Psychopaths among us

http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html

by b-man • 16 years ago

124 100 16 years ago

What a loaded sensationalist witch hunt. Someone either is an axe murderer or they aren't.

There is no physical thing known as Psychopathy, it is an arbitrary descriptive label known as a category used to group similar behavior together. It is not a scientific discovery but a classification.

This psychology professor is just asserting the classification he's devoted his life's work to is now bigger and applies to more people. He is simply coming up with an excuse to inflate his self-worth and sell more books, even though he is not making any discoveries and doing research.

He's not even making the genetics argument, and if he was I would post articles citing nutritional deficiencies as causes of aggression or how gene expression changes due to epigenetics.

I just want to insist that anyone interested in reading up on psychology stick to the scientific research, specifically cognitive- psychology\neuroscience\computing\science

samd3• 16 years ago

Behaviors are caused by physical things, namely brain states, so it's perfectly reasonable to attribute a category of behavior to a physical characteristic of the brain. If people who behave fundamentally differently than others aren't physically different then what accounts for their behavior?

metamemetics8• 16 years ago

Your making what's known in social psychology as the Fundamental Attribution Error: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

aphyr5• 16 years ago

I agree that behaviors are caused by physical states. However, stating that people who behave in a fundamentally different way aren't physically different is misguided. Every person is physically different. The difficulty is that unless there are gross brain lesions, it's very hard to see what makes people with psychopathy different. It might be a slight difference in the sensitivity of key neurons to one of twenty neurotransmitters, for example, or a slightly different pattern of connections in one region.

Psychology (like many sciences) is all about developing reliable abstractions for these complex physical states. The surprising thing is that it works: you can change the neurotransmitter balance of the brain in many cases just by sitting down and talking to people for a year.

itistoday3• 16 years ago

Where on earth are you getting this from? The guy has done excellent hard research, psychopathy is fairly well established at this point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy

Further, there should be nothing outrageous in the claim that some people have radically different emotions from "normal people," especially considering the fact that you can take a pill and instantly change the sort of consciousness and emotions that you experience.

TimothyFitz• 16 years ago

I think there's a fair point to make that calling one person a psychopath and another person not a psychopath is a purely arbitrary line drawn in the sand. Hare's test measures various responses and draws an arbitrary line (30 of 40 points) between which someone is or is not a psychopath.

It's a classical false dichotomy that the article promotes in sensationalist terms.

metamemetics8• 16 years ago

Psychopathy is a label that's not even widely used anymore. It's not a diagnostic in the DSM. This guy is a super old-timer who mainly works with police. 'Psychopathy' was a catch-all category that he is making increasingly more catch-all. We make categories because they are useful, but this categorization wasn't specific enough to be useful which is why it isn't used anymore.

"According to Hare, the consensus among researchers in this area is that psychopathy stems from a specific neurological disorder which is biological in origin and present from birth[10] although this was not what was reported by a 2008 review which instead indicated multiple causes and variation between individuals"

I am obviously not arguing that antisocial behavior doesn't exist, murder obviously is an action that has happened at least once before. What I am arguing strongly against is the idea that people are born intrinsically evil. Also the point he hammers in is all about "empathy", but empathy is also absent in autism... his category is too broad to be usable at helping people.

Treating an individual as an individual rather than a category allows you to take off the blinders and address there specific situation better to promote more positive change. The methodology of categorizing someone as having an intrinsic psychological disorder is extremely pessimistic and hinders resocialization. It has also been out the door with the advent of positive psychology, here is a speech by a president of the american psychological association: http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psy...

http://www.usc.edu/uscnews/stories/10773.html

The above is a completely different approach to looking at antisocial behavior. It is also one that leads to positive outcomes. It is also quantifiable.

Vivtek• 16 years ago

First, "this psychology professor" is trying to get people not to misuse his work, as reading the article would have told you. He is, in fact, "the scientific research". The reason he's not doing research now, as you seem to be asserting, is that he is retired. From doing research, you see.

