Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath (2014)
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Am I a psychopath? Nah, but probably somewhere on the “spectrum” if you like. It could be undiagnosed ASD or adult ADD or any number of other things. But I don’t think that’s even necessarily the right question. All that matters is the reality of living with the mind you’ve got; being labelled with a “condition” just gives you some finer instruments like therapy and medication to help accomplish that.
Regardless, glad you're coping. If it's ADHD though, the meds can really make a huge difference in quality of life. But I understand if you'd rather not seek treatment when the alternative is being diagnosed with a personality disorder.
You’re right that I’m concerned about possible diagnoses. I’d like to know what’s “different” about me, but if it’s “bad” and would be used as justification to treat me with suspicion and remove my agency, then I’d rather nobody else know. :P
To conflate psychopath with hardcore -NTJ is to demonize hardcore -NTJ's, which can actually be a very valuable flavor of human for society. We should judge people by their impact crater, not by the perculiarities of their brain scans.
If you look at the psychopathy questionnaires, they have a heavy focus on the unrepentant predator side of things (e.g. https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/LSRP.php). The author does not sound like an unrepentant predator, so I think without the benefit of seeing his brain scan, few psychologists/psychiatrists would diagnose him as a psychopath.
Why are you sure of that?
The hunch is because stories like this https://www.quora.com/What-is-known-about-Elon-Musks-long-ti... about Elon Musk are not uncommon.
There's lots of good information, but you need some basic background information for context. It is hard to establish that because so much communication is rooted in weird attempts at signalling "I'm a good person who isn't guilty of what you are accusing me of!"
The reality is that sociopaths have very high IQs and serial killers are typically small business owners, in part because it allows them freedom and control over their schedule that a full time employee typically lacks.
But when I have tried to comment on that on HN in the past, it tends to not go over well because people feel I am saying "Businessmen are evil asshats inclined to be serial killers" which isn't what I am saying at all.
Serial killers tend to have certain traits. But that doesn't mean having certain traits is some one way non refundable ticket to serial killer land.
It's interesting to me how those traits predispose individuals towards certain paths, some positive and some not. But traits are not some Greek Tragedy style inescapable destiny. And that's a really hard thing to talk about.
You might find it helpful to look into brain research rather than psychological research. A lot of psychological research is really poorly done. But brain research has a lot of interesting tidbits based on some very solid experiments.
You might also look for historical case files about individuals, plus read biographies and fiction with an eye towards getting insight into individuals and how they experience the world.
Yes, people who are not neurotypical simply operate differently, so differently that a lot of what is written on the subject is biased to the point of uselessness.
You might find the writings of Temple Grandin of interest. You might find it useful to join online parent support groups and lurk. You might get good book recommendations out of that, plus useful anecdotal information.
Best.
But my understanding from an Intro to Psych class that I had years ago is that serial killers typically have six traits, including high IQ, plus other traits we would consider sociopathic, like lack of empathy.
Generally speaking, if someone has a low IQ, I just consider them to be mentally retarded and not pathological. I don't know why anyone would call someone sociopathic who lacks the mental faculty to comprehend the consequences of their actions.
Your understanding is incorrect. Serial killers do not typically have high IQs.[1] In fact they have normal IQs on average, and typically present themselves within a standard deviation of the norm.
The high IQ serial killer is a popular meme, but is ultimately unfounded.
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1.http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Serial%20Killer%20Information...
Real serial killers are average intelligence, chased by cops with average intelligence. They get caught for the same reasons that get other criminals collared. They get sloppy, and they fall into predictable patterns, or the cops get lucky. The only reason they can commit the same crime multiple times is that real investigative police work is difficult without CSI-style magical technology. Most people could formulate a simple set of rules that would keep their crimes separate from their public identity--until one of them hits a corner case and leaks critical information.
Don't burgle houses with dogs. Always burn the clothes you wore. Never look inside the package. Use encryption and dead drops. Put thermite on incriminating storage devices. Never work the same postal code twice. Don't work with a pimp. Always pay the boss exactly what you owe. Don't surface the submarine until you get within 50m of the floating dock. Wives and kids are off limits. Don't spend your share conspicuously. Don't sample the goods. Don't talk about Project Mayhem. &c. &c. &c.
