Showing posts with label emotions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emotions. Show all posts

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Why sociopaths seem more normal than normal

One of the reasons that the average person won't be able to identify a sociopath when she meets one is that sociopaths do a better job of acting normal than even neurotypical people do. Here's an illustration of what I mean: once I had a colleague review a resume I'd drafted using several different typefaces. The colleague, in an effort to make the document appear uniform, insisted that more space be put here, less there. I explained that the spacing was actually uniform, according to the program, and that the lack of uniformity was just the result of an optical illusion. She told me that it doesn't matter if the spacing is technically uniform, it doesn't matter if it is an optical illusion, the whole point of the endeavor is for the spacing to appear uniform, so if it doesn't appear uniform, we're not going to change the human perception of the document, we're just going to change the document.

Uber-empaths always feel like they need to be true to their feelings. If they feel something, it must be right. But sometimes these more emotional empaths have the equivalent of optical illusions -- maybe they are cranky and overly sensitive, maybe they are hormonal, maybe they are taking mood modifying drugs. Reality is different for everyone, but most empaths aren't daily confronted with that fact like sociopaths are. So empaths just go on their merry little way screaming in a coffee shop when their order is incorrect and generally being true to their feelings even if it makes them look like a crazy person.

Sociopaths, on the other hand, realize that emotions are at best shadows of truth and at worst complete fabrications. Sociopaths are not interested in being true to their feelings, but rather constantly projecting an image of normalcy. This ability to detach actual emotions felt with impressions conveyed is why some politicians and celebrities succeed and some don't. Nowadays everyone has an image consultant. The average person knows that. But does the average person realize to what extent the expression of emotions or convictions is being falsified in order to convey what the audience perceives?

Today I had an opportunity to do a little public speaking. By working with the uber-empath's predictable propensity to the emotional equivalent of optical illusions, I was successfully able to convey sincerity much better than if I had actually been feeling it. I think there may be a career in politics for me after all.

Friday, December 30, 2011

Second opinion

From a reader:
I stumbled across your site while doing some research on my own personality.  I find it fascinating.  I am greatly envious of true sociopaths.  I believe I am on the opposite end of the scale.  A super empath if you will.  I am old now, but for as long as I can remember emotions have brought me nothing but pain.  Long before I ever heard the term sociopath or had any idea what it meant, I longed to be numb.  Life has worn me down to the point where I do not suffer to the extent I did at one time, however, even the vestiges of what I once felt are sufficient to make me miserable.
In my humble opinion most people are like sheep.  They have a deep need to conform, to "fit in".  They will go to great lengths to achieve their goals.   I also feel (there's that nasty four letter word") that they want to be told what to do, despite their vehement insistence to the contrary.   In my opinion socios are just like every other human being, only with the added luxury of doing whatever best benefits them with no emotional baggage.  You all seem highly intelligent, organized thinkers who are of great benefit to society if you so choose.  I think the one emotion you may be capable of is extreme annoyance due to the rampant stupidity with which you are faced each day.  Anyway, thanks for the site.  It is the one place on the web I can go and be assured of some reasonable discourse.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Emotional appendixes

Here is an interesting podcast on happiness economics. Starting at the 40:30 mark, there is an even more interesting discussion of evolutionary psychology. Professor Epstein explains the Darwinian insight that emotions are not insulated from evolutionary pressures. Nature does not trust the really important human behaviors to reasoning, but rather reinforces them with emotions. The prime example of this is procreation and raising children. There is a physical incentive to have sex, but the incentive to stick around and make sure that the offspring actually survive to reach the age of reproduction is emotional. Parents feel a "natural love" for their children. This natural love leads them to enjoy benefits to their children as they would enjoy benefits to themselves. That's why providing for one's children is not just a chore that we do rationally to propagate the species, but also one that we get emotional rewards from.

What does this mean for the sociopath? Well, sociopaths are not as much subject to the whims of "nature" and genetic/emotional programming as the majority of the human population. This is good because sociopaths have more freedom of thought and action. But it's bad because genetic/emotional programming was put there for a reason. Part of this reason has to do with our hunter-gatherer past, and is less important now -- sort of an emotional appendix or tail. Think about how inappropriate and disruptive our fight/flight instincts are in everyday life. On the other hand, some emotional programming is essential for our society to continue functioning as usual.