Secondly, if you don't believe in psychopathy, you clearly haven't met my mother-in-law. (And I only wish I were joking.)

100k• 16 years ago

There is an excellent book by psychologist Martha Stout called "The Sociopath Next Door" which examines this subject. The author claims as many as 1 in 25 Americans is a sociopath.

http://www.amazon.com/Sociopath-Next-Door-Martha-Stout/dp/07...

Indeed, this book changed my perception of human nature -- some people are un-reformable. Most of them aren't serial killers, they're just dicks who get their rocks off by controlling other people. Think your asshole boss, or a jerk you knew who was always using people.

Confusion3• 16 years ago

It's rather soothing to be able to label your 'asshole boss' with an epithet like 'sociopath', but that doesn't make it correct. It's just makes it easier to be less critical and believe someone that is arguing that.

It's ridiculous to suggest that 1 in 25 people could be a sociopath. Sociopathy is a disorder, a mental illness, a way in which someone can differ from the norm. If it would affect 4% of the population, it would be an essential part of the norm. Instead of labeling these people as 'sociopaths', why not accept that not everyone has the empathic abilities we'd hope for? Why not accept that, in spite the lack of empathic ability, such people can still lead meaningful lives and can care for others? Calling them 'sociopaths' is just another way of dehumanizing those we don't like, so we don't have to face to darker sides of our own humanity.

chrischen2• 16 years ago

> Sociopathy is a disorder, a mental illness, a way in which someone can differ from the norm

You don't know that sociopathy is a mental illness or disorder. That was also explained in the article. For all you know someone who achieves universal enlightenment might become a sociopath because he/she realizes that we all eventually die and nothing that happens in this world matters, or something like that.

In fact I'd say it's simply an effect of a different world view, and the ones getting caught are the dumber/impulsive ones while the smarter ones are the ones we label as "assholes."

arethuza• 16 years ago

The "Sociopath Next Door" (excellent book) makes a very good point - it is not clear that being a sociopath is a disorder or an illness in that it doesn't appear to have negative effects on the person with this behavior. Indeed it makes the point that there are many environments where having sociopathic behavior is a decided advantage.

What I found truly frightening in that book was the section pointing out the downfalls of the results of the Milgram experiment (most of us will do what we are told by an authority figure, even to the point of torturing/killing) with sociopathic behavior by a minority.

pufuwozu• 16 years ago

After they'd heard Hare speak they realized they were dealing with a psychopath, someone who could feel neither guilt nor sorrow. They changed their interrogation tactic to, "So you murdered a couple of prostitutes. That's minor-league compared to Bundy or Gacy." The appeal to the psychopath's grandiosity worked. He didn't just confess to his other crimes, he bragged about them.

Nice, reverse psychopathy.

TheAmazingIdiot2• 16 years ago

Hmm. Unreformable? It doesn't appear so. As the case with the police using reverse psychotic techniques encouraged the perp to brag, we could also find out other techniques that show these types of people how to care. Now, they may not have empathy. Not everyone does in the same degree, but that's ok, as that is what makes us unique.

The interesting research would be to see if there are techniques that would help a psychopath to integrate into society while limiting destructive tendencies. Perhaps others are doing this research, but Ive heard none of it.

anamax• 16 years ago

> As the case with the police using reverse psychotic techniques encouraged the perp to brag, we could also find out other techniques that show these types of people how to care.

The conclusion doesn't seem to follow from the premise. Can you fill in some more of the intermediate steps?

TheAmazingIdiot2• 16 years ago

Sorry, I was just presuming another path of treatment would be possible.

As evidenced in the article, normal people show remorse after committing violent crimes. Police take that as a way to focus their attention during an interrogation to get the suspect to admit fault. In a psychopaths case, appeals to emotioon does not work. Instead the example that worked was to compare to the "greats" of what they committed. That lead the suspect to start bragging and admit fault.