It doesn't require mastermind-level plotting. The hardest part about crime is finding a person willing to do it. A lack of empathy goes a long way towards that, and an unwillingness to take responsibility for the consequences of one's actions gets even closer. The smart criminals don't murder people; instead they go into real-estate fraud, money laundering, and insider trading. The money is better and the prosecutions rarer.
The piece you link to lists the lowest IQ as Simon Pirela with an IQ of 57. I found the following two pieces about Pirela:
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-3rd-circuit/1874807.html
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-05-02/news/040502046...
He was apparently involved in four murders, but I am failing to find good details. From what I am reading of the one case where I can find a few details, you could conclude he was pressured into helping commit murder by other people and this occurred in part due to his low IQ. They commuted the death sentence due to his disability. So even the law doesn't hold him fully responsible.
The research you cite lists people as serial killers who killed at least two people. I don't think this is really what most people have in mind when talking about serial killers. Other research defines it differently, only including people who have killed at least three people.
Saying that someone typically has a high IQ doesn't mean they always have a high IQ. If you drop the very low figure of Simon Pirela's 57 IQ from the data, I imagine that would substantially change the means, medians, etc. cited.
My best understanding is that serial killers are typically bright. And the link you have provided is not really compelling evidence to the contrary.
I have spent part of my afternoon looking at this information because a. I did take Intro to Psych a long time ago, so perhaps what I know is outdated and b. I have a sincere interest in knowing what the truth is. That matters far more to me than winning internet arguments. I'm not here to argue with anyone anyway. That's not what motivates me.
But I'm really not finding your source compelling. So my mind has not been changed. I see no reason to believe the stated conclusion of this piece is better information than what I have previously been told. In fact, it looks pretty sketchy to me.
I can also give a personal citation of my own if that might help convince you. My Dad is a clinical psychologist who gives lectures on Conduct Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder, and does work for the courts evaluating the mental competency of defendants. He's the one who first told me there is no correlation between serial killers and intelligence.
The piece you linked to seems to have an explicit political agenda of disproving the popular image of a serial killer as a young white male. And that makes the entire database questionable because if that is the goal, then you explicitly define things as broadly as possible so as to accomplish your political agenda.
I'm aware there are legitimately different profiles of serial killers. For example, your typical female serial killer has murdered multiple relatives by poisoning for the insurance money. This is very different from your typical male serial killer.
At this point I am tired and frustrated and I don't know how to sort out the answer to this question. I know we have IQ scores for a number of high profile cases that clearly fit my understanding of what a serial killer is and those IQs are on the high side, fitting my general understanding. I don't know where to look for data that doesn't have a political agenda of explicitly rebutting popular perception. For the moment, I feel stymied. And the reality is this is not important enough for me to keep digging into the question indefinitely. It's already eaten an excess of my time.
Even more so than confirmation bias?
>And even in that small data set, the average IQ trends up as the number of victims trends up. It comes a lot closer to average IQ than the overall number of 86, but it does trend up.
Obviously, duh. It's not because serial killers tend to be of higher IQ, but because serial killers of higher IQ can get uncaught for longer, and thus manage bigger "number of victims".
Correlation != causation and all.
Your understanding is incorrect. But I read How to Lie With Statistics too, so I'm happy to help you with more sources for your perusal. Keep in mind that merely invoking How to Lie With Statistics does not refute a statistical analysis, you actually have to identify the problem.
1. This document goes into much greater depth about the statistics you're criticizing: http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Serial%20Killer%20Information..., including a coverage of serial killers with 2 or more versus 3 or more victims.
2. The FBI's profile of serial killers, from their behavioral science unit, in which they explicitly call out the popular conception of high IQ serial killers as being a myth: https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/serial-murde...
3. This study conducts a meta analysis of published literature that finds no correlation between verbal intelligence and traits traditionally associated with psychopathy: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/28836093/ (also on bioRxiv if you'd like to read the non-paywalled version).
4. This study finds that, for a set of intelligence metrics and psychopathy checklist traits, psychopathy and intelligence are orthogonal: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0093854807309806
5. For good measure, since you like popular media like true crime TV, I'll throw in a Scientific American article for you: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/5-myths-about-ser...
> But I'm really not finding your source compelling. So my mind has not been changed.
