It's alarming how charming I feel

A reader asked me to assess the following letter for sociopathy. It's a letter that apparently charmed his/her "friend" back into her short-lived, nefarious lover's arms after her friend had successfully cut off ties for months:

I keep thinking that I want to write you something. I've actually written you several drafts, but have put off sending anything because I knew it would in all likelihood be the last thing I would say to you, and I didn't know what I wanted to be the last thing I said to you. I think about you everyday. I'm brokenhearted still. I feel your loss exquisitely. I kept the little drawing that you did for me and your picture you let me steal from your wallet. I see your name in my phone, see google suggest it when I start typing in my sister's. I really don't understand what happened, but I defer to your judgment. Still I wonder, did it have to be this way? It feels like you never really gave me a chance. I loved you. It was a selfish, demanding love. It was the bastard child of narcissism and a desire to possess, of course it was, I barely knew you, but I loved you. I miss you. I miss your handwriting and your forthrightness. I miss your diet sodas and smoking breaks. I miss your quest to do the right thing, but how you never took yourself too seriously. I don't feel like I really knew you, but in some ways, some concrete ways I did. Maybe it was all a fantasy. Maybe that was the problem. But now I feel like there's a hole in my heart and I don't know what to do about it. I hope this doesn't sound too cliche. It's funny that after telling you virtually nothing, now I just want you to know the truth. That's all I expect from this, all I have the right to expect, if that. But what do I want? What do I hope for? Maybe answers. Really any sort of response would make me ecstatic. I feel like you have given me abandonment issues that I never really had before. I've gained a touch of paranoia. I second guess myself, even second guess the world. I know I'll get over you, but I don't want to. I want to see you. I want to at least know you're alive. It seems weird to me thinking about the last time I saw you. I didn't expect it to be the last time I saw you. The last time I spoke with you, I didn't expect it to be the last time i spoke with you. it was so sudden, so unexpected. It caught me short. I was hurt. I apologize for not behaving better. I don't know. I guess I just wish that I had known it was coming, or known what had happened, still wish those things.

You said once that I should give you credit for picking me out of everyone else and knowing that I was worth getting to know. I thought it was funny, because you never picked me out, I picked you out. I'm still so so glad i did, even with how it ended. I guess mainly I want you to know that you will always have my admiration, respect, and devotion, for whatever that is worth to you.

I had my own opinions about this letter but wanted unbiased viewpoints on it to verify. Thoughts?

More on IQ tests, intelligence, and sociopaths

From a reader:

The question of whether or not IQ tests are equally valid for sociopaths is an interesting one. Essay tests typically measure not only subject material mastery, but also how closely the opinions expressed by a test taker match those of the test grader. Poorly written multiple-choice questions may follow simple patterns e.g. longest answer is always right. If someone administering a test knows the answers and gives non-verbal cues, then they may just be measuring a Clever Hans effect. And of course having a copy of the answer sheet before the test can reduce performance to an act of memorization.

Any of these systematic difficulties would drastically decrease the g-loading of a test. After going through all the ways that test questions can potentially be `gamed`, we must face the truism that a g-loaded question is g-loaded question. A given question may be solvable by more than one means, but if the ability to solve it by any and all of these means has a strong enough correlation with the ability to solve a diverse enough body of other seemingly unrelated problems involving complexity, then the ability to solve it is a mathematically valid demonstration of general intelligence per Spearman's factor analysis.

I've never heard a good argument against this, so I'm not interested in debating it.

On the other hand, I may be interested in debating subtler points about interplay of the general factor and specific factors amongst different groups of people with certain sets of DSM-IV diagnoses. For example it's generally accepted that high functioning autistics are better than the general population at performing some cognitive tasks, and worse than the general population at performing others. A significant proportion of autistics exhibit such large discrepancies on Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrixes vs. Wechsler tests that the discrepancies in scores actually far exceed what can be accounted for by the sum of these test's specific factors as normed on the general population. This is true even when comparing the Raven's scores against some of the Wechsler subtests considered to have the best g-loading.

Autism is not as well understood as some other DSM-IV diagnoses, but the effect involving IQ score discrepancies appears analogous to the way that ADHD can be accurately diagnosed from disparities between Wechsler series sub-test scores. There are non-IQ related cognitive skills tests which can effectively screen for sociopathy to the extent that test subjects are not aware of how the tests work. Additionally, there's some anecdotal evidence that sociopaths may generally fare better in chronometric IQ testing than in other forms of IQ testing.

There are some parallels between thought processes of autistics, sociopaths, and people with 3+ sigma general intelligence (1 or less out of every 1,000 for the general population, or IQ of 145+ with a standard deviation of 15). This mostly relates to being more rational/calculating as opposed to emotional/reactive. There are ways in which all three groups seem to act stupidly, but most of these don't really relate to lack of general intelligence. Some relate to different emotional needs, or emotion processing deficits in said neuroatypicals, and at least a few actually result from cognitive deficits in the aggregate population.

I know someone who's convinced that sociopathy occurs with a greater frequency among the highly intelligent. Personally I don't think true sociopathy occurs with much greater frequency, but I do think that similarities in dick-head behavior result from similar secondary causes. For example, I've noticed that extremely intelligent people:

* don't feel compelled to follow social norms for the sake of following social norms
* don't hold authority figures in high regard
* don't make decisions based on emotions, including empathy
* can be very adept at using self-manipulation while justifying unreasonable behavior
* tend to experience disdain to a heightened degree when they do experience it

Sarah Palin: sociopath?

