This TED talk is from a reader. It discusses some research about psychopaths and loss aversion (they don't experience it) and suggests some ways that non-psychopaths could learn to be a little more risk seeking themselves.
It also mentions (and this is the first I've heard about this, but does not seem wrong) about how psychopaths have naturally high mindfulness because they are laser focused on whatever task is in front of them.
A third point was regarding how to influence people by doing favors for a person. I'll let you watch the explanation for that one.
Of course, I read the book, and though I was, myself, a mental health professional, learned a great deal about sociopathy. In my day, before the functional MRI, there was no certainty that it was the functional structure of the brain that determined the behavior. Nor, that despite the 3-4% incidence in the general population, that many, if not most, are socialized, like "M. E." or Jimmy Fallon, and very likely, Benjamin Franklin, for that matter. Not all sociopaths do evil things. I stated that Franklin might well be one, based on his risk-taking behavior, his disrupted familial relationships, his legendary charm, his promiscuity, and his need to go from one activity to another.
The risky behavior: the man signed the Declaration of Independence, an invitation to hanging. Also, he nearly electrocuted himself during the kite experiment. I'm sure that there were others examples that escape me for the moment.
Disrupted family: Franklin had a hostile relationship with his son throughout their lives. He was also a very poor husband, and for all practical purposes, he acted as if he were a single man.
The charm: Thank the lord for this and his genius. He got Louis XV to bankrupt France to support us against Britain during the Revolutionary War. It was the French fleet that bottled up Cornwallis at Yorktown, after all. AND: that bankruptsy was a proximal cause of the French Revolution that transpired just a few short years later.
The hyperactivity: Again, thank the lord, and his genius, for his myriad inventions. Off the top of my head: a musical instrument that he called the Harmonium, the Franklin stove, bifocal lenses, the harnessing of electricity, etc.
The promiscuity: His love life is one of legend, continuing well into his old age!
The error is to think that all sociopaths are alike. Sociopaths differ from one another based on the presence or absence of other pathologies such as paranoia (Stalin) or Schizophrenia (Hitler) or combinations thereof. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are certainly sociopaths, yet their risky behavior was channeled into developments that have revolutionized our lives! Perhaps, we have advanced to where we are today because of constructive sociopaths like these! Not every sociopath is a Jeffrey Dahmer or a Pol Pot!
I'm not entirely surprised at the suggestion that Benjamin Franklin could have been a sociopath, especially since studies have shown that entrepreneurs have several sociopathic traits ("The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship").
I thought this recent comment was an interesting explanation of why people fear the unknown, particularly sociopaths:
You are upfront, but to what degree? You are telling us that you are manipulative for various reasons, and then asking us to take what you say at face value. You are different, you lack something, and we don't know what the effect of that is just as we don't know what could set off a dangerous predator. Do you trust a wolf, or a tiger? Maybe you would, if you were a wolf or a tiger. But you're not, so you break those creatures down to the impulses and instincts that make them dangerous - predators, cunning, violent. Nevermind that they are also caring, sweet animals that can show affection and mercy. In essence as a society, it's difficult to accept that there are people like you walking around as a member of the human family; just as individually it would be hard to accept the knowledge that we lacked the ability to control harmful impulses.
This comment reminded me of a time I visited a different continent for a wildlife tour. There were several dangerous animals and we were warned several times about avoiding them. However, we would also have impromptu picnics in the middle of the wildlife preserves. At one of these open-air picnics, I was chatting with a friend until she gasped, grabbing my shoulder in a vice grip, "Oh my God, we're going to die." I looked around us and we were surrounded by a 30 or so large rodent looking things. It was the first time we had seen this particular animal and our guide was not around to tell us what they were. Maybe my friend was overreacting, but maybe she wasn't, I thought, trying to remember whether the list of dangerous animals might possibly have included these. Even small animals can be dangerous, I rationalized -- think of those honey badger videos!
Or rabies? And it's not like we were close to any hospitals, should anything happen. The most unnerving thing about these animals, though, was the way they started closing in on us. It was like a Twilight Zone episode -- when we were looking directly at them, they would remain perfectly still, but every time we looked away, they would advance closer to us until they were within pouncing distance.