Sociopaths may be ahead of the curve when it comes to outdated emotional responses (the appendixes of the emotional spectrum), but behind the curve when it comes to good, rational, self-benefiting decisions that are reinforced in neurotypical people with emotions. Wouldn't it be nice to have rational decisions reinforced by emotion? If for no other reason, for the increase in utility and pleasure that emotional reinforcement would provide. There are obvious examples of the body rewarding necessary behavior with physical pleasure or the absence of pain: sex, eating, drinking, urinating, etc. For the empaths they also get emotional pleasure from things like cooperating, providing, and altruism. I feel a lot of satisfaction from doing things well, so I usually like to cooperate and be a contributing member of society. But wouldn't it be great if you also got intense emotional pleasure from it? If you could add pleasure to that equation, why wouldn't you?

For those of you who are interested, here is a little bit more information about evolutionary psychology and emotions from one of the comments regarding the podcast. The author of the comment is discussing the Robert Wright's book, The Moral Animal.
He is using Darwins life to describe some of the findings around sexual selection, kin selection and individual "striving" if you will (that is my words not Wrights). In one chapter he is talking about How Darwin and his wife reacted to the loss of children. He had one die soon after birth or maybe stillborn and another when (s)he was 8-10 yrs old. Well they reacted quite differently to both situations and were much more distraught in the second case. Why? It could be explained by the changes in their own lives at the time, where Darwin was in his work, the age of his wife etc etc. When you look at it simply as return on investment into genetic material passing to the future it begins to make sense. Someone you had invested more money ,time and effort into and was closer to reproductive age would be harder to lose than one lost right out of the gate. Similarly its been found that ,generally, once they are past the age of reproduction there is a dropoff in the "grief factor" following a death. This does not make us cold hearted computers driven by a DNA chip it is what makes us human. This behavior is noted in other species of animals as well. Our primate relatives "favor" the child they have invested the most in as well, and the one that has the better chance of passing on the genes.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Emotional moral judgment

This was an interesting (although sometimes confusing) overview sent to me by a reader of some of the recent work that researcher Jean Decety has been doing on moral judgment (Decety is teaming up soon with our favorite brain scan-ologist Kent Kiehl for more brain scans of male psychopathic prisoners).

The most interesting assertion in the article was: "Negative emotions alert people to the moral nature of a situation by bringing on discomfort that can precede moral judgment, and such an emotional response is stronger in young children, he explained." Apparently children's moral judgment is not just preceded by a negative emotional response, but is essentially a negative emotional response: "For young children, the amygdala, which is associated with the generation of emotional responses to a social situation, was much more activated than it was in adults."

The emotional moral judgment of the child evolves as an adult to be tempered by the "dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex — areas of the brain that allow people to reflect on the values linked to outcomes and actions." So while children are assuming that every bad act is malicious, adults are able to recognize and discount accidents and find nuance in levels of maliciousness.

I hadn't realized that moral judgment starts out as an emotional reaction in both adults and children (and remains an emotional reaction in children). It makes sense that sociopaths would have a comparatively blunted sense of morality, assuming that they either do not feel this emotional impetus or feel it less, which is certainly the case with me -- I have never felt moral outrage. My friends joke that I wouldn't be able to smell a lynch mob coming.

I have mixed feelings about the emotional component of moral judgment. On the one hand, I understand how nature reinforces important functions with emotion. On the other hand, emotional moral judgment also enables people to do really horrible things to each other for little to no provocation.

Do any empaths want to defend their way of doing things, i.e. argue that emotional moral reason is better than unemotional moral reasoning?

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Sympathy vs. empathy (part 2)

My response:
Ha, hard to know if we're bad people, what does that even mean? I definitely think we can feel genuine sympathy or sadness, though. Sympathy just means feeling sorry for them, and has nothing to do with feeling what they feel or whatever else empathy is supposed to mean. I feel sorry for people when something bad happens to them or they cry or are otherwise struggling because I know what it feels like to have something bad happen to you, and it can be heart wrenching. I think we understand emotions a lot better than people think we do, but I also think that our understanding isn't too good unless/until we have experienced that exact same emotion, gone through that exact same experience before. At least for me, the more I can see other people as myself (i.e. the more they mirror me or my own past experiences), the better I can understand them. That doesn't seem strange or disturbing to me, but they keep telling me that there is this magic empathy thing that people are somehow born with a magical sense that allows them to feel what others are feeling naturally.
Reader:
Yes I understand what you mean. I truthfully think we sociopaths have a higher understanding of human emotion than most normal people do. Maybe because we spend so much time trying to analyze it to understand it. I think we are very emotionally intuitive and can pick up on when someone is lying or bullshitting us, or at least I can. I can meet people and within 5 minutes know what kind of person they are. This comes to my aid a lot when it comes to friendships...I know so many things about these people, they don't even realize I pick up on it. It's like you always know their intentions. I like this being able to 'read' people quality. It certainly helps with life.

