The Myth of the Psychopath

http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/do-psychopaths-even-exist

by dpflan • 11 years ago

52 49 11 years ago

dpflan2• 11 years ago

This makes me curious about computational psychology/psychiatry/neuroscience and diagnosing individuals with DSM-IV disorders. Anyone have any experience in the field?

wmil• 11 years ago

I'm not buying this article. There's a very strong tabula rasa / pure nuture contingent that's been refusing to cede any ground despite decades of evidence.

The article is pure opinion... and I have trouble believing that a trio of SFU / Okanagan College professors are the top researchers.

magicalist• 11 years ago

I'd say that a non-clinical pop diagnosis invented in the 18th century would have to justify itself, actually. The onus shouldn't be on others to disprove that it doesn't exist.

edit: which isn't to say there's not disagreement on the subject, but it's important to keep in mind where the status quo actually is, and it's not as represented in cable TV shows and tabloid covers. There is currently no recognized disorder here.

pekk• 11 years ago

It's odd that you call the article pure opinion, because I don't see you providing anything more substantial than your own feelings here. Can you provide any citation or even a thesis to evaluate rather than just flinging around epithets like "tabula rasa," asserting that someone is ignoring evidence of something, and sniffing at institutional affiliations? The article is just a magazine article, but at least it provides the name of the book so people can track it down and look at its references if they want. You don't provide anything for readers of your comment to look into at all.

kemiller2002• 11 years ago

Sure, Dr. Kent Khiel on the study of FMRIs and people fitting the profiles of psychopathy. There is significant evidence that people who are true psychopaths (as in those who aren't misdiagnosed) suffer a deficiency in the anterior cingulate cortex which relates to things like emotional regulation and learned behaviors (Robert Hare has shown that psychopaths show a deficiency in understanding things like fear of a negative outcome). The book the author notes says this is anecdotal except that the research has been going on for quite some time, and there have been several studies conducted.

Now the author argues that the main study of brain anatomy and behavior is based on people who are incarcerated, and this to a certain extent is true. However there are also cases where people who aren't in jail have gotten FMRIs and exhibit the same types of behavior. James Fallon is a prime example (he has an article about him in the Smithsonian). He's a neuroscientist and fully admits that he fits the profile.

The author states that it can't be a disorder, because it only equates to life experiences, but from a sociological perspective this can disproved. Psychopathy has been noted across different cultures and socioeconomic barriers. Plus, if life experience was purely the cause, one could stand to argue that psychopathy would be significantly weighted towards one culture, economic upbringing etc. It's not. Why would a kid with loving parents become a psychopath.....and his brother with similar experiences not. Look up the Ranes brothers. One of them is definitely a serial killer, and the other is (was) also serving a life sentence for murder....except there is evidence that the second isn't a psychopath even though he was convicted. There is a lot of evidence that showed it was possible he was wrongly convicted and he doesn't fit the profile. They had horrible childhoods and if upbringing was to be a significant indicator, this could disprove that rule as the brothers should similarly.

The article says something about a study which shows that psychopaths can "turn their emotions on an off" (I remember reading the article but not specifics). Kevin Dutton argues that psychopaths are essentially predators and yes, they can understand emotion. That's how they are capable of finding people they can take advantage of. Plus it's one study, and if it can't be verified then it's not a very strong case. There was also a study recently which the author stated that he was able to help true psychopaths (not just people who have been diagnosed as APD) using behavioral therapy. This would lead to suggest that if that works, then it's behavioral and not neurological, but once again, it's only one article.

What really gets me is the last paragraph, declaring them as "evil" and because of that they must be the "boogey man" Labeling someone as a psychopath based on the criteria actually humanizes them, and makes them someone who should be kind of pitied. They're dangerous and they do bad things, but if the neurological evidence is correct, they really don't understand. They aren't capable of understanding right and wrong like the rest of us. Saying that disorder is a myth really turns these people into monsters, because it means that we are assuming they have the same range of emotions as the rest of society and they choose to ignore what they know is right and wrong. Personally, I think that is a cop out answer to allow people to get mad and take revenge on people who may not understand at an emotional level what they are doing with a clear conscience. That's just me though.

orthoganol• 11 years ago

It's equally ideological to always be polarizing it into pure nurture-ists vs. (let's say) Steven Pinker-ists. The vast majority of people in these debates concede that both sides (nature & nurture) influence. It's just tiny minorities and click bait driven journalists that like to make it out as these big unreasonable camps on such or such side. Easy to see the drivel it is.

xx1010107• 11 years ago

You have a point about their background, and maybe a point about their leaning towards "pure nurtue" (as in 'nurture versus nature'), though this is actually not said. I am not aware of anyone who does lean pure nurture. If they do, that is obviously in correct. But that also does not mean that there is a label "psychopath" that is anywhere taken seriously. "Sociopath" has some value. "Psychopath" has a little, in terms of slang for impact.

