, we are able to look at brain-based measures of reward and value and the communication between different brain regions that are involved in decision making.

"They're not aliens, they're people who make bad decisions," Dr Josh added.