As for sympathy, I can relate to an emotion someone is having as in...I understand it perfectly...though since it's not me going through it, I tend to not care. It doesn't mean I want them to suffer, I just have no feelings towards it at all.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Sociopath tip of the day

It's hard to fake real emotions, particularly when the expected emotional response is complex or is unusual enough that you haven't had much experience witnessing it, much less practicing it well enough to be considered genuine. Better to instead come up with a lie about why you aren't having the expected emotional response. For instance, I had a close family member die. I didn't feel like making a big deal out of it but I also had to be out of town for a while, so I had to let some people know about it. Some were surprised that I didn't seem that upset. Luckily I had a readymade excuse: "It was expected. S/he had actually survived longer than we thought, so we are just grateful for the time that we did have with him/her." Voila. Death suddenly becomes something that you could legitimately take in stride.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Sociopath advise on how to deal with sociopaths, part II

Reading these comments from sociopaths, you may be asking yourself, why does anyone put up with sociopaths in the first place? Can sociopaths love? Can they be in a relationship?
"In the beginning, what people are attracted to in psychopaths is they seem to know what you want, what you need, what makes you laugh, and feel good. They are mirroring what is inside you back at you, and throwing in what they've learned. In return, they absorb part of who you are psychologically. They become what you want as much as they can. The relationship feels good because it seems you've found your soul mate."

"I can't comment on what will be enough to have a specific person leave you alone. I can comment on what his motivation might be in continuing to contact you, assuming he is a psychopath. He might be after something you provide, such as money, sex, comfort/normalcy, a fear or fight fix. You might be considered part of who he is. He has absorbed part of your personality by mirroring and he wants to continue or have that back."

"Co-dependant people are attracted to us because we provide a complete immersion of attention and focus. But co-dependant people are not inherently strong enough of personality. The experiment fails and we begin to despise. If she begins to show weakness, such as eventually seeking our guidance or not maintaining discipline and surety of purpose, we begin to despise. We seek to give in a relationship, but we cannot give love, compassion, or empathy. We seek to give what we have."

"From my point of view a boundary is: "Either don't do this or I will do this unpleasant thing to you" and, "If you do this, I will do this nice thing for you." A psychopath will push you to find out how concrete those boundaries are. Willpower and discipline must be maintained in order to keep the psychopath in line until a natural order is established and a direction given (if the psychopath wants a relationship)."

"As an N, I also memorize other people's emotions. It's the easiest way to seem human because I have no idea how to feel them myself!! I'd be very easy to spot if I didn't know how to pretend to have emotions like everyone else."

"Normal people may sense or feel the presence of 'evil'. It permeates from the P. We react with nauseau, fear, and we often say "Oh, he doesn't mean that". It is often intangible and something we can't really define."

Friday, August 15, 2008

The rant that won't make sense to the uninitiated

99th percentile

According to a study in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, sociopaths make up 1% of the world's population. I guess that puts me in the 99th percentile. Again. I don't think people are surprised when they find out I'm a sociopath. I think they're surprised people like me even exist. But they shouldn't be. It's just another human abnormality like color blindness, dyslexia, or tone deafness. We walk among you unnoticed.

I wasn't surprised when I realized I was a sociopath. Like realizing you're gay or adopted, you may have always known it in your heart. You don't realize you're different until the differences become manifest. Sociopathy takes longer to notice than, say, a learning disability. Just like some people don't realize they're gay until puberty kicks in (or sometimes much later), sociopaths often don't realize what they are until suddenly someone hates them.

I always attributed my sense of being "different" to being smarter than everyone else. I didn't think I had some mental disorder. And for the most part, my "mental disorder" has been easy to live with. There's been no external struggle, no conflict I couldn't master--though sometimes I have find myself behind the curve in certain areas, having to play catch up. Normal people seem to follow an invisible path of personal development. Sometimes I would get confused if there was a fork in that path. I couldn't always predict normal social development enough to anticipate it.