Perhaps, in this similar vein, that psychopaths are trainable. They have different emotional processes and thoughts. Perhaps we can make a training course that focuses on using their uniqueness to reform them.

And as I said, these steps would require a great deal of research with all types of psychopaths, and not just the ones in prison.

orblivion3• 16 years ago

That's just it. You can teach a sociopath to "care". They tend to figure it out for themselves. That's what makes them so dangerous. I've read some articles that claim that therapy (as it stands now) makes them worse for this reason, they get better at faking.

Not to say we should give up, just saying it's not a simple thing to approach.

jimduey• 16 years ago

Another article about sociopathy: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/the_sociopathic_epide...

malkia• 16 years ago

Sorry, but this article is nothing but political propaganda.

jcmhn• 16 years ago

It appears more like a subtle joke than propaganda: a right-wing conspiracy story told in the style of left-wing sociobabble.

tigger20102• 16 years ago

I recently read a book called "Evil Genes" by Barbara Oakley. One of the interesting stories she tells is about how some of the research into Machiavellian behavior got started.

The original research group decided to focus on "everyday" manipulative, lying, power-hungry behavior. Looking for test subjects, they found plenty of instances, but ended up picking a category of people to study - their own PhD advisors.

The point is, mild versions of psycho/socio-pathic behavior are unfortunately commonplace. Changed my perception of people's behaviors in very fundamental ways.

AndrewHay3• 16 years ago

"The Psychopathy Checklist consists of a set of forms and a manual that describes in detail how to score a subject in twenty categories that define psychopathy. Is he (or, more rarely, she) glib and superficially charming, callous and without empathy?"

What question springs to my mind is, given that these people have something like their 'appreciate other people's emotions' bits of their brains not working properly, why don't we see many female psychopaths?

Off the top of my brain, I can come up with a few likely answers: 1: Female 'psychopaths' don't exhibit the same sorts of criminal behavior that male psychopaths do. 2: Females are less susceptible to being a 'psychopath'

ardit33• 16 years ago

They are the same (if you read hare's books), but it seems that women are more likely to be diagnosed as Histrionic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histrionic_personality_disorder

abstractbill2• 16 years ago

They have traits similar to ideal leaders. You would expect an ideal leader to be narcissistic, self-centred, dominant, very assertive, maybe to the point of being aggressive.

Is it just me, or would anyone else not follow a person who matched this description?

a-priori4• 16 years ago

They're missing the most important characteristic from that list: charisma. These natural leaders (who may be psychopaths/sociopaths) have a way of drawing people to themselves and making people like them and follow them in a way that makes them ignore all the things in that list.

abstractbill2• 16 years ago

That makes more sense. I don't think I've ever met anyone who would match this description though (the only person who comes to mind when I think about it is Steve Jobs).

tigger20102• 16 years ago

This would explain why one should expect to see the largest frequency of almost-psychopathic behavior in politics and business.

techiferous4• 16 years ago

"ideal leader to be narcissistic, self-centred"

Perhaps many people who end up being leaders can be described this way, but I've always considered an ideal leader to be one who makes decisions based on the big picture and doesn't let self-interest cloud his/her judgment.

necrecious• 16 years ago

It is expected that there would be different strategies employed by a population.

Game theory can derive this result. John Maynard Smith introduced the idea of a evolutionarily stable strategy. The idea is to use the classic game theory payoff matrix successively to determine a stable mix of strategies used by the population. Some payoff matrix aren't stable since one of the strategies can dominate the others and causing the dominated strategy to be extinct in the population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy

The types of strategy typically discussed are:

  * Doves (always peaceful)
  * Hawks (always attack)
  * Bully (feign attack)
  * Retaliator (peaceful until attacked)

earl2• 16 years ago

This is a blog by a parent raising a he has identified as a psychopath. The description of his son's behaviors is both interesting and chilling. http://raising-a-psychopath.blogspot.com/

tonystubblebine• 16 years ago

Wow. That's a fascinating read. Thank you for sharing.

scotty792• 16 years ago

Citation from the blog:

We offered Lucas $20 for taking out the garbage each week. Twenty dollars for five minutes of work, an extreme amount, just to see of our instinct was accurate. He seemed excited by the prospect of all that money and the first week eagerly took the garbage out. We immediately paid him the $20 he had earned.

