I thought this was an interesting analogy about how vultures who are vultures and storks who look like vultures came to look and act so much alike:
What is perhaps most remarkable, however, is not that New and Old World vultures may not be related but that two possibly unrelated groups of birds have come to look so alike. They differ externally only in the longer and functional hind toe of the Old World vultures and the open nostrils (you can see right through from one side to the other) of the New World vultures.
This similarity is the result of a process called convergent evolution. It’s the selective pressures of the lifestyle that shape an animal, not the shape of an animal that dictates the lifestyle — given sufficient time, that is. So when different animal groups share the same ecological niche independently of one another there is a tendency for them to reinvent the wheel, finding the same solutions to the same challenges and ultimately coming to look very much alike.
Could this explain the similarities between narcissists and sociopaths too? Between borderlines and sociopaths? Could it be that sociopaths actually are on the autism spectrum but just look like vultures (personality disorders) because they've developed to react to different things?
I was talking with a socio reader about the possibility of someone developing a foolproof method for identifying/diagnosing sociopaths (e.g. brain scans), and what that would mean in terms of our own sense of self and identity:
You know, I have given a lot of thought over the last year about whether this sociopath label really does fit or if I am trying to make it fit when it really doesn’t. As we both agree, in the end it doesn’t really matter anyway. The value of the exercise for me though, was conceptualizing my life experience in an entirely different but ultimately much more enlightening way. That is what matters. I think the people that say that you and your readers are not sociopaths are right and wrong. They are right to the degree that people like us are indeed not like the prison/institutionalized population. Obviously. They are wrong to then surmise that the label has little to no direct link to what is referred to the suite of behaviors collectively referred to as sociopathy. Everyone assumes all sociopaths must look exactly like the ones in prison and if you don’t, the label can have zero relevance to you (or me). That assumption is based on a lack of research as well as a lack of independent thinking. I know. Even as I don’t wrap myself up with that label or identify all of myself with it, I nevertheless recognize it’s utility. I don’t have to say any of this to you. I’m preaching to the choir. Bottom line for me anyway, is that I wouldn’t be shocked to discover that my brain looks normal. It really could be that those psychopaths whose brains look different are different in precisely those ways that gave rise to behaviors that landed them in prison to begin with. It might go back to the whole primary versus secondary psychopath distinction. The primaries may be the way they are because of their brains while the secondaries may be the way they are because of social/childhood issues. Maybe you and I would fall under the secondary category. Who knows? Although I do think it would be interesting to have more scientific research done on this, research involving an entirely non-institutionalized population of would be sociopaths. There would be many correlations between the two groups I’m sure (prison verses non-imprisoned), but I imagine there would also be some interesting and maybe even startling differences. While we’d share traits like a relative absence of conscience, low empathy, shallow emotions, an aptness for deception and manipulation, grandiose sense of self, etc, all the traits that set us apart from the psychological average, there might be some very important reasons why you and I aren’t in prison while the prototypical sociopaths are. Has there been any research done in this particular area? Having said all of that, an exciting possibility that the naysayers brings up is that maybe we are so different that no one has thought of a label for us yet. Maybe we aren’t sociopaths at all. Maybe we represent undiscovered country, psychologically speaking. Who knows?
In any event, finding out your brain looks perfectly normal wouldn’t change a thing about your life experience up to this point, would it? It would be like a homosexual (I like using homosexuals as examples) discovering that his brain looks precisely like a heterosexual’s would. So what? Would that knowledge change him into a hetero? Would he suddenly start liking women? Would the results of this scan invalidate everything he’d been through his entire life? Would he have to force himself to like women because a brain scan indicates that his preference for men may have more to do with how he grew up and less to do with his genes and hormones? I don’t think anyone would seriously suggest that other than the religious fundies. I think it would be similar for you (and for me). Ditto for Hare’s checklist. I have already surmised that I wouldn’t score high enough on his list to justify labeling me as a Hare psychopath. I’m guesstimating that I’d get somewhere between a 22 and 26 tops and in the US, you have to score 30. What would it mean to have that guess proved right if the test was administered to by Hare himself? Not much.
I asked myself why I did the verbal diarrhea thing with this response. It’s because your email struck a chord. I spent so many years trying to be normal. I kept thinking that if I found my calling or found my true love (that was back at the beginning of my search phase, in my early twenties… my ex-wife quickly disabused me of that fantasy), found god, found spiritual enlightenment, I would then be full of all those emotions I lacked. I thought it was the absence of these things that created the absence, the vacancy, I saw within myself. That’s what movies and books and TV and my family and friends all told me in one way or the other. I was stupid and blind enough to believe them. It wasn’t until a few years ago, when the search began to look like the dead end it was, that I finally started giving up hope. During that winding down period I had my “wow, I have went about my search in an entirely self centered way” insight. You know the drill, seducing, manipulating, then abandoning once I discovered that the other person or persons didn’t have what I was looking for. I hadn’t thought of it that way at all up until that moment of insight. I suppose that in a very real sense, I discovered that I was a bit of an emotional vampire. A year or so later, I found your blog and for the first time, someone else had my experiences. Someone else knew what I had gone through because they had gone through life in a very similar way. Even down to the moment in your childhood when you knew something had changed and that you couldn’t go back! I’d never told any of my closest friends or family that, yet you’d been through it yourself! Finding out my brain looks normal wouldn’t alter any of that. Not one single bit. In fact and if anything, it would only deepen the mystery. If we can’t point to any specific neural distinctions, then what the hell created the differences? Why do I not understand guilt on an emotional level after all these years? Why are my emotions so superficial? Why don’t I have a stable sense of self? Etc.
Ok, I’ll stop now. You just got me thinking for a bit, that’s all. What would it mean to you to discover that per your brain scan or per Hare’s checklist, you can’t possibly be a socio/psychopath?
It's funny, how we're always going on about self-awareness and self-knowledge, trying to ferret out or at least understand any delusions. Sometimes I wonder if so much self-introspection can actually create delusions, though. I know how easy (sickly easy) it is for me to compartmentalize and have one part of me trick the other part. I've done it in the past and lived lies for years. Am I currently in the middle of a delusion? Is everything I think I know about who I am and what sort of world I live in completely delusional? Including being socio-leaning?