I suppose I should be transparent with you: I don't debate with people online to persuade them, I debate with people online to persuade the audience. I don't particularly mind if you're convinced, but it is important to me that misinformation not be spread unchallenged. So now we're at a crossroads. I've provided empirical evidence from a variety of cited sources, and you've provided an anecdote from an undergraduate course you took years ago. My sources might be incorrect! The beauty of science is that you can challenge its findings. I welcome you to challenge the sources I've provided as well (though I'd remind you that you've continually abstained from providing any of your own). But if you don't, that's also totally fine, because I think I've sufficiently demonstrated my point either way. Considering your lukewarm dismissal of an academic dataset based on a disagreement with one particular data point out of 206, it appears true crime television and your recollection of an old psych class are better authorities than published research.
I can't find info on the other 204. I see 2 names listed, one a famous case I already had heard about. So I tried to find details on the only other data point where I was provided a name and came up short on the kind of info I would like to see.
Your comments are not written in a good faith fashion. I don't plan to engage you further.
So, I think you need to back up a step and figure out what your point is.
When I use the term sociopath, I generally am talking about people who:
1. Lack empathy
2. Are narcissistic
3. Are manipulative
4. Do not have some innate sense of morality
5. Are very intelligent.
This fits with traits listed in the article under discussion. It fits with what I learned in a college class, Intro to Psychology, about traits typical of serial killers. It fits with what I have heard in true crime shows profiling serial killers.
So you and I are not on the same page, which is okay because it isn't a clinically defined term. But you and you are also not on the same page, and that makes it really hard to meaningfully engage you in discussion.
Again, serial killers do not tend to have higher IQ than the general population. It is a popular misconception, but it is incorrect all the same.
I highly recommend not basing opinions on true crime shows.
EDIT: I sincerely apologize, it was not my intention to insult you. I included that last line as a way to knock down one of your supporting arguments, not as a personal attack, or to imply that true crime shows were the reason you have these opinions. I actually originally had that section also rebutting your citation of an intro to psych class (how I'm guessing you took that class a while ago, the field has changed a lot since then, and depending on the exact year you might have been taking classes while sociopathy was a clinically defined term, etc) but I cut it down for the sake of brevity. That's an explanation, mind you, not an excuse. The intention of my words are irrelevant, all the matters is how they are received. I really am sorry, and I don't mean to belittle you or your experiences.
That's why, whether the effect is desired, the final result is constraining. You cannot lower someone's credibility non-insultingly.
As already stated, I have taken college classes where this was touched upon. I have raised two children with a lot of personal challenges and I've read quite a lot of stuff.
It's fine for you to disagree with me. But you are being personally insulting for no real reason.
So I plan to step away from further discussion with you. If you take additional personal potshots at me, my lack of reply is not some sort of confirmation that these low blows are in any way accurate.
The other commenter didn't merely nitpick a detail, they attacked a central pillar in your comment's credibility. When you responded with irrelevant information about watching criminal dramas, the commenter (rightly) advised you not to get your information from entertainment media. I can't tell you how to feel personally, but frankly I'm not sure it could be worded any more gently. You really shouldn't get your information from TV. At a certain point it's difficult to correct someone else without coming across as patronizing. As for your other sources of information:
> As already stated, I have taken college classes where this was touched upon.
As I cited in another reply to you, those college courses either provided you with misinformation, or you misunderstood them. Reading "quite a lot of stuff" and raising children while encountering "personal challenges" also does not satisfy any empiricism for your claims.
> If you take additional personal potshots at me, my lack of reply is not some sort of confirmation that these low blows are in any way accurate.
This is irritating and comes across as controlling, in my opinion. You don't really have any authority on how other people interpret your lack of reply. Nor were the commenter's valid criticisms "potshots" or "low blows" - you're being factually incorrect, insofar as there is cited, demonstrable evidence available. In fact, I'll freely interpret your lack of response as a tacit concession!
And there are plenty of psychiatrists who treat sociopathy as such. It can cause the sort of impairment cognizable by the DSM, especially as children when the measure of impairment is different than as an adult (e.g. "unruly child", something that would be non-sense once they reach the age of majority). And in those cases while it might be formally treated under the rubric of Anti-Social Personality Disorder, clinicians understand that treatment (in as much as its treatable at all) requires understanding sociopaths as a distinct class with a very distinct pathology.
