It is well known that conscience, or a lack of it, regulates our behavior to a large extent.

Conscience is intangible, yet most of us can differentiate it as something deep down in our hearts. Without conscience to direct our behavior, I daresay, our world, as we know it, would be meaningless and chaotic.

Dr Martha Stout's book, The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless vs the Rest of Us talks about those without a conscience. In the book, she argues that as many as 4 percent of American citizens are conscienceless sociopaths who show no empathy or affectionate feeling for human beings or animals. The book is a provocative take on the role of conscience in everyday life.

Actually, the question of conscience came to my mind just the other day when a woman holding a baby girl approached me for a favor. Before I could ask what I could do for her, she requested 5 yuan to buy some food for her daughter, whom she claimed had not eaten anything for two days.

I would have extended a helping hand had I not had the experience of running into exactly similar kind of people seven years ago in Kunming. Then, it was a very good-looking teenage girl. I happened to have no small change and asked whether I could buy her some food or invite her to lunch at a restaurant nearby. She turned down my offer and left.

To my surprise, I saw the same girl while strolling along the banks of a lake. She, along with her partners, was pestering a man, who looked quite like a traveler, for money. It dawned on me that the innocent and pathetic expression the girl and her partners had put on was a mask to swindle people into giving them money.

Having obtained some, they quickly made their way for another target. And, the big and forceful strides they took easily betrayed the fact that they were not hungry at all but were just after money.

I cannot say for sure that they are what Stout describes as sociopaths. But, it is certain that they take advantage of other people's empathy to make some quick bucks. On this point, they can be termed conscienceless.

How can these youngsters fail to differentiate between right and wrong? They could have studied hard at school to work their way up or earned a decent living by working in factories anywhere. How could their parents never think about their future and let them get involved in such a dirty business? I wondered.

Two beggars TV reporters interviewed said that they would sometimes receive 1,000 yuan a day just by sitting at the roadside and appealing to people's good nature. They said it was quite easy to get several hundred yuan a day, and that the total money they obtain by way of begging was much more than an ordinary worker's salary. Little wonder then that an increasing number of people are choosing to beg rather than work for a living.

Last weekend, I ran into three neatly attired teenage boys who told me they had not eaten anything for two days and wanted 2 yuan to buy some food. Swindlers, I told myself, since they did not look famished at all. If I were starving for two days, I would have no strength to talk to anyone. What an awful act they were putting on!

Instinct tells me these boys and girls are not necessarily as conscienceless as they appear to be, but those manipulating them for money are exactly the sociopaths Stout describes in her book. They are villains who exploit both the innocence of these teenagers and people's empathy.

This rampant phenomenon is not without its share of consequences. When an increasing number of people see through the games they play, those who really deserve people's sympathy will suffer. Afraid of their empathy being exploited for monetary gains, more people will be on high alert even when the truly needy approach them for help. Our society will become increasingly pathetic.

Early this year, an old man in Beijing fell down on the street, but none from the crowd of onlookers came to his aid. They were afraid that the old man or his family members would accuse them of causing the incident. If so, they reasoned, their kindness may be exploited for meeting the medical expenses of the old man. Such a thing had happened in the past, and it was wise to keep away, they argued.

To help or not to help, that is the dilemma when one encounters such a situation.

In her book, Stout writes about how one can spot sociopaths. I've no way of knowing how many sociopaths there are in China.

But, it is wise to pause a second when your conscience urges you to open your wallet for anyone you think deserves your sympathy.

The author is a leader writer of China Daily. He can be reached at zhuyuan@chinadaily.com.cn