Sometimes I think to myself, if my life depended on it, would it be easier for me to prove that I am a sociopath, or that I am not. Interestingly, I think it is my "sociopathic" traits that would make either scenario seem about equally likely or unlikely. There does seem to be something to it all, though, something consistent between me and other people that find me at this site, although I'm not wedded to the term "sociopath." Sometimes it's creepy what I discover in common with those who email me. Whatever I am, there must be a lot of others like me.
This was an interesting interview in the NZ Listener with Devon Polaschek, an associate professor in the Victoria University School of Psychology about the differences between criminal and successful sociopaths:
The downside is that the [PCL-R] was developed exclusively for use with criminals, so can’t be used to look at psychopathy in any other setting. “You can’t get a high score unless you are involved in criminal acts, so it mixes the two things together: psychopathy and criminality. So that limits the availability of a really well-validated instrument for a wider population,” says Polaschek. Also, the checklists capture people who lack some of the core characteristics of psychopathy and over-pathologise people who have an extensive history of impulsive criminal behaviour that isn’t just distinctive to psychopaths. “The research on non-offender psychopathy could not be said to be an extensive scientific one at the moment, because it just hasn’t been done. The central personality characteristics, while always antisocial – they always have a negative impact on other people – do not necessarily predispose people to criminal behaviour.” The idea of a lack of guilt or remorse is real. “But again, that’s typical of high-risk criminals, too,” Polaschek says. “In the community, in terms of so-called successful psychopaths, we would assume their core personality characteristics would still be there, the ones like lack of guilt, narcissism and irresponsibility. But we would also assume they have better impulse control because they are not getting themselves in trouble with criminal law. *** “If you view psychopathy as I do, as a bigger construct that includes some aspects that could be adaptive and even useful, then certainly there will be CEOs and MPs and lawyers. Also, someone recently did a paper on US presidents – Clinton came up quite high. That’s important, because Clinton was an incredibly competent man, and it does show you that the combination of characteristics doesn’t always include only bad things. “There are some positive characteristics – stress immunity is one of them – that the broader view of psychopathy would say are not a bad thing in themselves; it’s the fact that they are combined with other things. It isn’t necessarily about harming other people but it enables you to put yourself into novel and challenging situations in a way that other people can’t. Clearly that can go well or it can go badly, but it’s not necessarily a bad characteristic because it depends how the person develops.”
A lot of people who write me show signs of both, maybe not quite fitting either. For instance:
Thanks so much for your fabulous book, which has really helped me to understand myself. I know (partly because you specifically say so in the book) that many of your readers say this, but I see so much of you in me and me in you. I've always known that I'm different, given my inability and disinclination to form deep emotional bonds and to make personal sacrifices for the sake of morality. I once thought that I might be have Aspergers Syndrome, as it's a common condition among geeks like me, but there are some characteristics of Aspies that I can't relate to at all, most notably their tendency to feel genuine remorse when they finally realise that they've hurt someone. Until recently I didn't believe that I could be a sociopath because I was prone to worry and upset, and because I thought that I was terrible at playing the game. However, since being medicated for anxiety and depression I've become much less susceptible to distress, and your book has helped me to understand why I don't always win (as I previously assumed that sociopaths do) when playing the game - like you I crave stimulation, this unfortunately means that I have a tendency to throw away the game in favour of the momentary thrill of riling someone up. Also like you, I struggle to react appropriately to other people's confusing social cues (the main reason I thought I was an Aspie), and must train myself to behave with "sensitivity". Although I'm almost your age I'm not as far along as you in that regard, but I'm making progress (I think about half the people I meet today find me charming, as opposed to about 10% when I was in high school), and your success gives me hope that I'll eventually develop into a convincing wolf in sheep's clothing, able to form long lasting relationships (like you, I'm not completely immune to loneliness) and to keep a job for more than a couple of years. However, I have no desire to become an empath, even if that were possible - over the last few years a series of setbacks destroyed my supreme confidence, feeling like I was just like everyone else was so horrible that I went to my doctor to get doped up. I know that some people think that my life - directionless, meaningless, and solitary (like the fictional vampire you mention, I didn't seek out a lonely existence but I live one to the fullest) - must be terribly sad. I don't give a damn, in fact, one of the things that I really like about going to restaurants, movies, etc., alone is that it's defiant. I just love making others uncomfortable, watching them squirm as they decide whether to confront my violations of social norms - I feel empowered doing it, even though I know that, in the long run, making enemies erodes my power base. I'm not as big a risk taker as you though, my taunting of others is usually limited to staring at people (like you I have a predator stare, I used to think that my unusual eye contact habits meant I was an Aspie, but I can make normal eye contact, I just choose not to) and flaunting my high carbon footprint lifestyle (environmentalists are my favourite targets, partly because their ridiculous irrationality and hypocrisy invites it, partly because, like you, I find it infuriating when someone tries for force me to experience guilt or shame). On the subject of the hypocrisy of empaths, I found your discussion of East of Eden's Cathy (whose insight into the frailties of others leads her to conclude that people are gross hypocrites and wholly unworthy of her respect) absolutely fascinating. Unlike you, I've never had anyone teach me that empaths are "just like me" (I've never had any close relationships - my megomanical father and highly anxious mother were always cold to me, my relationship with my brother is very competitive, and I've never bothered to build close friendships or long lasting romantic relationships), all I see when I interact with other human beings is hypocrisy - they judge me for being inconsiderate, yet they don't consider my needs when push comes to shove (during my depressive episode most of my "friends" avoided me and my boss and colleagues pushed me out of my job). I haven't read East of Eden but I'm going to, I've been making an effort to read more fiction since I heard that Aspies are told to read fiction to learn (the very useful skill) cognitive empathy. Anyway, you may or may not hear from me again - I've become an avid follower of your blog but I'm a lurker, like you I think that we learn much more when we just listen (or read, as the case may be). I think that you've achieved your goal of creating a community of like-minded individuals who have a lot to learn from one another - thanks again. Sincerely (or as sincerely as a likely sociopath can write), C.
I have a personal interest in solving the mystery. A lot of my relatives seem to have one foot in both aspie and sociopath camp. Does anyone else fall along this border?