The later term is far, far too wide, though, to be of much material use for anyone, be they in security or social work or therapy or anywhere.

Trying to argue pure nature or pure nurture is probably, in general, a very bad idea. Usually, however, it is true, there are very specific events in aggressively criminal individual's background which are noteworthy to help understand 'who they are'.

It is reasonably best to actually be "sociopathic" or lacking emotional bias when dealing with such analysis. Just like how doctors go, "Okay, wound, fix", and non-doctors get grossed out.

They are blinded by their own overcoming emotionality. Emotion can be great for communication, but it can also get in the way and be entirely counter productive.

norea-armozel• 11 years ago

In part, I agree with the author's skepticism that psychopathy is purely a mental disorder. I've known people who would easily be classified as psychopaths but they clearly knew what they were doing was wrong, hurtful, and downright evil (these people oddly happened to be bullies that fixated on me through most of my childhood too).

Sometimes people are just evil and trying to sugar coat the notion that someone can be evil doesn't make it easier to cope with it. All it does is delude people into thinking we should have respect or love for someone when they do wrong by us and betray our trust. I think it's better to treat a so-called psychopath as an adult (if they are one) rather than as some broken down piece of machinery. At least then, you won't find yourself with your guard down and your judgement clouded by false sympathies.

gnaritas• 11 years ago

Evil is not a clinical term and attempting to clinically define brain disorders is not sugar coating evil. The word evil really has no place in a clinical discussion.

ExpiredLink• 11 years ago

You don't know what a psychopath is until you meet one. I decided to leave a project because the project lead turned out to be a real psychopath. It's difficult to describe a psychopath's behavior. They are not 'evil', sadistic or cruel. They are clearly self-centered, narcissist and self-important but in unusual appearances. Appearances which can be very abusive to dependent persons in their sphere of influence.

vezzy-fnord• 11 years ago

I'm pretty sure you're referring to a sociopath.

Not that the terms "psychopath" and "sociopath" aren't functionally useless beyond mere colloquialisms.

justinator2• 11 years ago

The description also seems to fit a, "sociopath" as well. There's sometimes incredibly likable, until you hear about some of the ways they act.

nickpsecurity10• 11 years ago

I've met... many... that meet their description. Some I know had decent parents and childhood. The thing they had in common is they saw people like objects rather than people. That was most distinctive. Being a bit impulsive and anal about certain things was another. All could present themselves in whatever way they needed to in front of a given audience. Some I've read on but didn't meet had compulsive violence with even sexual arousal. Did they learn that and with what practice that hardwires one's junk to a woman's screams?

So, esp with some having good childhoods, it's hard for me to believe they just transformed into this by making some choices. Seems more likely to be innate. Still a possibility that much of this was learned behavior but I'm just saying I lean in a different direction given what I've seen and heard dealing with them.

mjfl2• 11 years ago

I seriously think that people who label others as psychopaths without clinical diagnosis are a much bigger problem than the actual psychopaths.

charlieflowers3• 11 years ago

Consider this question: what about cultures throughout history which callously divided people into classes and treated the lower ones horribly?

Like slavery. Or the French aristocracy. Etc.

You could say "everyone", including people widely considered to be decent, were still participating in treating the lower classes horribly. It was perfectly acceptable to do so.

So the vast majority in those cultures found some way to "turn off" or become desensitized to feelings of remorse.

Were they all psychopaths?

kukx• 11 years ago

Here's an interesting talk from a psychopath https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzqn6Z_Iss0 He made previously an other confession, which was less funny and much darker. Unfortunately it's gone now. I guess, he had a second thought, and asked to remove it. As far, as I remember he mentioned, for example, that if someone did something bad to him, he could not forget it and he would get even in some way, no matter if years had to pass. Also, another interesting talk related to the subject https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bysVPcKQfeY

dbbolton• 11 years ago

I'd like to see Robert Hare's response to this.

nickpsecurity10• 11 years ago

Let's test the title against proposed alternative with one sentence in the article:

"even though that flow is unproven in the scientific literature on psychopathy"

So, a lot of speculation with no evidence to back it makes the existence of psychopaths a myth. Further, the article intentionally ignores research that supports the existence of people with their alleged traits, even neurological differences. Pop psychology and religious rhetoric are far from the only things that went into it. So, the article's claims are unbalanced, weak, and defeat themselves for now with above quote.

eric_h• 11 years ago

I thought the article made a good point about the general popular adoption of the ill-defined term 'psychopath', and that the reality of individuals with traits often attributed to psychopaths may not be as clear as they are portrayed in such pop culture representations as e.g. Dexter.