Sociopath in the vernacular does often connote a serial killer. Fair enough. But there's plenty of literature, for professionals and laymen, that discusses sociopathy in clinical, well-defined terms.
FWIW, AFAIU I don't think there's any real debate about whether sociopathy exists as a concrete human phenomenon. The debate is largely how big the umbrella--do we only include those who are "incurable" (i.e. neurobiologically lack the capacity for empathy, either at birth or from a combination of nature and nurture), or those which behave as-if they lack such capacity, but where the capacity is simply suppressed for other reasons. And of course, this begs the question of what, exactly, is empathy. Like sociopath, I think most agree that empathy is a thing (and much more concretely than, say, "love"). But is "cognitive empathy" a thing? And given these questions, how accurate can we ever hope to get in particular cases?
FWIW, here's a good, recent radio interview discussing a special clinic in Wisconsin that has seem good results treating sociopaths--not in making them stop being sociopaths who harm people, but at least in minimizing their harm to a level below that which is considered criminal.
https://www.npr.org/2017/05/24/529893128/scientists-develop-...
Of course, most sociopaths are already non-violent. Empathy seems to be but one evolutionary mechanism for checking violence and dampening violent tendencies. It's not the sole mechanism and might not even be the most important.
Sociopathy is not a clinical term, despite Robert Hare's research into the subject. I have spoken to psychologists and psychiatrists about this, as you're recommending - they only use terminology like "sociopathy" insofar as they use terminology like "insanity." It helps them quickly invoke a set of peripherally familiar traits when they're speaking to a lay audience, like clients or law enforcement.
The entire purpose of a clinical term is to label a disease or disorder. There's no such thing as a clinical term not being documented in clinical reference material, because that's implicitly definitional. Antisocial personality disorder is the clinical label for traits which are usually bundled together under the colloquial term "sociopathy" because "sociopathy" is just that - colloquial. For the same reason the legal insanity defense doesn't qualify it as a clinical term, psychologists do not actually use sociopathy because it's far too imprecise.
> Sociopath in the vernacular does often connote a serial killer. Fair enough. But there's plenty of literature, for professionals and laymen, that discusses sociopathy in clinical, well-defined terms.
Can you cite literature intended for a professional audience that actually uses sociopathy as a clinical term? Using sociopath in popular science books or books targeted to a lay audience doesn't count. That sociopathy occupies a zeitgeist among a lay audience is exactly why it's not used in a clinical setting. It has too many associations and inconsistencies that do not lend itself to a rigorous analysis, and is often abused to refer to whatever set of qualities someone wants to attribute to another party.
This might come across as pedantry, but I find it very frustrating when words like "sociopathy" or "psychopathy" or even "insanity" are all claimed to be clinical terminology. Claiming they are dilutes the clarity of actual diagnosable disorders in discussion, and somewhat legitimizes ad hominem attacks involving these terms. The terms are fun as a popular reference or for joking incredulity, but there is a serious lack of self awareness among all of the comments in this thread which keep trying to define and redefine terms which have no clinical definition.
My sense of the conversation was that the term evoked precisely the same concepts in both our minds (even if his had more nuance and depth), and nothing at all as a muddled as "insanity". I wanted to ask more questions but I figured, what was the point. All he could do would be to confirm what I've read and reiterate the open questions and debates.
"Clinical" is not defined by the degree of accuracy or precision relative to the objective truth of a phenomenon. Depending on the state of the science a clinical term could be extremely fuzzy or perhaps even an ontological misstep--i.e. a grouping of unrelated phenomena, or an overly restrictive grouping. But it can be still be a clinical term serving a clinical role.
Regarding the literature,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=sociopathy
I'll let those search results speak for themselves. If we're being pedantic I think many of them make my case. But in fairness those results taken as a whole probably augur in favor of the term "sociopathy" being, at best, borderline clinical.
Psychopath is a clinical term. Sociopath is not.
And I don't really want to discuss this any further with folks nitpicking my comments. The individual I was addressing has replied and explained the reason for their interest and I have replied to that. So I plan to step away from this discussion since I don't think it's at all constructive and I don't like how I am being addressed.