The psychology world seems to be taking a fresh look at sociopathy. Apparently once people dared question the infallibility of Hare's diagnostic criteria, the Psychopathy Check List Revised ("PCL-R"), it opened the door for other heresies against established views.
In his new book "Forensic Psychology: A Very Short Introduction," David Canter, a psychology professor at the University of Hudderfield, briefly describes the psychopath problem:
Until you have met someone whom you know has committed horrific violent crimes but can be charming and helpful, it is difficult to believe in the Hollywood stereotype of the psychopath. Without doubt, there are people who can seem pleasant and plausible in one situation but can quickly turn to viciousness. There are also people who just never connect with others and are constantly, from an early age, at war with those with whom they come into contact. If we need a label for these people, we can distinguish them as type 1 and type 2 psychopaths. The former have superficial charm, are pathological liars, being callous and manipulative. The clearest fictional example of this sort of psychopath is Tom Ripley, who has the central role in many of Patricia Highsmith’s amoral novels. The type 2 psychopaths are more obviously criminal, impulsive, and irresponsible with a history of juvenile delinquency and early behavioural problems.
Another label that may be assigned to people who are habitually involved in illegal, reckless, and remorseless activities that has a much broader net than ‘psychopathy’ is ‘antisocial personality disorder’. But we should not be seduced into thinking that these diagnoses are anything other than summary descriptions of the people in question. They do not help us to understand the causes of people behaving in these unacceptable ways. Some experts have even commented that they are actually moral judgements masquerading as medical explanations. So although the labels ‘personality disorder’ and ‘psychopath’ do summarize useful descriptions of some rather difficult, and often nasty, people, we need to look elsewhere for explanations of how they come to be like that.
The psychopath problem for society is "how do we keep psychopaths from acting in antisocial ways?" The psychopath problem for psychologists is "what are we really dealing with here?" Before psychologists can even begin understanding psychopaths, they must be able to identify them. Before psychologists can identify psychopaths, they must be able to understand them. It's a classic chicken/egg dilemma that leads critics like our favorite narcissist Sam Vaknin to quip that "psychopathy seems to be merely what the PCL-R measures!" and probably led the good folks putting together the DSM to eventually exclude psychopathy as a diagnosis in favor of the more criminal-sentencing friendly ASPD.
Still, these tests are being used, and brains of people flagged by these tests are being scanned and studied, helping scientists to learn more about . . . the brains of people who would be flagged by these tests. Some of the new discoveries or theories about psychopathy jive with my own personal experiences, and some of them strike me as being less than accurate -- an attempt to add an epicycle to support some of the weaker premises that provide the basis for the modern study of psychopathy. Maybe it is true that we are on the verge of a breakthrough, as some psychologists think -- a unifying theory of the causes and explanations for psychopathic behavior. If we are, I think it will have to be a product of fresh thinking, rather than continuing to focus on the same "20 items designed to rate symptoms which are common among psychopaths in forensic populations (such as prison inmates or child molesters)."
I liked this recent comment from a reader about whether it makes sense to write sociopaths off as being hopeless cases:
I think it is ridiculous when people say that you (author of Confessions of a Sociopath) must be a fraud; presumably because you are successful and have a certain amount of respect for rules. Most experts agree that there are sociopaths in all walks of life and some say they are particularly attracted to law and business management. Maybe the people who don't believe you are hung up on the "impulsivity" issue. 'Sociopaths are supposed to be impulsive so how could one make such long-term plans?' they might ask. But everything is a matter of degree. Everyone is impulsive, non-empathetic, arrogant or manipulative sometimes in some contexts. In sociopaths, these traits are much stronger than in the general population, but human nature is such that many people learn to work their way around potentially limiting mental attributes and conditions. Some introverts can enjoy parties. Some sufferers from anxiety disorders can learn to relax. If at least some sociopaths can control themselves enough to work hard to get what they want (and we must admit that many do if we want to keep talking about sociopathic stock brokers and politicians), and many are able to stay within lawful behavior as well (just about any book on sociopathy will note that they are not all criminals or violent), it seems plausible that there could be some who develop attachments to others or a sense of values. These would not have to be based on empathy. A person might see that following rules increases their chances of getting what they want out of life. They might have an asthetic preference for order. The company of certain people might make them feel good. The idea of a functional sociopath is fascinating and I think the book and blog are great. I am not a sociopath myself, but have a high level of empathy and the very un-sociopathic traits of self doubt, worry and guilt (and have been in treatment for a variety of anxiety and depression-related problems for a long time). I have a hard time imagining life without empathy, but I kind of envy sociopaths for their boldness and it is fun to imagine what it would be like to be uninhibited like they are.
I think I've talked about this before. I'm baffled by why people would insist that sociopaths are untreatable, unredeemable. If there's even a chance that they could be legitimate members of society, why wouldn't we want to explore that, at least consider the possibility?
This hour long documentary is probably worth watching, particularly for people who are just learning about sociopathy. For the sociopaths, most of it will seem a little over the top, but for some reason that passes as science and journalism when it comes to the dreaded sociopath.
Interesting moments:
27:42 What sociopaths are doing/thinking when they are talking to you.
31:14 Nature vs. nurture -- environment alone isn't enough to create a sociopath, otherwise we'd see more sociopaths in war torn areas, also "intervening" with child sociopaths.
34:40 Biological basis for the condition.
42:40 Treatment.
45:05 Mandatory brain chips and/or "surgical intervention" for sociopaths.
Microchips in the brain is by far the scariest idea I have even heard of to "deal" with the "psychopath problem," and I have heard of a lot of creative ones involving islands, internment camps, or specialized soldiers. My favorite comment:
“we will replace ‘dysfunctional’ brain mechanisms with microchips” what the…!?!?!?!!! no you wont, i’ll quite happily be labelled as psychotic for violently opposing such an idea! ultimate mind control! ill be thankful for some violent psychopaths when the powers that be try that one!!!! The moral authority of these guys is terrifying to say the least it absolves them as ‘normal’ people, my definition of psychopath would include anyone who thinks mind control chips are an acceptable course of action!
microchip control for difficult people who dont fit into a society that worships money and rewards the ‘industrial psychopaths’ with untold riches. i wonder if we are all a little bit psychotic and these therapists are the abnormal ones in trying to standardise emotional response to life events- prescribing that any given situation has a ‘proper’ emotionally standard response? the guy who describes the psychopaths abnormality as reading someone else’s faces and tailoring what they say in response- like this is some sort of weird anomaly. pathologically frightened control freaks are what the therapists come across as by their own diagnostic criteria, desperately seeking to reign in the personalities they cannot understand. i’ve watched some scary documentaries by alex jones et al about social control but this one is far more frightening in its implications. eugenics is alive and well, cull the abnormal, praise be to the sheepthinkers.