Without knowing anything about these animals, I had no clue how to react but my friend insisted that we abandon our food and try to wend our way through the fast approaching crowd. Unfortunately, a second, much larger species had appeared (or a more menacing adult-sized version of the first?). There were 60 or more animals between us and our tour vehicle and as we inched our way forward, my friend clutched my arm as if she expected impending death. We finally were able to climb onto the hood of the vehicle and waited there until our guide returned thoroughly amused at our reaction to what turned out to be perfectly harmless (in his mind), cuddly creatures.
Since returning home, I often think of this experience when I see commonplace wildlife native to where I live. How is it that I never noticed how ubiquitous squirrels are? Can they be rabid? Can raccoons hurt me? Was I wrong for worrying that the foreign animals were dangerous? Or am I wrong for not thinking more about the more familiar dangers that I encounter on a daily basis?
So although I can relate to the fear of unknown/sociopaths, it's also important to consider how concerned you want to be. Would you want to kill, lock up, or otherwise persecute a group of people because you don't understand them (and have made no real effort to try to understand or peacefully accommodate them)? Do they warrant that? Or not? Maybe you figure you've already been living a life with sociopaths without realizing it, like I had been living surrounded by squirrels without really noticing them, so how concerned should you be? Of course sociopaths are not like squirrels, more like bears or sharks or lions, but does the existence of those animals keep you from going camping? Or swimming? Or from copulating in Africa? Maybe. It's true that people have different tolerances for risk. Some are too afraid to even leave their apartment.
i just read your book, and it made clear to me many things i have been considering for some time. i am not exactly sure why i am writing to you. well, that's not true. i am interested in your impressions. i hope you respond. i am a trauma surgeon, and have been practicing for many years now. you mentioned another book in yours, in which it was stated that surgeons could be high-functioning sociopaths. i have read that book, and it struck a chord when i read it. i care nothing about the patients i treat. i treat disease entities, not people. i do it for the intellectual challenge, and for the high that i derive from having to make multiple instantaneous decisions that i must act on, that have life and death implications. i am good at what i do, and i think that part of the reason for that is that i do it dispassionately. and quite frankly, i dont care about the outcome, other than the fact that i do not want to be criticized at a morbidity and mortality conference. i can do ungodly things to humans, and feel nothing. at the same time, i am incapable of harming animals. from my reading, that goes against the grain in regard to the usual descriptions of a sociopath. outside of my professional life, i have never harmed anyone, but i could. i love knives, and have quite an interest in knife fighting. i occasionally carry one, and there is no question in my mind that i could use it with deadly effect, given the right circumstances. i live in the a metropolitan area, and occasionally ride the tube. i have thought on numerous occasions, while sitting in a car, that i am the most dangerous person in that car and no one has the remotest clue of that. to look at me, all anyone would see would be a quiet man, obviously athletic and physically strong, but from all other outward appearances minding his own business and a threat to no one. if they only knew. please do not get the impression from this that i have the desire to harm anyone. i do not. i know that i could, however, and i derive strength from that. i know that you understand. i am divorced, but am presently married to a woman i have been in a relationship with for many years. i do love her, and would not want to harm her in any way. that being said, i have had many, many sexual partners (in the hundreds) that she knows nothing about. many of them have been prostitutes, but many were not. over the past few years or so, i have had many adventures with transexuals. i am not attracted to men in the least. it is the very visible sexual excitement, characterized by the presence of an erection, that excites me. that cant be faked, and it is a real turn on for me, but only if the person looks like a woman. go figure. i have a handful of children, all grown. i am not as close to them as i wish. i have one grand child. i am a risk taker in other parts of my life as well. i have traded commodities for many years, and not very successfully. i have convinced myself many times that i have finally figured it out, only to be beaten once again by my own greed, and to once again have my trading account wiped out. i have no plans to stop. on a related issue, i do not like to gamble. i used to live and work in a resort/gambling mecca, and i never got the bug. i have taken a couple of the sociopath tests for purposes of self-diagnosis, and i dont seem to qualify. after reading your book though, there isnt much doubt in my mind. i am in a position of authority where i work, but am not and have never been a bully. i despise bullies. i have had quite a number of positions, and have had my contract not renewed on a couple of occasions, for reasons that quite frankly i could not understand. i was very good at what i did, and had the results to prove it. i was not good at playing the political game, however, and i think that was in large part for my downfall. i have had some of that in this new position too. i need this job, so i am trying to be more aware of what is going on around me. someone once identified me as a very sick, and dangerous individual, capable of practically anything. over that time, i have never harmed anyone and have tried to live my life as best i could. i continued to pursue some of my "activities" but in every other way, was a respected member of society, and a loving companion and father. i have always had questions about myself. your book as helped answer them. when i started this note to you, i had planned to ask you your impressions. i suppose i really do not need to do that anymore...i have answered my own questions. i dont feel bad though. i consider my sociopathy a strength. it has helped me to deal with some very difficult situations. it also affords me the security that i have other, perhaps less admirable strengths that i can draw on, should the need ever arise.
