Sociopaths = primed for happiness?

I recently found out my death year is in the 2070s and thought, wow, that long? Better find some way to entertain myself... But I think a lot of people must be thinking the same thing. We no longer live hard and fast, struggling to meet the basic requirements of survival. With our survival all but assured, our minds are free to wonder, what else is there to life? For most people, it's not about the quest for meaning or heaven or anything else, but rather happiness that people seek most, reports the cover article in Psychology Today this month. What is the secret to happiness? Recent research suggests counterintuitive results -- people who engage in "activities that lead us to feel uncertainty, discomfort, and even a dash of guilt." Sound like anyone you know?

First, happy people seek stimulation:

Curiosity, it seems, is largely about exploration—often at the price of momentary happiness. Curious people generally accept the notion that while being uncomfortable and vulnerable is not an easy path, it is the most direct route to becoming stronger and wiser. In fact, a closer look at the study by Kashdan and Steger suggests that curious people invest in activities that cause them discomfort as a springboard to higher psychological peaks.

Reminds me of this recent post on doing things the hard way.

Second, happy people are unflaggingly optimistic, even delusionally so, even to the point of gullibility:

A standard criticism of happy people is that they're not realistic—they sail through life blissfully unaware of the world's ills and problems. Satisfied people are less likely to be analytical and detail-oriented. A study led by University of New South Wales psychologist Joseph Forgas found that dispositionally happy people—those who have a general leaning toward the positive—are less skeptical than others. They tend to be uncritically open toward strangers and thus can be particularly gullible to lies and deceit. Think of the happy granny who is overcharged at the car dealership by the smiling salesperson compared with more discerning, slightly less upbeat consumers.

Reminds me of this recent tweet.

"Even if you took every precaution in the world, you could still be manipulated. Or maybe a plane will fall on your head. Why stress?"
— M.E. (@sociopathworld) August 8, 2013

Third, they tend to not care about brass rings, don't really run in the rat race:

Similarly, the happiest people possess a devil-may-care attitude about performance. In a review of the research literature by Oishi and his colleagues, the happiest people—those who scored a 9 or 10 out of 10 on measures of life satisfaction—tended to perform less well than moderately happy people in accomplishments such as grades, class attendance, or work salaries. In short, they were less conscientious about their performance; to them, sacrificing some degree of achievement seems to be a small price to pay for not having to sweat the small stuff.

People who have a more fluid sense of self (see also Buddhists):

The ability to shift mental states as circumstances demand turns out to be a fundamental aspect of well-being.

Other counterintuitive tidbits that don't necessarily fit sociopaths (but should!) include giving to and serving others makes you happy, being happy for other people makes you happy, accepting your negative emotions and what that means about you, etc. Of course sense of purpose also matters, but it seems to be more a sense of forward progression:

If you want to envision a happy person's stance, imagine one foot rooted in the present with mindful appreciation of what one has—and the other foot reaching toward the future for yet-to-be-uncovered sources of meaning.

How to become a (good?) sociopath

I was recently asked whether there are any famous good sociopaths:

Famous good sociopaths? I don't think you would ever say that a sociopath was "good," per se, the same way you might about Mother Theresa, etc. They're always complicated. They can be good in the fact that they aren't bad... they can also be great, without necessarily being good. Is Dick Cheney bad? What about Julius Caesar? Sociopaths often lust for power, which can put them at odds with the people that they rule, but they can also do a lot of good things like keeping governments stable, or fighting off the invading hordes, or being a spy, or whatever else. Does that make them good? I don't think sociopaths have any sort of urge to do good things, just scratch their power-hungry itch. A lot of sociopaths specifically choose to use their powers for good instead of evil, but they're end game is not doing good, it's power or whatever else the sociopaths is after.

I think that a good analogy would be a corporation. There are a lot of corporations that do things that you like, maybe even good things, but the primary motivation is to make a profit. But just because you are trying to make a profit doesn't mean you can't do it by doing things you like, or that you are good at, or that comport with the way you see the world or want the world to see you. I terrorize bullies. Is that good? I help out friends and neighbors for all sorts of reasons. Actually, coincidentally, one of my readers sent this to me recently -- it deals with the idea of not having the same sort of of emotional connections to your actions as empaths do: "a comprehensive beginner's guide to becoming a sociopath." When I read it, I thought all of the good things were things that I might actually do or have already done. My bad things were different, though -- I guess I just have different tastes. But I see what the point of the exercise is -- divorce your normal emotional reactions from certain behavior. I bet it would work. I bet there a lot of things people would want to be a little sociopathic about, like having no fear if you do a lot of public speaking, or not having an emotional connection to food (I would bet the percentage of obese sociopaths is 1%, for purely genetic reasons). But maybe it is difficult to do, like being a little bit pregnant. A little bit anorexic? Or alcoholic? Or blood thirsy?

Earthly delights

From a reader:


This detail from Bosch's curious painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights, reminds me of a dangerous lady whose favourite painting it is. The penetrating beak, the huge mouth, the underbelly being feasted on by hommes moyens sensual who are on their way to self destruction and especially the grasping hands. She is a sociopath or psychopath making a successful career in a big tobacco company. 

The picture she says is "as much about contemporary New York as Holland centuries ago". She has stared for hours at every detail trying to imagine the story behind each figure and to learn as much from it as she can, because sociopaths are only interested in knowlege they can use. 

Everyone in the painting is suffering or will suffer as a result of their weaknesses, except the pitiless satanic creatures who efficiently administer the punishments and are enjoying their task. Victims, the lady is convinced, want to be victims. 