I have been surprised by how often I hear or read someone saying that sociopaths don't have emotions or can't form emotional bonds with other people. Most often it's people talking about how sociopaths are soulless monsters or must live lives completely devoid of any real meaningful relationships, but sometimes it's someone saying that he couldn't possibly be a sociopath because he feels emotions and love, etc. This is all fallacy. The three main diagnostic criterions actually have relatively little to say about emotions: Cleckley only mentions "general poverty in major affective reactions" and a poorly integrated sex life, Hare's PCL-R also lists shallow affect, and the DSM-V's ASPD only says that sociopaths tend to experience irritability and don't feel remorse. Nowhere does it say that sociopaths don't love. Nowhere does it say that sociopaths can't form emotional bonds. There is not a single historical example of a sociopath who is a completely emotionless, robot loner, so I don't know from where people are getting this image of the emotionless sociopath.
"How does a sociopath know when the missing emotions that make him supposedly so different, since he does not feel them, are feigned? In other words how does he learn to differentiate between feigned and real emotions?" I am sociopathic, but have some emotion. These emotions are egocentric and only arise with events I am directly involved with, but they are still there. I feel joy and happiness at doing my favorite activities and I can (but may not always) feel anger or sadness when things do not go my way. Nonetheless, these are 'feelings' because they provide information that goes beyond the intellectual analysis of the situation at hand. Because I have those feelings I can easily contrast those with situations where I do not or am faking them. If I am 'acting' in such a way to not betray myself, and my only contribution to that acting is my intellectual state, then I know that there is an absence of feeling there. If one tells me about how their friend died and they are in tears, I know that I must contribute with an appropriate response so that they 1) do not realize my status and 2) are not feeling any worse. Going through the motions because of this intellectual realization is far different than the automatic response given by most non-sociopaths. I think, by and large, we realize that we are not giving the same response as non-sociopaths because we realize that we have to craft the *entire* interaction with another person, not just the words.
But I don't think even this idea of faking emotions is so different than most people. Do you always mean it when you say "oh, I'm so sorry to hear that"?
Of course who knows whether sociopaths are feeling the same emotions that everyone else is, but I don't think anyone's emotional palette is completely identical to anyone else. Rather people's emotions are going to depend on their culture, their belief system, their education, the societal expectations placed on them, along with the vast natural and physical differences between people's brain and brain chemistry. This applies particularly to a complex emotion like love. I was actually just talking to a friend about how the only reason he can tell his wife loves him is that she very actively ensures that he is sexually satisfied (she's not a sociopath, but this "complaint" could very well be said about many sociopathic spouses). But whatever, right? Who is to say that this is a lesser or less desirable love than someone who would love to hold your hand in a hot air balloon?
Says the Dr. Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. From the NY Times:
While the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or D.S.M., is the best tool now available for clinicians treating patients and should not be tossed out, he said, it does not reflect the complexity of many disorders, and its way of categorizing mental illnesses should not guide research. “As long as the research community takes the D.S.M. to be a bible, we’ll never make progress,” Dr. Insel said, adding, “People think that everything has to match D.S.M. criteria, but you know what? Biology never read that book.”
“Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure. In the rest of medicine, this would be equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or the quality of fever.”
It's interesting, a lot of people will come on here and baldly assert, "sociopaths don't do this" or "that's not what borderline personality disorder is." And that's fine. I understand the flaws and ambiguities in my own working definitions of psychiatric disorders. And I also understand that despite the fuzziness of the definitions, it's still useful to acknowledge that there seems to be commonalities between certain categories of people that deserve further explanation. But I do believe that people have used the DSM unquestioningly for far too long, taking it to the level of being DSM apologists rather than accepting new information with an open-mind, and I'm glad that there is now more pressure to provide actual science behind the various assertions.
For more on the DSM-5's explicit rejection in one instance of actual scientific proof of a separate psychiatric disorder, see this New Yorker article's discussion of melancholia:
[T]he inclusion of a biological measure [for melancholia] would be very hard to sell to the mood group." Coryell explained that the problem wasn’t the test’s reliability, which he thought was better than anything else in psychiatry. Rather, it was that the D.S.T. would be "the only biological test for any diagnosis being considered." A single disorder that met the scientific demands of the day, in other words, would only make the failure to meet them in the rest of the D.S.M. that much more glaring. *** This notion—that the apparent mental condition is all that can matter—underlies not only the depression diagnosis but all of the D.S.M.’s categories. It may have been conceived as a stopgap, a way to bide time until the brain’s role in psychological suffering has been elucidated, but in the meantime, expert consensus about appearances has become the cornerstone of the profession, one that psychiatrists are reluctant to yank out, lest the entire edifice collapse.
I think she's much closer to the mark, ironically by not really trying too hard to pin down exactly what psychopathy is. As I recall her main line of attack is focused on the current conception, the Hare model. The two areas that I think are weakest with the current model are where she focuses, namely the idea that psychopathy is totally untreatable, as well as including criminality as central to the disorder. Both of these assumptions are based on faulty data. For a laugh, check out the methodology of the first study that concluded psychopaths weren't helped by therapy. They put a bunch of violent convicts together naked in a room and gave them a ton of LSD. What a shocker that didn't turn out well. Skeem's revised model is more like the lack of a model. Rather than claiming to have an objective definition she argues that psychopathy should be understood as a nebulous constellation of personality traits. I think this is a much more realistic approach because people are always going to be more complicated than a checklist. The more I read about the subject the more I question if psychopathy truly exists. "Psychopath" is something that you call an other person. Anyone who claims that title for themselves without any reservations probably wants to see themselves that way, for whatever reason. There's another really interesting section you may want to check out that probably would be better as another post than an addendum to the first. The section is called "Does Secondary Psychopathy Exist?" and I think poses an important question. I don't think that high anxiety, highly emotionally reactive people are psychopaths, even if they may exhibit similar behavior.