The following week I ended up taking the garbage out. Even though the $20 offer was still in effect, Lucas had no interest. It simply wasn’t worth it him to do something he didn’t want to do. We could have raised the offer to $100, or $1000 and it wouldn’t have mattered.

Question:

Does any one know how to alleviate motivational problem described above? Not in psychopath but in otherwise almost normal person.

BigZaphod2• 16 years ago

I'd love an answer or discussion about this, even if only for myself! Promise of money has never successfully motivated me to do anything. In fact, try as I might, I don't know what motivates me - and by all accounts, I'm a pretty introspective person! At least I know money by itself isn't enough - I guess that's a start, but I've been stuck there for years now. :/

balding_n_tired• 16 years ago

What motivational problem, exactly? I thought HN was full of people that don't want to do what they don't want to do?

adammichaelc• 16 years ago

This article reminds me of the submission, "Are You Capable of Being Ruthless to Get Ahead?" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1184953 It seems that the "ruthless" character may have been a psychopath.

olalonde• 16 years ago

I wonder what makes some psychopaths violent and others not.

mixmax• 16 years ago

Probably circumstance.

known3• 16 years ago

I believe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin pill cures psychopaths.

tdoggette2• 16 years ago

[citation needed]

known3• 16 years ago

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4599299.stm

sukuriant• 16 years ago

Am I the only one that finds it ironic that both this article and an article titled (though I haven't read it), "Why theatre was the most important class I ever took", are on the front page at the same time?

I figured the theatre paper was on a subject related to a different article the other day (the title of which I've forgotten, but it was about a particular subculture fitting in to regular society by faking the role), but this was something I found rather interesting and ... ironic?

[as an immediate side-note upon starting to read the theatre article: it doesn't seem to be on what I expected it to be, at all; furthermore, I'm finding the other subject quite interesting]

Tycho• 16 years ago

So... anyone here reckon they're a psychopath? ;)

orblivion3• 16 years ago

Reddit had a chilling "Ask Me Anything" thread little while back that you might be interested in:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/a5xvv/iama_diagnosed_s...

GFischer• 16 years ago

Is the Hare Psychopathy Checklist / PCL-R available online?

I only found the okcupid one (and I'm definitely not taking it from there :) )

No, I don't think I'm a psychopath (an introvert sure, aspergers or autism-related stuff maybe - I did score very high there - but probably not psychopath).

eplanit• 16 years ago

I don't know. That long, rambling, breathlessly-written article makes me wonder about its author's mental stability.

aphyr5• 16 years ago

The thing that fascinates me about psychopathy, along with ASPD, autistic-spectrum, etc, is that many of these "disorders" or "syndromes" are just different ways that minds can work. Humans come in so many flavors! In some ways, it's the closest thing we have to interacting with alien intelligences: people who can communicate, process information, make plans, but who don't line up with our deeply ingrained expectations of eye contact, trust, low-risk behavior, or empathy.

While I suspect that normal human behavior has significant adaptive advantages in promoting the success of the species, I frequently wonder about a society of people who are all autistic-spectrum, or who all exhibit schizoaffective disorder, or are all manic-depressive. Would their psychologists form diagnostic handbooks for the clearly maladaptive trait of aggressive interpersonal contact, or trusting another person to watch their children?

Bonus question: if you're religiously inclined, do the deities of your choice love and respect these societies? Is there something morally superior about normal human behavior? What spiritual beliefs might they form for themselves?

bryanh• 16 years ago

A great, enlightening comment on Reddit's Sociapath IamA that discusses 13 rules for dealing with sociopaths: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/a5xvv/iama_diagnosed_s...

Psychopaths among us

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