People sometimes ask me if I like not having to care about anything. This question is absurd. Being a sociopath doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want with no consequences, e.g. to your world view, the way your mind works, your vision of your self, your tastes and appetites, to say nothing of all of the societal consequences. If I start killing people, it will change me. Even if I steal from someone, it will change me. Every time I do something I ask myself, what are all the ramifications of this? How will this effect me or my life? Do I even know how yet? Is this something that I want?
Imagine that you were raised in a strictly religious household that followed basic Judeo-Christian theories of morality. After you leave and denounce your god, on your way to the tattoo shop, do you stop by your enemy's house to kill him? No? But you no longer believe there is a god! Wasn't the only reason that you weren't killing because God told you not to? What about if you suddenly woke up without a conscience? Now you would start killing?
There are legitimate reasons why things are considered socially reprehensible, apart from them also being morally "wrong" -- not always, but frequently. Living by the rules is an easy way to make sure you don't have to face unintended consequences -- the same reason that people might not want to eat street food, or even food from an off-brand label, or buy their prescription drugs out of the back of a van for cheap. If you are willing to take risks for something, there is a lot to be gained by being a social arbitrageur, walking the untread path, making your own rules, etc. But understand that it will entail risks. And people are unsympathetic if your risk taking involved something considered morally wrong, like seducing somebody's wife, and you end up with a bullet in your head.
I recently parked my automobile on the street while visiting a friend. The next day I walked out and one of the little back windows was shattered. I called a couple of auto glass places, but no one had it in stock. I figured I would just get it fixed when I went home, so I left it out on the street one more night. My friend figured it would be ok, in a lightning never strikes twice sort of way. Maybe that was really stupid to do or maybe it was reasonable to assume that nothing would happen to it now that it had clearly already had been messed with.
I woke up in the middle of the night to my friend calling me out of bed. One of his neighbors had heard the sound of breaking glass and called the police, who for some reason decided to go knocking on the doors in the middle of the night? It was my auto again, with the interior a little torn apart looking for something else valuable. I was really annoyed, particularly at my friend who should have known his neighborhood better than to suggest I leave it outside again as some sort of test of the broken windows theory. I don't know though. Once I finally got back to sleep (I'm a terrible sleeper), I woke up the next morning and was fine about it. I took it to a repair shop that morning to get the one window repaired and they taped some containerboard over the other window. The good thing is that glass place knew a guy who could fix the glass for cheap in my own town when I was just going to take it to the dealer (my auto is hard to find parts for). So I was happy, because the two broken windows turned out to be cheaper than just getting the one fixed at the dealer. I told my friend how happy I was and he just rolled his eyes, "there's always a silver lining for you." And there is. I can never stay upset or down for longer than 24 hours or so. Ultimately I find myself grateful that things ended up working out how they did.
It reminds me of the old song, "Rose-Colored Glasses". Selected lyrics:
I've said goodbye to Mr. Sorrow
How do you do Mr. Joy?
No need to worry about tomorrow
Look at me and you'll see I'm always happy as can be!
Because I'm looking at this world through rose colored glasses
Everything is rosy now
Looking at this world and everything that's happened
Seems of rosy hue somehow
Others may cry, but I'll keep smiling
No cause for worry or fret.
While there are some who’ll wonder why I keep smiling?
Here is why
We’ll have fun
After all is said and done
Tell me why you or I aught to complain
Now there am I then you’ll find rainbows after everything
Now who’s the boy that said “life’s just what you make it”
He was surely right I vow
So keep looking at this world with rose colored glasses
And everything is rosy now!