For what it is worth, I completely agree with that last part. These people who feel overwhelmed by their emotions -- their emotions are the root of their impulsivity -- that just sounds like something too different to include in our general conception of what is a psychopath, even if the outward manifestations of it are similar.
It's been a while since we've had an, "am I a sociopath?" post. I thought this one was interesting. There were several things that I really identified with and other things that I didn't as much (maybe you all can guess which is which), but who knows what that means.
Hey, I've just come across your blog and I relate to your thoughts. I'm a 16 year old sociopath girl. I've always known that I was different from everyone else, and about a year ago someone told me I was a sociopath. I didn't really know what that meant at the time and I spent a lot of time researching it. That person was dead on. I score a 29 on the Hare psychopathy checklist too. The post you had that has a representation of how a sociopath develops from child to adult is extremely accurate, however I only relate to the one about a male, not the one about a female. Let you know this, though: I am a very well-liked and somewhat popular person at my school. I'm sure people realize I'm not quite like them, but they are drawn to me for that reason exactly. I am not a violent sociopath, but I am indifferent to violence. I do not truly love anyone although I am attached to some people such as family friends but only for selfish reasons. I think if one of them were to die, i would get over it quickIy. I hate saying "i love you" to my family because I don't LOVE them. I lie all the time, I enjoy manipulating people, I feel the need to be in control. I do not have empathy of any sort... However, I've found that I do get angry. Do you get angry? People say that sociopaths don't have any emotions at all, but anger is an emotion. Also, when you see violent movies or hear about shootings or murders do you feel anything towards the victims? I feel so aloof in my world of other teenagers because I feel nothing at all. When I heard about the massacre of the children at Sandy Hook elementary school, I didn't care at all. Like at all. Today in my English class we are discussing slavery and before showing us this clip from a movie about the transportation of slaves in the Middle Passage, my teacher said "this is extremely graphic and hard to watch and it's very emotional..." Blah blah blah. When I watched it, the only thing I felt was interest in what would have gone on, I felt nothing for the slaves who were suffering incredibly. Everyone (including the teacher) was like crying and shit and i always find it fucking annoying when people show emotion. It's like this for everything, I only feel extreme interest about violence and crimes. I enjoy reading about all the different stories about all the serial killers and how they went about getting them alone and how they killed them. I would never or could ever do anything violent, but I love to read about it. Do you feel this way? I am a very high functioning sociopath. I am very intelligent (125 IQ) and I put on all sorts of masks and know how to behave in all the different social situations. I find it extremely exhausting though. It annoys me to no end and I find myself sometimes just not putting on a mask because its such a low risk situation. I need motivation to act like an empath and when I don't have motivation for something I would gain from acting, I just don't bother. Do you find yourself doing that? I also am extremely impressionable. When I read a book or watch a movie/tv show where I really like the personality of a character, in the time period in which I like them a lot, I mix their personality with mine. It usually doesn't last long, and I'll find another that I like. People that I've known for a long time never know what I'm going to do or say because I am so impulsive. Also, I'm attractive and I can have whatever guy I want. The whole game is getting them to like me and chasing them. When I win, and I always do, within a couple months ill get bored and dump them. Ordinary people are just so lame and boring and easy to manipulate. I get bored so so easily and I have to live my life on the edge without explicitly breaking the rules. I get off on it. It's a relief to be able to say this all to you because I can't say it to anyone else.. Thoughts?
A reader sent this interesting article from one of our favorite researchers, Jennifer Skeem, whose previous attack on the PCL-R caused Robert Hare to take her to court and delay the publication before it was eventually released. The article is sort of an interesting primer on psychopathy and summary of the most recent research. She has her own ideas about the correct delineation of psychopathy that seems reasonable. First she discusses why there are so many ideas about what exactly sociopathy is:
As we will discuss, many of the controversies surrounding psychopathy stem from fundamental disagreements about its basic definition, or operationalization. The scope of phenomena encompassed by the term psychopathy has varied dramatically over time, from virtually all forms of mental disorder (psychopathy as “diseased mind”) to a distinctive disorder characterized by lack of anxiety; guiltlessness; charm; superficial social adeptness; dishonesty; and reckless, uninhibited behavior (Blackburn, 1998). Even contemporary conceptualizations of psychopathy contain puzzling contradictions. Psychopaths are often described as hostile, aggressive, and at times revenge driven (N. S. Gray, MacCulloch, Smith, Morris, & Snowden, 2003), yet they are also characterized as experiencing only superficial emotions (Karpman, 1961; McCord & McCord, 1964). They are impulsive and reckless, yet apparently capable of elaborate scheming and masterful manipulation (Hare, 1993). They can rise to high levels of achievement or status in society, attaining success in business and public life, yet present as criminals whose behavior is so poorly thought out and lacking in regard even for self-interest that they occupy bottom rungs of the social ladder Given these contrasting depictions, it is scant wonder that some experts have concluded that the concept of psychopathy, as commonly understood, is disturbingly problematic: a “mythical entity” and “a moral judgment masquerading as a clinical diagnosis” (Blackburn, 1988, p. 511), “almost synonymous with ‘bad’” (Gunn, 1998, p. 34), “used by the media [to convey] an impression of danger, and implacable evil” (Lykken, 2006, p. 11). In the words of William and Joan McCord (McCord & McCord, 1964), two influential figures in the historic literature on psychopathy, “the proliferation of definitions, the tendency to expand the concept to include all deviant behavior, the discrepancies in judgment between different observers——these pitfalls in the history of the concept—— are enough to make a systematic diagnostician weep” (p. 56).
She then (optimistically) asserts that all is not lost, that sociopathy is a thing and we can figure out what that thing is through careful parsing of the literature and empirical evidence. First she dispels some myths:
Psychopathy is synonymous with violence: "However, psychopathy can and does occur in the absence of official criminal convictions, and many psychopathic individuals have no histories of violence."