For example: When I started school I quickly learned that it was important to be smart--to do well on tests, to get good grades. It wasn't until fifth grade when I realized (too late) that it's just as important to be well-liked. I missed the fork in the road. It took four years to undo the damage, but by high school I constructed a new, better social persona: I was into indie films and underground music, alternative sports and thrift store clothes. I didn't pander to the whims of the majority through mimicry; my uniqueness demanded respect. And it worked: people liked me, or at least liked the person they thought I was.

How would I describe my condition today? When people ask I have doubts about how best to explain it. It's easy to confuse causes for symptoms and vice versa, but for me sociopathy feels like an extreme form of compartmentalization. I can shut myself off or open myself up to emotions like fear or anger or anxiety or dread or joy just by flipping an internal switch. Or turning a dial, like a radio. All those things are out there, all the time being broadcast through our airwaves. All I have to do is tune into the right station. If I want to feel something--despair, anxiety, bliss, horror disgust--I just think about it. It's like seeing a glass half empty and then flipping the switch or turning the dial to look at it half full. I believe empaths sometimes have a similar sensation and label it an epiphany--a sudden shift in perspective. This happens to me many times a day.

Most people have to listen to whatever signal is being broadcast the strongest, both within themselves and in their social environments. I get to choose which signals to listen to. Sometimes it's nice to be able to choose who to mirror to or how to feel, but it can also be a burden. I have to constantly and actively monitor the airwaves. Most people pick up on social and moral cues because they automatically tune into other people's emotional stations, reading body language unconsciously and displaying appropriate emotional responses in a natural, instinctive way. Empaths are like cell phones in this way--they automatically seek out the strongest signal from the cell towers. Sociopaths, on the other hand, are like traditional radios. I can only hear the strongest signal if I happen to be on that station, or if I'm being extra vigilant about scanning. There's a lot of trial and error involved. Often the best I can do is realize I've missed an important cue, then shift and shuffle through my stations to recover. There can be some awkwardness, but I've gotten pretty good at masking my errors. I can cycle through possible emotional choices very quickly and come up with acceptable responses like a computer playing chess. I'll never be as fast as an empath, but I retain much more control this way. I have the ability to turn my feelings on a dime.

Frequently I won't bother trying to figure out which radio station everyone else is listening to, and instead will broadcast my own station powerfully enough to become dominant. I guess that's what some people call manipulation. When I'm with a group of people, I can control the conversation (assuming I can engage everyone) so that I'll know what they are all thinking. They're thinking about me and whatever it is I'm saying. I purposefully construct what I say to evoke a particular simultaneous reaction. So I'm broadcasting instead of listening. And I can do this as broadly as a drive-in movie theatre, with a large group of people, or as specific as an ipod trip. I can broadcast indefinitely, but I can only be certain of your attention for 20 minutes, 30 minutes tops. And I can't multitask. When I'm broadcasting I can't listen to any other stations. It gives me somewhat of an advantage, if you can call it that. And I use it somewhat frequently, especially at parties. I never feel bad about it, I don't think it is wrong. It's my way of coping. People are listening to whatever broadcast comes in strongest anyway, so why not make it mine? It's not like I think people are stupid or look down on them because of it. It's just that people seem willing to give up so much control over their lives and will listen to such drivel sometimes. I figure I can't be the worst thing that's happened to them.

Narcissists I hate. They are my mortal enemy. They are reckless and sloppy. They don't "pass" as normal to anyone but themselves. They don't get the right social or moral cues either, but it isn't because their radio is faulty, but because they're too busy listening to their own mix tape. Sociopaths don't reject the idea of the radio like they do. I don't believe that we are the same as empaths or better than them like narcissists do. I realize I am different, and I suspect that every sociopath, from the most psychotic serial killer to the most mild mannered office worker, feels isolated. Sociopaths sit in front of our radio all the time, listening like some listen to police scanners. We try to piece together the story. We try to understand what makes empaths do what they do, what makes them tick. We "pass." We walk among you. But we never feel like one of you. We can always tell the difference between sociopaths and empaths, even if you can't.

Most sociopaths want to hide their identity, but I don't want to hide forever. My life's goal is not to have to "pass." I want everyone to know who I am. I want to live in the light. Right now it's not safe, though. People don't like sociopaths. There are books and web pages devoted to detecting and avoiding sociopaths: don't talk to these people, don't be around them, don't let them ensnare you. I want people like me to know that they aren't alone. And I want everyone else to know who I'm a natural human variant. I want to come out of the closet, but not until I change the world to be a safer place for me.
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