For that social function you have coming up soon at which it might be fun to subtly suggest that sociopaths are not as bad as people think they are, Wisdom of Psychopathy author Kevin Dutton shares Some Surprising Things You Never Knew About Psychopaths:
Psychopaths can sometimes be more empathic than the rest of us. This is especially the case in sadistic serial killers. As one senior FBI profiler told Dutton: “Sadistic serial killers feel their victims’ pain in exactly the same way that you or I might feel it. They feel it cognitively and objectively, and emotionally and subjectively too. But the difference between them and us is that they commute that pain to their own subjective pleasure.” Studies have also shown that some psychopaths have more ‘mirror neurons’ (empathy brain cells) than normal people.
They can be more altruistic than the rest of us. Studies have shown that psychopaths are quicker to offer help to people in need than everyday folk.
They don’t take things as personally as the rest of us. Research in the field of neuroeconomics has shown that psychopaths make more money than the rest of us in negotiation games because they are more willing to accept unfair offers.
As well as taking lives, they can also be better at saving lives than the rest of us—especially in knife-edge situations when the chips are down.
Psychopaths make really good customs officers. In one experiment Dutton ran, psychopaths were better at picking out people with contraband concealed about their person than were non-psychopaths.
James Bond is a psychopath. A recent study shows that James Bond epitomizes the profile of the successful psychopath: ruthless, fearless, charming, persuasive, non-conformist, extraverted, thrill-seeking, philandering, and decidedly lacking in the conscience department.
Thanks to @wordsmithatplay for giving me a heads up about the recent article in The Atlantic, "How Your Cat is Making You Crazy." The gist is that a previously thought (relatively) benign cat parasite that infects as much as 50% of the population might change the infected personality to be either more introverted and risk seeking in male infectees, or more outgoing and social in female infectees. There are fascinating implications for both free agency (cat puppetmasters? so argues a tongue in cheek "cat manifesto" from the NY Times), zombies, and (perhaps?) whether sociopaths can be made, at least in part? The story is fascinating and alarming in a very exciting way. Under the byline "Could tiny organisms carried by house cats be creeping into our brains, causing everything from car wrecks to schizophrenia?":
Starting in the early 1990s, he began to suspect that a single-celled parasite in the protozoan family was subtly manipulating his personality, causing him to behave in strange, often self-destructive ways. And if it was messing with his mind, he reasoned, it was probably doing the same to others.
The parasite, which is excreted by cats in their feces, is called Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii or Toxo for short) and is the microbe that causes toxoplasmosis—the reason pregnant women are told to avoid cats’ litter boxes. Since the 1920s, doctors have recognized that a woman who becomes infected during pregnancy can transmit the disease to the fetus, in some cases resulting in severe brain damage or death. T. gondii is also a major threat to people with weakened immunity: in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, before good antiretroviral drugs were developed, it was to blame for the dementia that afflicted many patients at the disease’s end stage. Healthy children and adults, however, usually experience nothing worse than brief flu-like symptoms before quickly fighting off the protozoan, which thereafter lies dormant inside brain cells—or at least that’s the standard medical wisdom.
“There is strong psychological resistance to the possibility that human behavior can be influenced by some stupid parasite,” he says. “Nobody likes to feel like a puppet. Reviewers [of my scientific papers] may have been offended.”
What’s more, many experts think T. gondii may be far from the only microscopic puppeteer capable of pulling our strings. “My guess is that there are scads more examples of this going on in mammals, with parasites we’ve never even heard of,” says Sapolsky.
[Regarding his changed behavior]: he thought nothing of crossing the street in the middle of dense traffic, “and if cars honked at me, I didn’t jump out of the way.” He also made no effort to hide his scorn for the Communists who ruled Czechoslovakia for most of his early adulthood. “It was very risky to openly speak your mind at that time,” he says. “I was lucky I wasn’t imprisoned.” And during a research stint in eastern Turkey, when the strife-torn region frequently erupted in gunfire, he recalls being “very calm.” In contrast, he says, “my colleagues were terrified. I wondered what was wrong with myself.”
Flegr was especially surprised to learn, though, that the protozoan appeared to cause many sex-specific changes in personality. Compared with uninfected men, males who had the parasite were more introverted, suspicious, oblivious to other people’s opinions of them, and inclined to disregard rules. Infected women, on the other hand, presented in exactly the opposite way: they were more outgoing, trusting, image-conscious, and rule-abiding than uninfected wom
It's crazy how little we still know about human behavior and its roots. But I guess some of our ignorance is intentional. Who wants to admit that their identity is so ephemeral, vulnerable to a little cat parasite (just another reason that I am glad I have no fondness for animals).