Psychopathy is synonymous with psychosis: "In contrast with psychotic patients, psychopathic individuals are generally rational, free of delusions, and well oriented to their surroundings"
Psychopathy is synonymous with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD): "The difference arises largely because measures of psychopathy include personality traits inferable from behavior, whereas measures of ASPD more exclusively emphasize antisocial, criminal, and (to a lesser extent) violent behavior."
Psychopathic individuals are born, not made: "Contemporary understanding of the pervasive interplay of genetic and environmental influences in determining behavioral outcomes of various kinds argues against the likelihood that any psychiatric condition, including psychopathy, is entirely 'born' or 'made.'"
Psychopathy is inalterable: "some recent empirical work has emerged to suggest that personality traits in general, and psychopathic traits more specifically, undergo change across major developmental transitions"
The article is quite long. I will probably keep going back to it over the next month or so and perhaps sharing things that I learn here.
I thought this was an interesting and straightforward explanation of what it means for something to be a spectrum disorder, particularly when we're talking about psychopathy, and the difficulties it introduces in terms of understanding and diagnosing individuals with that particular disorder. From a Wall Street Journal book review of the Wisdom of Psychopaths:
In one of her stand-up comedy routines, Ellen Degeneres riffs on those commercials for depression medications that begin: "Do you ever feel sad?" Ms. Degeneres's sardonic response: "Yes, I'm alive!" Everyone occasionally feels down, so mild depression might indeed be considered part and parcel of living. Recent research suggests that, like pain, it may be a way of coping with a bad situation by making a change. One problem with most psychological diagnostic tools, in fact, is that they attempt to squeeze into a well-defined box behaviors that are, on some level, not all that unusual. So the criteria lists grow and the diagnostic labels broaden into what psychologists call "spectrums."
"Psychopathy" is a spectrum personality disorder characterized by callousness, antisocial behavior, superficial charm, narcissism, grandiosity, a sense of entitlement, poor impulse control, and a lack of empathy or remorse. Popular culture invariably associates psychopathy with serial killers like Ted Bundy, who, after raping and murdering numerous women in the 1970s, boasted that "I'm the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you'll ever meet." Yet a slate of publications on psychopathy over the past two decades—from Robert Hare's path-breaking 1993 book "Without Conscience" to Simon Baron Cohen's 2011 "The Science of Evil"—reveals that about 1% to 3% of men in the general population could be classified as psychopaths. That is more than four million people in the United States alone, and they aren't all potential Ted Bundys.
The spectrum of psychopaths includes CEOs, surgeons, lawyers, salesmen, police officers and journalists. According to Kevin Dutton, the rest of us could learn a thing or two from many of them. In "The Wisdom of Psychopaths," the Cambridge University research psychologist notes that in many circumstances, such as in business, sports and other competitive enterprises, it is beneficial to be a little charming, tough-minded, impulsive, risk taking, courageous and even a bit socially manipulative. We have the makings of a dangerous psychopath only when that little bit of charm becomes devious manipulation; when self-confidence escalates to grandiosity; when occasional exaggeration morphs into pathological lying; when tough-mindedness devolves into cruelty; and when courageous risk taking slides into foolish impulsiveness.
It's this sort of fuzziness that has led me to sometimes question whether I think that psychopathy is even a real thing. The difficulty is the heterogeneity in the psychopath population and fuzzy dividing lines between normal behavior (if perhaps a little extreme or rare), and disordered behavior. Of course there is evidence that psychopath brains look different, although the research is still very young. Still, I often have wondered what my brain would look like in one of these fMRI tests that some psychopath researchers perform, would it look normal or abnormal and in the same ways that psychopaths brains appear? I have often thought that my brain has to look abnormal, that there is no way I could have such a different way of thinking than everyone else without my brain reflecting that difference. But people say that is a common fallacy -- believing that you are different from everyone else. Then again, I probably prefer that error than to erroneously assume that everyone thinks exactly like me.
I ended up stumbling across Sociopathworld amongst other websites, all claiming to have the true definition of what a psychopath/sociopath is and how they differ / do not differ. Naturally I was surprised after reading some of your posts how much in common I have with yourself, and a few others who posted, and yet frustrated at the same time. This is caused by the, as far as I can tell, mini war between a) those who claim the vast majority of people on your site aren't socio's, and b) those that retaliate with sarcasm or angst. The frustration is born out of the fact that, as much as these opinions are seemingly coming from sociopaths, there is also the matter of objectivity, in that, there is very little. How to tell the sociopaths from the frauds, then added to that, individualism whereby every sociopath is slightly different in certain aspects, thus resulting in what I deem to be, sadly, a possibly subjective/biased source of information. It is my suspicion that the majority of sociopaths will not comment on this site, possibly because of apathy, the fact that they may gain some amusement from merely reading the bitchy, petty comments, or that there is futility in making a comment, whereby the majority would ideally, be understanding. I must press upon the fact that I do not claim to be a sociopath, only that I share several characteristics which have aroused my attention. However whether these are due to being a sociopath, or merely born from experience resulting in a highly misanthropic, manipulative and moral nihilistic personality type. I have always been slightly different since a child in terms of recklessness and disregard for social norms, however it has only been in the last 4/5 years or so, I have changed more and more (I'm 20 yrs/o). Needing an objective view and with luck, an end to this horrible itch that cannot be scratched as a result of my morbid curiosity, I have started to see a psychiatrist, not for therapy but merely to see if I may be different, if my suspicions are true. I am who I am, and if I am truly different from your typical empath, an amusing and appropriate term, then fair enough.
I replied:
What is a diagnosis? Psychological diagnoses seem to serve several purposes. If the condition or the symptoms are treatable and are causing the individual discomfort, then they serve as a plan of action for how to combat the symptoms. If the condition is not treatable, what then? Specifically for something like sociopathy, is the point of the diagnosis? Keeping people in prisons is one purpose, probably the most practical purpose right now with most of the diagnoses being made on people int he prison population. Warning others? Only if others know your particular diagnosis. What else? Self discovery? Possibly. Or is it to identify some concrete scientific phenomenon that is happening in the human race. I guess if you're a scientist/researcher you would say the latter so you would be concerned with issues of validity, etc., and reject anything or anyone that might hurt that sense of validity (and your funding). Since I'm not a scientist (at least not this type of scientist), I don't care about validity, so it doesn't really bother me to have the diagnosis bastardized a bit. I figure that people who have firsthand experience with sociopathy will be able to recognize themselves in the posts on the site. If they don't, maybe we are something different from each other, although I wouldn't know whether to call me a sociopath and them something else or vice versa.
