This does not mean they are psychopaths. However, in psychological tests, people who exhibit a very high proportion of these traits are considered to be psychopathic. In the main, these tests have been carried out on convicted criminals and it has been found that those who scored very high on the checklist were highly likely to commit another offence. People who are easily bored seek out ever more stimulating situations. Activities that would induce anxiety in most people may simply amuse people who are easily bored.
Psychologists say that such people have 'low arousal'.
The part of the brain that controls arousal is called the reticular formation . It connects the more primitive parts of the brain, which are lower down in the skull, with the more highly evolved parts, which are towards the top and front of the skull. The reticular formation monitors all the information coming to the brain from the outside world and alerts the conscious parts of the brain to anything that seems important. A person who is nervy or anxious might have a slightly overactive reticular formation, which responds frequently to insignificant stimuli, like the rustle of a leaf. Psychopaths, in contrast, have a sluggish reticular formation, which fails to respond to stimuli that would alarm most people, like breaking glass.