Sometimes when I am driving I want to take chances, drive aggressively, get a rush. I want to push the limits, I want to feel the danger. I don't choose to speed, though. or I don't speed in the straightaways. I think that is too obvious, and I'd be worried about getting a speeding ticket or worse. Speeding is so cut and dry a rule that it is very apparent when people are breaking it. Going excessively fast through a turn, though, you get all of the rush you're after, without obviously breaking any rule. Those little signs giving the suggested speed for a turn are just that -- suggestions. And even if they weren't, the turns go too quick for anyone to clock you. There is obviously still the chance of losing control, harm and injury to yourself or others, but that is what you are after, why you are doing it in the first place. This is the appeal of speeding through turns -- smaller likelihood of getting caught, or least having a decent excuse if you do get caught: you didn't expect the turn to be so sharp, you are unfamiliar with this stretch of road, you did not see the warning signs. It is harder to explain away something like extreme speeding.
I feel like I live my life this way. I don't tend to explicitly break rules. Rather I look for loopholes, areas of exploitation in the social fabric. I want to have a ready made excuse when I get caught. I try to have the bad things I do intentionally be things that other people do mistakenly or accidentally.
Maybe this is why I don't feel fear -- I always have an escape plan. I've had a doctor try to diagnose me with anxiety disorder before based on this obsession with escape and certain physical markers. I thought it was laughably inaccurate when I heard it -- I have such a low fear response, never get nervous, a healthy death wish, etc. But the more I thought about it, I realized that I do get anxious, particularly in crowds or with strangers, something that I had always credited to my fear of mobs or clear vision of the horrors of which seemingly "normal" people are capable. But I wonder if this is just indicative of a very healthy survival instinct, something that has largely become obsolete in the modern world of few avoidable hazards, but something that still has great use for someone like me. Maybe even the secret to my success.
I posted this a while ago about a study suggesting that sociopaths have excessive amounts of dopamine. Another recent study done at Vanderbilt University has linked the excess dopamine in sociopaths to a hypersensitive reward system that releases as much as four times the normal amount of dopamine in response to either a perceived gain of money upon the successful completion of a task, or to chemical stimulants.
The researchers then suggest that the overactive reward system is to blame for a sociopath's impulsive, risk seeking behavior because "[t]hese individuals appear to have such a strong draw to reward to the carrot that it overwhelms the sense of risk or concern about the stick."
Really?
Apart from this conclusion seeming like a huge stretch, a blatant attempt to try to shoehorn scientific findings into one of the "known" "universal" "traits" of a "sociopath," this just seems wrong. From personal experience, I feel like my risk-seeking behavior stems from a low fear response, or a lack of natural anxiety in potentially dangerous, traumatic, or stressful situations. If I am not afraid of something, I am probably going to take more risks, just like those children who can't feel pain so end up shoving fingers in their eyes.
A hypersensitive reward system could explain why sociopaths are allegedly sex fiends, at least compared to the rest of the population. It could also explain why you'll see them at the top of their field, professionally speaking. Sociopaths are probably contributing to society in all sorts of random ways in order to trigger an enormous amount of dopamine flooding through their brain. Risk takers, though? Maybe we are, but I don't think because of this, particularly because an earlier study at Vanderbilt showed that low amounts of dopamine were highly correlated with risk taking and drug abuse. Or maybe we have to be goldilocks-esque about this and make sure dopamine levels are just right?
Robert Hare, from the University of British Columbia, Canada, said in a seminar on psychopathy that people with a certain degree of psychopathy sometimes have their own place in a society.
"They tend to be important to society sometimes," he said.
"These are people who take risks, tend to not be afraid."
He pointed out the example of a white-collar psychopath, viewed as "a good leader, good person and charismatic", but who secretly did harm to their surroundings.
Hare added such psychopaths were behind last year's global economic downturn.
"They engage in all sorts of illegal behavior. Half of the financial crisis we had throughout the world in the last few years, who's behind it all? Warm, loving people? No, people who want all they can get, they don't care about millions of people who lost their life savings," he said.
I'd like to think that sociopaths collectively have the power to send the world spinning out of control, but I wonder if that could possibly be accurate. Sociopaths take risks, and with risk comes higher return. But risk is still risk and there certainly aren't enough greedy sociopaths to have tipped the scales of excessive risk without empath help, no? Let's hope his comment made more sense in context.
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