It essentially breaks down all known psychopathic behavior into individual clusters that branch off of a base psychopathic tree. It's an evaluation, which a person can take themselves, to see just where they fall, and what characteristics and predominant in their personality. It takes away the arbitrary binary designation Yes/No to psychopathy, and instead focuses on the type of psychopathic features a person displays. My academic sources are rooted in the works of Hare, Millon, and the DSM, though I do avoid complete redundancy, and nixed a few aspects that seemed obsolete, or unrelated to psychopathy.
The test itself:
Psychopathic Trait Tendency Assessment (PTTA)
This evaluation measures an individual's potentially psychopathic personality traits. It measures four different clusters of acknowledged psychopathic traits, and has a scoring system to measure if an individual meets enough of the criteria to acknowledge how much their personality is affected by each cluster of psychopathy. The evaluation also makes the distinction between each cluster being a primary personality tendency or a secondary one if indeed an individual displays enough traits for a cluster on a consistent basis.
This test does not evaluate whether an individual is a psychopath or not. It simply measure how their personality measures up to researched psychopathic features. The criteria, thresholds, and clusters are derived from the works and research of Hare, Millon, and the DSM IV.
Scoring System
Each trait has a max score of 4. There is no "3" in the scoring system, due to the severity of difference of a pathological trait, and a learned and utilized trait due to environmental adaptation necessities.*
0 - manifests rarely if at all 1 - manifests occasionally 2 - manifests frequently 4 - is an ever-present pathological manifestation in the personality of the person and is rarely if ever not utilized *Examples of this would be when a person lives in a life-situation where classically psychopathic traits are needed to survive and thrive. This usually applies to hostile or high-stress work-environments for the likes of soldiers, career criminals, police, emergency responders, doctors/nurses, et cetera.
PTTA Evaluation Assign a score to each trait based on the scoring system above. Add up the total for each cluster.
Core Base Psychopathic Personality Traits
-Superficial usage of charm -Drastically lower levels of fear and anxiety -Lack of empathy -Lack of remorse -Underdeveloped emotions -Lack of respect or understanding of social norms and morals -Impersonal relationships with family, friends and lovers -Shallow to nonexistent affect -High levels of cunning, deception and manipulation
-High levels of apathy and lack of life goals -Disregard and violation of the boundaries of others -Recidivist criminality -Low levels of impulse control -Low tolerance for frustration -Prone to violent outbursts -Prone to parasitic relationships with friends, family, and lovers -Prone to indulgence of narcotics, alcohol, and other habit forming chemicals -Sexual promiscuity
-Highly susceptible to criticism or praise -Grandiose self-image -Sense of entitlement -Delusional and unrealistic goals -Obsession with self -Requires constant attention and prefers to be the center of it -Easily and often jealous and angry -Wants and feels they deserve "the best" of whatever they want or need -Indulges in fantasy of wealth, power and fame
-Prone to use physical or psychological harm to achieve their goals -Humiliates or demeans others -Utilizes unusually harsh punishments and lessons -Takes pleasure or is amused by viewing or participating in the harming of animals and or humans -Usage of intimidation -Restricts the autonomy of those closest to the person -Highly interested weapons, violence and torture -Views others as toys to be played with and discarded when bored -Takes pleasure in terrorizing and inducing fear and panic in others
Each core personality type represents a cluster of traits typically associated with Psychopaths and their behavior. As these are personality clusters, some are usually represented more than others, but it is possible that an individual would score very high on all clusters, or possibly only high on one if they were somewhere in the psychopathic spectrum.
Each cluster has nine traits, and the thresholds are kept at levels that require a majority of points being pooled into each cluster.
Secondary represents that an individual not only represents most traits to a moderate degree, but has at least one that falls into the realm of pathological.
Primary represents that not only does an individual have most traits to a moderate degree, but that they have most to a pathological degree.
Thresholds are not meant to include or exclude the possibility that someone encompasses a personality cluster. For example, an individual with only three or four traits in a cluster to a pathological degree would probably be represented by the personality cluster, even if the other traits did not appear present or that noticeable. It is rare (but not impossible) than an individual would only have a few traits in a cluster at pathological levels, and not the rest, to at least achieve the Secondary status for that cluster.
I liked this recent comment for how well it expressed the difference between self-knowledge and self-diagnosing:
A few months ago what seemed to be a perfect storm of stress moved through my life. As the storm began to dissipate, I noticed trends of how I have conducted myself in order to get to where I am in life. I haven’t been the nicest of people (to put it mildly). I have lied, cheated, stole, manipulated, and worse to some of the people who were supposed to be the closest to me; all without guilt or shame. Now, if my whole life I wore Amish clothes, conducted myself like Amish, and though like an Amish but had never really known what an Amish was; you can image my surprise to wake up one day and see someone dressed as I do, acts as I do, and thinks along the lines I do. Does it mean I’m Amish? I don’t know. I woke up and saw that I indeed have sociopathic tendencies, traits, and actions. I don’t know if I’m Amish… but here in my 40s I now KNOW what I do and how I do it, and how do or don’t feel. Looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck… what is it?
Of course how can we reconcile this with the recent post about wannabe sociopaths? Hard to say.
I've long been struck by the idea of childhood diagnosis of sociopaths--of exactly how early and easily we can be spotted. I, myself, was pretty aware of my own differences at an early age. Couldn't describe it back then, but I always saw the difference, that desire to compete fiercely, and even humiliate, break, and if possible, injure the competition in a way that never led back to me, all while playing adults like fiddles. Because of this history, I recently recognized another small sociopath with absolute clarity.
