Why do psychopaths enjoy making others cry and then watching them do so?

Answer 1

either because the other person has made them feel funny and their venting and getting relief from it, or because they don't understand why people cry and want to learn. my 'psychopath' friend fits the former it's a frustration thing, revenge, but doesn't understand why people cry.

Actuallymy origional answer was half correct, the correct answer. and actually the one I've given for years is.

Psychopaths have a pleasure pain inversion, that's partly what I said in my answer. But studies on children with Conduct Disorder (a prerequisite for ASPD) show that an area of the Amygdala associated with pleasue is activated when they watch someone else experiancing pain. That relates to the relief bit in my origional reply.

Also though Psychopaths have higher than normal amounts of some empathy (motor) normal amounts of cognative empathy (good for manipluating) they have lower amounts of affective empathy. This relates to the not understanding why people cry bit.

Implusiveness and easy to anger are psychopathic traits, relating to the frustration bit.

There's also narcissistic splitting which relates to getting 'pain' from other peoples pleasure, though I've found no direct neurology relating to this part of the pleasure pain inversion.