No, it isn't. "Antisocial personality disorder", "dissocial personality disorder", "unspecified personality disorder", etc - these are all clinical terms. Neither psychopathy nor sociopathy are clinical terms. They are colloquial terms used variously for many things, and unfortunately people tend to use them inconsistently.
> And I don't really want to discuss this any further with folks nitpicking my comments.
It's not nitpicking to point out actual inaccuracies. This isn't pedantry, and thus far you've defended your points by citing 1) "true crime" television, 2) an intro to psychology class you took "years ago", and 3) your experience as a parent.
I've never seen the claim that serial killers tend to be small business owners, do you have a source for that?
The clinical terms [1] are Dissocial Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Anti-Social Personality Disorder are most related, though many aspects of "psychopaths" can't be measured - for example how do accurately and repeatably measure "lack of empathy?"
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_B_personality_disorder...
There are many mental disorders. Psychopathy is just one of them. Not every crazy person is a psychopath; not everyone who harms others is a psychopath. Psychopathy is a specific type of a disorder, not an umbrella term for "everything I dislike".
The best book I found on this topic is "The Psychopath Code" by Pieter Hintjens.
In real life, I met 2 people I would bet are psychopaths, in the clinical meaning of the word. I won't try to provide a short description, because short descriptions are not good enough to explain; if you didn't have the same kind of experience, you would probably just round the words to something else you are already familiar with.
A real psychopath is something like a spider in a human skin, with very good human-role-playing abilities. Your first experience is most likely going to be "this is a charming person". Only after longer interaction you will unconsciously start noticing patterns that feel somehow weird. But when you express doubt, there is always a good explanation and you will feel guilty for doubting afterwards. Only when they attack you, you will find yourself in a conflict with a non-human intelligence. And then you know that if you try to explain to someone who didn't have the same experience, they will never understand.
Psychopaths seem like masters of manipulation, so it makes sense to ask why this doesn't translate into a huge evolutionary advantage: why they don't already make 100% of the population. But it seems like an important part of their charm is being unknown. When you meet your first psychopath, they can manipulate you as they wish, because you have no idea what you are interacting with. Meet the second or the third one, however, and you have a chance to recognize the pattern. So when they exceed some fraction of the population, normies probably learn to recognize them and start killing them. But when they become rare again, they again get the advantage of being unknown.
A psychopath is simply a person who only has a certain subset of human emotions. That doesn't define what they will do; just like being a neurotypical humans does not define how one behaves. It just makes certain predatory behaviors more likely, because it removes some reasons not to do them (such as empathy) and adds some skills, such as being a better liar (humans are usually quite bad at lying, because they unconsciously display little signs of their emotions; but this does not happen when you simply do not have that kind of emotion).
This.
I think it's important to emphasize that those "good explanations" are usually lies, as lies are at the foundation of all the harm that psychopaths cause.
Normal people avoid lying if possible, psychopaths on the other hand are master liars and they make use of lies just whenever a lie serves them better than the truth.
The manipulation tactics that psychopaths use to reach their goals are also just based on lies. You can't be manipulated if you don't believe the lies. Of course psychopaths will primarily serve you lies that you want to believe but that doesn't make them more truthful.
Bottom line, if you want to stay safe from psychopaths, keep it like Reagan: "Trust but verify". And at the first sign of things not adding up, end the relationship and any contact.
It still throws me off, you have to basically vet or ignore any factual statement they make because it might either not have any correlation with reality at all or, if it is a statement about their intentions and feelings, they will not remember what they said in the future anyway and say they always had the new opinion.
This also happens with personality-disordered people (particularly, Narcissists, and especially the Borderline PD people I know . . . they SEEM manipulative, and they technically are, but they're manipulating for a reason that's usually ego-defensive).
Psychopaths, on the other hand, will lie for no damn reason at all that makes any sense to a sane person.
How about 'at the first proof of things not adding up'? Verification works both ways. If an isolated incident smells funny but checks out on investigation then maybe it was just a misinterpretation.
Psychopathy is neither an umbrella disorder nor a specific disorder. Psychopathy is, like "insanity," a term used by laypeople. The reason why we use antisocial personality disorder, or unspecified personality disorder, or other similar clinical terms to refer to some of the qualities on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist is exactly because of the (correct) point you're making here:
> It's frustrating how so many people redefine "psychopath" just to make a stronger statement about someone they don't like. When everyone is a "psychopath", no one is. If the word is supposed to mean something, it needs a narrower definition.