Recently, my wife and I were on vacation visiting friends of ours from grad school. They have a five-year-old boy. It was like looking at a little version of myself. Seeing this kid take joy in first playing with his puppy, and slowly but surely escalating the play and contact to the level of inflicting intentional pain. I recognized on his part that he knew precisely when he was crossing a line--looking up, causing the pain when he thought no adult was looking, and the false regret in his voice but clearly not his eyes when caught. It was like looking back in time into a mirror. He didn't reserve his violence and force for his pet, either, but also targeted both his parents and my wife and I. When his parents tried to use the old parenting canard of "you're hurting mommy and daddy" which usually reduces kids to crying, mewling shame-balls, their son only grinned.
If seeing his joy at this weren't a recognition of my own childhood feelings when I caused physical or emotional pain, the cinch was seeing his uncanny understanding of social dynamics, and the privileged role that most kids occupy in society which saves them from adult wrath. In other words, this child was manipulative beyond his years. Again, something familiar to myself.
By looking at him, you wouldn't think he's growing up in a nurturing, progressive, yuppie household where both parents hold doctorate degrees (or on second thought, maybe you would). His parents were oblivious to their little 'angel' and the intentionality of his aggression. Or at least have developed a practiced obliviousness.
But what surprised me most was how quickly a weekend around a small version of myself stirred up territorial feelings. Those feelings made me think of the practices of male lions direct towards a competitor's cubs. Good thing I live half a country away.
I skimmed through the the Almost a Psychopath book. They adhere to the Hare definition of psychopathy and then label the "almost psychopath" as someone who behaves like a diagnosed psychopath, only less so. Very scientifically precise, no?~
This spectrum issue reminds me of the 2nd James Fallon video from one of your recent posts. Here this guy is, with the DNA and the brain of a serial killer, yet instead of becoming a murderer he instead becomes a neuroscientist. He is clueless about the impact of his own behavior on others up until the point when he sees the results of the brain scans, although his family is completely unsurprised by his discoveries. So, by virtue of his utter lack of caring and his genetic and neurological makeup, can we call him an almost psychopath? Or does the absence of antisocial or criminal behavior (relative to diagnosed psychopaths) indicate that he is not at psychopath at all, in any way that matters? Some, like good old Dr. Robert, base their notions of psychopathy entirely on what does or does not happen on the inside. The Hare checklist on the other hand is behaviorally based, with a few exceptions. I think the checklist assumes, to paraphrase the ultimate paragon of passivity, that you shall know a tree by its fruits. What you experience on the inside only matters when it expresses itself on the outside. I am inclined to agree. What you do matters more than what you don't feel. So what if you feel callous and unemotional on the inside. What matters is how you actually treat people. Right? Why then all the blather about empathy and emotional responses to social faux pas, like guilt and shame? Is it the whole authenticity thing? I find that to be another red herring. What self are we being authentic about? Where is this ghost in the machine and why won't it show up on a PET scan? Is it really "virtuous", whatever the hell that means, to be honest and admit that you don't give a flying fuck about whatever sob story some clueless twat wants to lay on you, or is it in fact more moral to pretend to care by aping the right facial expressions and body language?
I thought this was a very interesting Wired article about the limitations of the PCL-R. The author begins with the anecdote of Alan Turing's attempt to answer the question of whether computers could think. Realizing that the question framed that way was impossible to answer (what does it mean to think?), he reframed the question to be whether computers could pass as humans. He set up an experiment where test subjects were asked to determine whether responses from an unidentified source came from another human or a computer.
Turing constructed the test in transparently trivial terms. If a computer could fool someone for five minutes 70 percent of the time, it was as good as intelligent. This is powerful not because of its implications for intelligence, but because of its insight into asking tough questions. When we don’t understand the underlying causes of a phenomenon, what scientists call its mechanism, we must resort to studying its effects. But it is crucial that we be aware of the limitations of this approach and remain humble in our inquiry.
He then goes on to compare the difficult misalignment between what we can test and what we hope to learn in terms of the PCL-R and other diagnostic tools for psychopathy:
In the next year, the American Psychological Association will put the finishing touches on the latest version of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, its compendium of psychiatric illnesses. Psychiatry is up against a problem similar to the one Turing faced. The illnesses are complex and their causes hard to discern. Without a clear mechanism, psychiatrists must rely on their patients’ subjective symptoms. It’s a process that’s always fraught, but it works when psychiatrists are realistic about the constraints of their tests. Things become more troubling when the stakes are high and the diagnoses are tough to change. This is the case in prisons throughout the Western world, where inmates are subjected to the revised Psychopathy Checklist, or PCL-R. Like the Turing Test, the PCL-R is about effects and symptoms, not causes.
The problems with the PCL-R:
The PCL-R, unlike the Turing Test, is inflexible by design. The Turing Test merely relies on the ability of the machine to be convincing in the present. It doesn’t take into account the machine’s past track record. It leaves open the possibility for change and improvement. The PCL-R is not so forgiving. If a person with a history of psychopathic behaviour were to get better, testers would likely interpret this as deception. After all, deception is a key feature of psychopathy. The PCL-R tries to have it both ways. It relies on observing a set of behaviors, but it resists assigning significance to a change in those behaviors. Leaving open the possibility of change isn’t about setting serial killers free. But for crimes on the margin, the batteries and assaults and armed robberies, we have to decide whether to deny people who score high on the PCL-R the same opportunities we would give those who score low.
The take away:
The checklist demands that we confront our values. For the possibility of a little more security, are we willing to risk denying a person a second chance? We have to understand the tradeoff and the uncertainty of the reward. With the Turing Test, it’s pretty straightforward. Five minutes and 70 percent can only tell us so much. How much can the PCL-R tell us? Alan Turing taught us that when the question is hard, we must know the limits of our answers. At stake here is redemption, the possibility that the wretched can make good. It is an aspiration worth more than a guess. It deserves our humility.
I like this issue about knowing the limits of our answers. I have recently dipped more into the empirical side of my profession and it has been fascinating and eye-opening to see some of the common mistakes people make in terms of believing that they are "proving" things or that some things are capable of being "known." There really is a great deal of hubris, and particularly when these pieces of "knowledge" leave the academic area of origin and are used by other people who are unaware of the inherent uncertainty (courts, parole boards, trolls, etc.). I can understand why people would want to believe things are knowable, particularly when it comes to something as scary as psychopaths, but they just aren't -- at least not currently.
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