My real complaint is that the article seems to have conflated the psychopath with the sociopath. I was under the impression that sociopaths were a superset of psychopaths, with psychopaths being more traditionally "evil" (a la jack the ripper).

I do agree that the article's arguments in general are weak, and I don't really see any reasonable conclusion to be drawn from it. At the very least, though, I do find the description of this Gregory character to be interesting and to some extent representative of the small handful of people (~3) I've met in my life who I believed to be sociopaths (admittedly, I'd never heard of those particular individuals running someone over with a car with no remorse or hesitation, but I also believe that had they done such a thing, they wouldn't bring it up in conversation).

Retra• 11 years ago

I'm pretty sure the medical community at large considers sociopathy and psychopathy to be the same thing, if they are considered at all. 'Traditional evilness' isn't really the kind of symptom a psychiatrist can use.

nickpsecurity10• 11 years ago

That point about popular adaption was good. It's clear that what psychologists are debating and what happens on TV are different. Far as sociopath vs psychopath, psychologists tell me they're both mostly pop-psych terms with meanings that vary due to who you're talking to. The only one they mention is Anti-social Personality Disorder. I'm under the impression that they focus more on the potential psychopath's individual traits and less on the categorization itself. I've seen some interesting categorizations which seemed to be there just to have one. They treated the symptoms.

He was an interesting character. He exhibited that kind of behavior. Yet, it could easily be his upbringing especially if growing up under and around hustlers. The guy might have never been taught better. So, I call that sort of thing bad character, a bit evil, but not all out psychopath in my book. This may not be everyone, but I tend to associate it with people who clearly have no conscience and seem to compulsively do these things. I've met them and they stand out from the average bad apple.

Either the article or a commenter mentioned them getting back at people years later. The inability to let go without doing what they were compelled to do. Many I've met had that trait, too. That's why you figure out what pisses them off and avoid it. Assuming you can't avoid them... (sighs)

krylon• 11 years ago

One point the article should have made, IMHO, is that for any kind of personality disorder, it is a continuum, not a discrete true-or-false distinction. A medical doctor can clearly and unambiguously diagnose whether or not you have, say, Type-1-diabetes or a broken leg, there is no wiggle-room, it is not open to interpretation.

With personality disorders, the definition is usually a list of symptoms of which a person has to show at least a certain number (e.g. 5 out of 9) to "qualify". But a person that shows, say, 4 out of 9 symptoms of Antisocial Personality Disorder, would still be very unpleasant to be around, even if he or she is not a sociopath from a clinical point of view. (I am making the numbers up to make a point - the actual length of the list and the number of symptoms one has to show for APD is probably different, but not radically so.)

joe_the_user• 11 years ago

The strongest argument the authors offer is that psychopath has never been included in the DSM. That's a pretty broad argument but it's fairly "substantial" since the DSM involves a lot of debate and includes a lot of disorders.

Plus, what's your evidence the authors are "intentionally ignoring" evidence?

nickpsecurity10• 11 years ago

Far as DSM, that is very significant. Far as evidence, most evidence I've seen were articles written talking about various studies or research in the literature. That's how I get a lot of information outside my field. They talked about case studies on them, some were different from birth, and some were neurologically different than most people in terms of how their brains processed situations.

Or were my sources bad and there's nothing supporting the existence of people whose brains seem wired to act with psychopathic traits? It's possible it was misreported given I don't have journal access to most of the publications. If so, I'd also appreciate a good source that survey's the literature on the subject and shows what's learned/unknown.

xx1010107• 11 years ago

Nobody who actually uses psychology seriously takes, lol, "psychopathy" as a serious label. Even the name is obvious to them "ill mental". Not exactly byzatine etymology, lol... I use the term sometimes, and have approved of some others of using it sometimes. As a brief epitaph that quickly describes some assholes disposition, lol. But, besides it not being in the DSM, and nevermind the fact the DSM is its' self sketchy in many ways... lol... (I could list some of the newer ones they have come up with which are absurd, though I do not discount the value of the book)... the book, its' self, warns against taking these labels strictly. It works great for helping to consolidate observations and experiments, for medicating well understood and common conditions or treating them otherwise... but it the authors were never so stupid so as to even begin to suggest the book should be an encyclopedia of labels 'written in stone'. Not, anyway, since I have been looking at it, since, like 82. :/ FYI, it also starts right off citing a recent - and important - study showing the traditional classification of "psychopath" is inaccurate and they could get traditionally defined sociopaths shown as having the capacity of empathy. Just they are turning it off at the wrong times, and probably too much. Getting adrenaline to kick in with them is something besides the 'lack of empathy' aspect, and I bet such studies would show it is pretty trivial to get adrenaline to kick in even in the most hardened "psychopaths"...

xx1010107• 11 years ago

The article did not tell me anything I did not know, and it is most assuredly 'pop psychology'. They did link to the recent study which pointed out even those considered "psychopaths" (anti-social personality disorder) actually are not entirely devoid of the capacity of empathy. As this is a recent study, I won't save people the time to link to it, you should figure this stuff out on your own. But, you should also already know of it, and have recognized it immediately. If you have been doing your homework in this area.