The Satanic agents are the only pure figures, although possessing, one supposes, all the deadly sins themselves.  They are evil yet not corrupt, are in fact incorruptible. They are sociopaths, in fact, who are curiously inhuman. They seem, like the lady in question, oddly to transcend their nationality and social class and even their sex.

I would be informative to know what the painting means for her but all she says is, 'How enjoyable it is to be eaten'. 

She also tells me only bad women are attractive. 

Saint Augustine said

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul. 

St. Augustine was right but he was playing on the opposing team from the lady and he was talking about beauty not sex appeal. 

Cesare Pavese had a germane point when he said it was only possible to love without reservation a completely selfish person because only a completely selfish person will always remain objective and not alter to please you. 

Professional sociopath

I lawyer friend of mine sent me this article about how Kevin Dutton claims in his book, "Wisdom of Psychopaths" about professions that psychopaths are particularly well-suited for due to their "Seven Deadly Wins," "ruthlessness, charm, focus, mental toughness, fearlessness, mindfulness and action."

Dutton says some professions attract people with psychopathic tendencies, and lawyers are second on the list. The Post quotes one successful lawyer who spoke to Dutton. “Deep inside me there’s a serial killer lurking somewhere,” the lawyer says. “But I keep him amused with cocaine, Formula One, booty calls, and coruscating cross-examination.” 

Dutton developed his list of the top psychopathic professions through an online survey last year, he told Smithsonian.com in an interview. “Any situation where you’ve a got a power structure, a hierarchy, the ability to manipulate or wield control over people, you get psychopaths doing very well,” Dutton said.

Formula One, booty calls, and coruscating cross-examination? It's a little hard to take that guy seriously. Here are the other professions:


1) CEO

2) Lawyer

3) Media (TV/radio)

4) Salesperson

5) Surgeon

6) Journalist

7) Police officer

8) Clergyperson

9) Chef

10) Civil servant


I love the "civil servant" one. In fact, it's tempting to think that every civil servant I have had to interact with has some personality disorder or another.

The Gervais Principle (part 1)

Someone sent me a link to the Gervais Principle a long time ago, but it was too long to catch my interest at the time. I kept hearing about it, and someone just recently emailed me again about it, so I decided to actually sit down and read. Essentially it is a theory of how social organizations (specifically businesses, but not exclusively) develop based on the three social roles that people assume -- sociopaths, clueless, losers.

The Sociopath (capitalized) layer comprises the Darwinian/Protestant Ethic will-to-power types who drive an organization to function despite itself. The Clueless layer is what Whyte called the “Organization Man,” but the archetype inhabiting the middle has evolved a good deal since Whyte wrote his book (in the fifties). The Losers are not social losers (as in the opposite of “cool”), but people who have struck bad bargains economically – giving up capitalist striving for steady paychecks.

According to the article, the life cycle of every organization looks like this:

A Sociopath with an idea recruits just enough Losers to kick off the cycle. As it grows it requires a Clueless layer to turn it into a controlled reaction rather than a runaway explosion. Eventually, as value hits diminishing returns, both the Sociopaths and Losers make their exits, and the Clueless start to dominate. Finally, the hollow brittle shell collapses on itself and anything of value is recycled by the sociopaths according to meta-firm logic.

The Sociopaths enter and exit organizations at will, at any stage, and do whatever it takes to come out on top. The contribute creativity in early stages of a organization’s life, neurotic leadership in the middle stages, and cold-bloodedness in the later stages, where they drive decisions like mergers, acquisitions and layoffs that others are too scared or too compassionate to drive.

• The Sociopaths enter and exit organizations at will, at any stage, and do whatever it takes to come out on top. The contribute creativity in early stages of a organization’s life, neurotic leadership in the middle stages, and cold-bloodedness in the later stages, where they drive decisions like mergers, acquisitions and layoffs that others are too scared or too compassionate to drive.
• The Losers like to feel good about their lives. . . . They do have a loyalty to individual people, and a commitment to finding fulfillment through work when they can, and coasting when they cannot.
• The Clueless are the ones who lack the competence to circulate freely through the economy (unlike Sociopaths and Losers), and build up a perverse sense of loyalty to the firm, even when events make it abundantly clear that the firm is not loyal to them. To sustain themselves, they must be capable of fashioning elaborate delusions based on idealized notions of the firm — the perfectly pathological entities we mentioned. 

The Gervais principle:

• Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing losers into middle-management, groom under-performing losers into sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort losers to fend for themselves.

The entire article is interesting but most relevant for this audience probably is the description of the career of the sociopath:

The future Sociopath must be an under-performer at the bottom. Like the average Loser, he recognizes that the bargain is a really bad one. Unlike the risk-averse loser though, he does not try to make the best of a bad situation by doing enough to get by. He has no intention of just getting by. He very quickly figures out — through experiments and fast failures — that the Loser game is not worth becoming good at. He then severely under-performs in order to free up energy to concentrate on maneuvering an upward exit. He knows his under-performance is not sustainable, but he has no intention of becoming a lifetime-Loser employee anyway. He takes the calculated risk that he’ll find a way up before he is fired for incompetence.

It reminds me of my own experiences being fired from jobs in which, although I was generously compensated compared to a lot of jobs I could have been doing, it was clear to me that my role was to be a worker slave for others to profit off and I had other plans.

There were also very interesting discussions of the clueless, particularly the amazing feats of self-deception required for them to continue their arbitrary and ambiguous roles, the perfect position for a narcissist.