Unfortunately, you're right, this nonsense precluded Hare's term from ever being useful, much like the term "heart attack" is not actually a useful medical diagnosis because it's been co-opted by the public. Which brings me to my next points:
> In real life, I met 2 people I would bet are psychopaths, in the clinical meaning of the word.
There is no clinical meaning of the word, because it's not a clinical term. Further, this description, while occupying a place in the popular zeitgeist of psychopathy, is incorrect:
> A real psychopath is something like a spider in a human skin, with very good human-role-playing abilities. Your first experience is most likely going to be "this is a charming person". Only after longer interaction you will unconsciously start noticing patterns that feel somehow weird. But when you express doubt, there is always a good explanation and you will feel guilty for doubting afterwards. Only when they attack you, you will find yourself in a conflict with a non-human intelligence. And then you know that if you try to explain to someone who didn't have the same experience, they will never understand.
Let's suppose you're referring to someone with a diagnosable disorder, such as antisocial personality disorder. The literature does not show that any such disorder uniformly presents with exceptional charisma, nor any of the other exciting qualities usually lumped in with psychopathy, like high intelligence. Popular depiction in the media and outright confirmation bias have encouraged this description, but it doesn't match with how most people meeting the bar for the diagnosable disorders closest to Hare's "psychopathy" actually are.
> Psychopaths seem like masters of manipulation, so it makes sense to ask why this doesn't translate into a huge evolutionary advantage: why they don't already make 100% of the population. But it seems like an important part of their charm is being unknown. When you meet your first psychopath, they can manipulate you as they wish, because you have no idea what you are interacting with. Meet the second or the third one, however, and you have a chance to recognize the pattern. So when they exceed some fraction of the population, normies probably learn to recognize them and start killing them. But when they become rare again, they again get the advantage of being unknown.
Again, none of this has a basis in clinical literature. Sometimes they are exceptionally good at manipulation, but in many cases their criminal behavior enjoys prolonged success because of chance circumstances, like bureaucratic incompetence in local law enforcement (e.g. not following up on reports of unsettling behavior by several neighbors).
Here's the overarching point: trying to rigorously define sociopathy or psychopathy in the clinical context is doomed to failure. It's even more doomed if you use descriptions like "a spider in a human's skin." There are two problems here:
1. Trying to formalize colloquial terminology with clinical definitions when they have been so overloaded by popular representation has the side effect of allowing ad hominem attacks that arbitrarily use the word to be somewhat legitimized, and
2. It does a disservice to people with actual diagnosable disorders people associate with sociopathy, who do not universally present with the qualities you have listed here. It also demonizes them, especially if they are socially inept and nonviolent.
I guess I am fortunate that I only met one. Hope I never meet another one.
What makes you so sure? Given the history of these fields I would not be surprised either way.
Very strange. Hooray for Reader Mode.
On Mozilla, I recommend to use Reader Mode.
Some anecdotes:
When the granddaughter injured her foot and was unable to do the balance beam at the gymnastics gym, her grandmother saw her work out on the pull up bar and do thirty pull-ups in a row.
The grandmother came downstairs one afternoon when the granddaughter and her brother and her parents were staying in their home. Right near, one of the outlets there was a fresh hole kicked in the drywall. The granddaughter said "Yes, I kicked the wall but I don't know where that hole came from".
The granddaughter was in the car with her parents and said something shocking that made everyone upset (it wasn't specified). She then got out of the car and started pummeling the hood.
The fit of rage at the end is not necessarily associated with sociopathy. That kind of lack of control is common with things like fetal alcohol syndrome and head injury syndromes.
I raised a sociopath. He's 30 now. We're close and get along well. My other son is not a sociopath, but has a violent temper. Neither has a criminal record and I find articles like the one under discussion rather unsophisticated and annoying.
My sons are okay in part because I never expected them to be born knowing things like "Lying is bad." One child went through a lying stage. The other did not. I successfully broke him of lying because I viewed it as "Wow, you dumb kid who has no idea how social stuff works" rather than "You evil badly behaved child doing bad things on purpose."
Surgeons typically lack empathy. It is what allows them to cut into people. I could never do that job.