If you had not already heard of that study, then you should self-assess your self: why am I looking into this area? What motivates me? Am I truly 'doing my homework', or am I just like a tumbleweed, going from article to article, looking for more which confirms my already pre-existing biases?

I will give this link: the Psycopath Test, by Jon Ronson.

That is, also, enough to spend two seconds to google.

If you really, truly believe in the psychopathy label, then I would strongly encourage you folks who do so to challenge your beliefs" by reading that book. Ronson has a few books out there, and they are all excellent for challenging common conceptions on murky material.

I am not saying the article was not generally true. Fact is, it is. But, you can know that it is a myth merely because it is not even in the DSM. As this article points out, nor is anything even like it. It does not point out many important, related matters, however. Like the general public should not even be taking such labels - even if they were in the DSM - and going about doing their own diagnosis of others. And, if they are... why* are they doing this?

If you do not know why you are doing this, then isn't that a little more of a pressing mystery to solve... then playing doctor on people who are not even your patents, and whom you probably know little to nothing about?

My own interest in this thread, btw, is 'why do otherwise reasonable people believe truly unreasonable things', and 'why do otherwise intelligent people who have strict standards they say they adhere to, not actually use those standards and flagrantly so'.

That is very interesting, because it can tell you a lot about your own way of taking in information and help you find errors others have you, your own self, might also have.

dpflan2• 11 years ago

Here are two HN submissions from 2 and 4 years ago entitled 'Letter from a Psychopath. The content of course is what you'd expect from the title.

1. 2 years ago - 340 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6941171 2. 4 years ago - 109 comments - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3094824

jugad• 11 years ago

We don't have to go too far to find psychopaths... a relatively larger percentage of teenagers are "psychopaths" - as in, they lack empathy.

All it takes to convert them into adult psychopaths is lack of guidance by parents and a ruthless outside environment.

I would state, without proof, that the number of people who would be labeled as psychopaths (by their behavior, violent nature and lack of empathy) would be larger in third world countries as compared to, say, US, Norway or Sweden... this is going by my personal experience.

sumitviii• 11 years ago

Psychopathy, in the current context, is a clinical term for a condition. Its not a state.

bcg1• 11 years ago

Pieter Hintjens is writing a series on psychopaths. I found what I've read so far to be worth my time.

Start here if interested: http://hintjens.com/blog:78

xx1010107• 11 years ago

There's sociopathy, but there isn't even a DSM definition for "psychopath". That is a slang term (like sociopathy). Not that the DSM is even meant to be taken entirely literally, but having models for diagnosis and treatment for common classes of mental disorders can be useful.

People are themselves extremely varied, however, and a lot of the best methods for treatment and diagnosis take into account that. eg, Ericksonian therapy. (Which, sadly, most people will only hear of from some severely bastardized version, if at all.)

I think, a lot of what they mean is "psychopathy", often covered for the other slang term "sociopathy" which has more value for analysis. There has been a lot of pop psychology on the later, and while I do definitely believe it is an useful term one has to note there are "enlightened sociopaths" and ... not. The vast majority are not as people think, and surely not criminals.

A good list came out not long ago which pointed out that on an "empath" to "sociopath" scale, cops and surgeons score high on the sociopath side, while grade school teachers and social workers score high on the other side.

The article is very right in pointing out how anti-social personal disorder is very different from the model of the sociopath. Night and day different.

Behavior involved in severe criminal behavior is often very unique, unique in formation, and unique to the person, even if many commonalities or classes of definitions may be applied to some. The remaining question of any value is: do these labels actually help you help any of them to change?

In terms of comp sec, putting on that kind of label on people won't help you control them nor predict their behavior. You might do so from noting their past behavior, if you know enough about it. But that is based on observation of that particular individual, and would only give deceptive evidence in regards to the actual usefulness of the label. Which is a label, which is a way to shortcut thinking; and a way to shortcut dealing with individuals as individuals in creative ways taking into account their complexity. A pain to do, perhaps, definitely does not fit into tidy lists and written down procedures. But it is what is required.

The Myth of the Psychopath

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