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Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Psychology Study Finds Only 23 Percent of Britons Are Normal

So reads the title of an article discussing a recent study.
Of 8391 individuals interviewed and their personality status assessed, only a minority (n = 1933, 23%) had no personality pathology.
As another blog opined about the 23% normal: "Maybe they are best known as 'saints', or 'Übermenschen', or perhaps 'people who lie on questionnaires'."

17 comments:

  1. Are there any self-help websites or books for dealing with sociopathy? Everything I find focuses on the "victims" and how to avoid sociopaths. I am certain that I am a sociopath and I desperately want some help. I feel powerless since "discovering" my condition (although I've been aware that I was VERY different for some time now). thank you.

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  2. Not sure you can do it by yourself, its better to share it with someone. Gary M

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  3. Here's all the help you need: You're not a sociopath. Congratulations. I will take my consulting fee by check.

    To be more in-depth, no, there are no such books. Such a book would need to be written from a sociopath's perspective so, as I've never known a real one to "desperately want... help", I don't think there's anything.

    For the sake of my entertainment, explain why you feel powerless now that you "know" you're a sociopath. Also, maybe explain how you know.

    Of course you're different. You're a unique snowflake.

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  4. Are you sure you are one? The sociopaths on this site are twisted sick individuals, and to become part of this group would do you more harm than good. You can't get any help here. Make sure you know what one is before you label yourself. You may not be one. Hope for your future you are not. Sociopaths are empty angry jealous people.

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  5. Since when being a parasite is an analogy for an unique snowflake Walter? *grimace*

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  6. Jealousy may be too complex of an emotion for a sociopathic person. Jealousy is an evolutionary solution in a sexually competitive environment. Are sociopaths concerned with ensuring the survival of their genes? or just their own personal survival/advantages?

    Too bad there aren't more resources available for managing life in a world where the majority of people think differently than you (not you specifically). Does the high level functioning sociopath figure it all out for him/herself? Could be overwhelming, frustrating, or at least very challenging (oh wait, thats my life!). But the brain is plastic and adaptive. We are social beings and learn from each other one way or another. Still... "Successful Socioath for Dummies" could be a best-seller!

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    1. I do not know if I am a sociopath. I am 36, male, white. It has been suggested to me that perhaps this was a problem for me by my father. I say that if I am indeed a sociopath, I feel jealousy intensely - what I believe is that emotion, anyway.
      I have attempted to 'self-diagnose' using DSM-IV criteria and find that perhaps only half or two-thirds of the diagnosing criteria can be applied to me. I am missing the signifigant criterion of being diagnosed before the age of 15 with any disorder. I believe that this was without doubt a failure of detection. Does anyone else know of any resource for people like us to turn to, if they are seeking help?
      Primary problems: Inability to empathise; controlling behavior; absolute lack of guilt, remorse; 'getting by by manipulating others;' lack of regard for the safety of self or others. I seem to unconsciously fall into a pattern of doing or saying whatever it takes to acheive my goals, all of which are short term. I have sex regularly but am unable to feel anything I would label as deep feelings for another, even to feeling disgust for a woman once I've slept with her. I have hurt people in the past, physically and mentally, but feel nothing that I could genuinely call shame, guilt or regret. I may perhaps feel regret, as I've come to know it defined as, in that I recognize that this existence is empty and would very much like to change. I say this, but I know that the instant I want something (jealousy?) I will do whatever it takes to reach that goal or attain that end. Is there no help? Forget the jackass laughing, I'd buy your book, though under a different title.
      I would very much like to NOT be this way.

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  7. Hahahah that made me LOL. Funniest thing i've heard all day.

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  8. I've never known a real one to "desperately want... help"

    Amen. We tend to think we are a little better than neurotypicals, so I don't think wanting to change is very likely.

    The sociopaths on this site are twisted sick individuals

    Why do people visiting the site never seem to get that sociopaths like to play with people?

    "Successful Sociopath for Dummies" LOLercosters.

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  9. 'dealing with sociopathy' is different than wanting to change, no?

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  10. How simple it is, the mind of an empath. They spend their lives telling themselves that are good hearted and normal. I rather find that to be quite the opposite considering that all they tend towards is thinking with emotions. Empaths tend to be self deceiving, in the way they believe that are "above it all".

    Over the past century, mental and personality deficits are becoming more well known and a side effect is the escape goat bull that comes with that knowledge. People tend to blame the evils of the world on some arbitrary person or race with whatever usually groundless claims to justify themselves.

    I find myself laughing every time I see a movie about multiple personalities and psychopaths. Every time these people are presented as insane and evil. To be honest, I am sick to death of the constant stupidity of the general populace and the media for that matter trying to assert their insipid ideas on the world.

    You know people will say Joseph Stalin or Hitler were psychopaths? Were they really, dipshit? I say prove it.

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  11. Bullshit Merchant,

    That was a joke, dumbshit.

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  12. Urm for a sociopath/psychopath to cope well they will need to do and learn the exact same things normals do. You should think of it like autism not like some sort of personality disorder.

    Hitler and Stalin were most likely malignant narcissists not psychopaths: psychopaths have no morals but are not evil

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  13. It is a personality disorder. By definition.

    And are you suggesting that malignant narcissists are evil, then? I'd like to see any of the sources that brought you to these conclusions.

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  14. well if you consider the word malignant then yes. Malignant is defined by the the Merriam-Webster online dictionary as:

    1 a obsolete : malcontent, disaffected
    b : evil in nature, influence, or effect: injurious
    c : passionately and relentlessly malevolent : aggressively malicious

    2 :tending to produce death or deterioration ; esecially : tending to infiltrate, metastasize, and terminate fatally < malignant tumor>

    To me this indicates that if you are going to call something malignant you intend to call it evil.

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  15. I disagree with everyone, but ESPECIALLY all of you. Do I qualify?

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  16. Also, sociopaths have to think in terms of compassion and mercy. And not play with people for their own sick pleasure. Its basically having to remember "live and let live." The sociopaths that seek help are the ones who are tired of "suffering".

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