The guy is probably an excellent scientist because he's a sociopath. The article doesn't address that fact.
There's a lot of disparate things in these two sentences:
1. It's othering: so what? Everyone is unique and different, and any time you talk about those differences it's othering. If you view othering as a problem, then literally any conversation about differences between people is problematic.
2. Blamey? What is the article blaming him for, exactly?
3. I don't think the article assumes this is all downside. I also don't think you can ignore the fact that psychopathy has very serious downsides.
4. Psychopathy is absolutely something he needs to compensate for in order to be a prosocial member of society. The fact that he seems willing and able to compensate is amazing and admirable.
> Surgeons typically lack empathy. It is what allows them to cut into people. I could never do that job.
I'd love to see where you get your information that surgeons typically lack empathy. Maybe some do, but many don't and function just fine. I personally don't lack empathy, but I think I could cut someone open easily if it were to help them. I'm not a psychopath, I just have a strong sense of the difference between hurt and harm: I can hurt someone if it helps them rather than harming them.
> The guy is probably an excellent scientist because he's a sociopath. The article doesn't address that fact.
The article probably doesn't address that "fact" because there's very little to support a causal link.
It may do a great disservice to someone who is really suffering to get the label sociopath or psychopath undeservedly. But I also know there are people (I personally have dealt with) that just want to destroy you, and hate everyone...
That's an interesting theory. How long have you been working in the field, how many psychopaths have you met, and what is the strongest evidence for your theory?
But you never know, that's why I asked, hoping that someone OP or otherwise who has experience in the field would comment.
TFA is specifically taking about genetics and brain scans, which makes me curious as to how that would be reconciled with this "theory" about bad experiences, if indeed the OP was aware of the content of the article at all.
The learned abusive-behavior, can also be how they relieve their frustration, and abusers themselves often started out as abuse victims. This is inheritable behavior; unrelated to genetics even.
None of them seem relevant to how the granddaughter sees other people. Perhaps the grandmother it's mis-labeling what are otherwise anger/coping-issues?
My diagnosis: The granddaughter is being subjected to emotional abuse by one or more of her 'care givers' and acting out in this manner as she lacks the emotional maturity and verbal skills to express herself.
But what on Earth does that have to do with sociopathy?
I worry that violence breeds violence, literally. What will happen to kids growing up in Syria today, where effectively mass abuse takes place (unless different kinds of abuse have different effects)? What will happen to kids growing up in the U.S. and Europe today, where they experience the constant bombardment of hate, either by observation, participation, or as victims of it?
EDIT: How many extra abusers are we creating in the next generation, who can pass it down to their kids, etc. ... On the hopeful side, violence has decreased in the world over time; we can make make progress if we want to.
Some people howl and wail about a paper cut, others will continue through the day with a broken limb as if nothing happened. I am sure the same can be said for mental ailments; some people can't function with even the slightest sad thought, others can apparently become great scientists under the strongest psychopathy.
In this guy's case - he clearly does feel some dis-ease about his body. Whether or not the medical community agrees doesn't really matter, we have no ability to measure the mind, so we have to go off of what people tell us.
The biggest problem I see with this guy is that he's using the people around him as part of his therapy, whether or not they want to be a part of it.
That's not true. We have no tools to study the mind like we study ballistics, with strict mathematical formalities, but we certainly can study other people's minds, based on what they say and do. And regarless, we don't have to take their word for it.
He readily admits he's quite narcissistic.
Psychopaths can be easily diagnosed thorough a brain scan.
Or a more likely narrative: A person compared pictures and interpreted them wrong.
I'm assuming you mean plastic.
This is what he says:
> My bias is that even though I work in growth factors, plasticity, memory, and learning, I think the whole idea of plasticity in adults—or really after puberty—is so overblown.
Unless the enemy infantry and fire-support are utterly incompetent or horribly outnumbered, the vast majority of such 18-year-olds will be killed in action. (And in the outnumbering case, the younger infantry are likely to be lower-rank and therefore could be easily selected for the more dangerous tasks.)
What consequences remain, then, of using 18-year-olds instead of 25-year-olds? Is the author actually implying that 18-year-olds' emotional deficiencies make them less competent as infantry?
I wonder if anyone tried to tell him before he did the scan.