So says a former Palin staffer. I rarely give credence to these accusations. It's so easy to call anyone you don't like a sociopath or psychopath or narcissist or whatever term seems to embody unrestrained evil at any given time. This particular accusation seemed less accusatory to me, though. As reported by the Anchorage Daily News, when ex Palin aide Paul Bitney was asked whether he believed Sarah Palin was sane, he replied, "Is a sociopath sane?" Good question, John Bitney.

But I was curious. You always hear that sociopaths are overrepresented as heads of state, so I did a little bit of "empirical research." I googled the names of several well-known politicians and likely sociopath/NPD subjects and discovered (1) American politicians seem much more likely to be or be accused of being a sociopath or narcissist than politicians from other countries and (2) accusations seemed to track my own non-professional guesses. Here are the biggest "offenders":

Palin 853,000 hits for sociopath, 478,000 psychopath, 781,000 narcissist
Obama 1.73M for sociopath, 289,000 psychopath, 1.75M narcissist
GW Bush 2.16M for sociopath, 2.95M psychopath, 1.54M narcissist
Hillary 741,000 for sociopath, 768,000 psychopath, 702,000 narcissist

I feel like people think warmongering = psychopath, and arrogance and ambition = narcissists, or if they want the insult to have more teeth, sociopath. But I doubt that any of these people are sociopaths. I can't imagine a sociopath ever thinking becoming a world leader would be worth the trouble. Maybe if something like that dropped in my lap I would take it, but usually there are decades of scheming and mask wearing involved. Or so I 'm told...

Sociopathy as legitimate life philosophy?

a reader writes:

I'm attaching two articles I thought you MAY find interest in.
I have this book that contains about 30 daily 'meditations' that I've been studying for years.
As an empath when I first started with this stuff it was a totally new world to me and seemed awfully cold at times but now I dont see it that way at all, I actually embrace it. When I have applied some of these principles to my own life people have labeled me jaded...Even though that is of no significance to me.
It's relevance to you, you ask??? Well a lot of the lessons seem to teach people to be more 'sociopathic' (to me) but the title of the book happens to be "The Way To Love." Funny enough its not actually about the way to 'love' and it hints that love is almost undefinable...
Check it out and if you wanna read more highly intellectual 'lessons' you can buy it for like 5 bucks at any bookstore.
Author: Anthony DeMello

a selection:

When someone tells you how special you are, all that you can accurately say is: This person given his particular tastes and needs, desires, appetites, and projections has a special desire for me, but that says nothing about me as a person. Someone else will find me quite unspecial and that too says nothing about me as a person. So the moment you accept that compliment and you allow yourself to enjoy it, you will give control of yourself to that other person. You will go to great lengths in order to continue to be special to this person. You will be in constant fear lest he meets someone who will become special to him and thus you will be dislodged from the special position you occupy in his life. And you will be constantly dancing to his tunes, living up to his expectations, and in doing so you will have lost your freedom. You have made yourself dependant on him for your happiness, for you have made your happiness depend on his judgment of you.

Then you can make things worse by beginning to search for other people who will tell you that you are special to them and you invest so much time and energy in making sure that they never lose this image they have of you. What a wearisome way to live! Suddenly fear comes into your life, fear that the image will be destroyed, and if what you seek is fearlessness and freedom, you must let go of this. How? By refusing to take anyone seriously when they tell you how special you are. The words “You are special to me” simply say something about my present mood regarding you, my taste, my present state of mind and development. They say nothing else. So accept that as a fact and do not rejoice in it. What you may rejoice in is my company and not my compliment. What you may enjoy is my present interaction with you, not my praise. And if you are wise, you will urge me to find many other special people so that you are never tempted to hold on to this image I have of you. It is not my image of you that you enjoy because you are ceaselessly aware that my image of you can change so easily. So what you enjoy is the present moment, because if you enjoy the image that I have of you, I will control you and you will be afraid to be yourself lest you hurt me, you will be afraid to tell me the truth, to do or say anything that would damage this image I have of you.

Apply this now to every image that people have of you and they tell you that you are a genius or wise or good or holy, and you enjoy that compliment and in that minute you lose your freedom; because now you will be constantly striving to retain that opinion. You will fear to make mistakes, to be yourself, to do or say anything that will spoil the image. You have lost the freedom to make a fool of yourself, to be laughed at and to be ridiculed, to do and say whatever feels right to you rather than what fits in with the image others have of you. How does one break this? Through many patient hours of study, awareness, observation, of what this silly image brings you. It gives you a thrill combined with so much insecurity and unfreedom and suffering. If you were to see this clearly you would lose your appetite to be special to anyone, or to be highly regarded by anyone. You would move about with sinners or bad characters and do and say as you please, regardless of what people think of you. You would become like the birds and flowers that are so totally unselfconscious, too busy with the task of living to care one little bit about what others think of them, about whether they are special to others or not. And at last, you will have become fearless and free.

Sociopath's Christmas wishlist

for the sociopath on your list: a Jason sweatshirt.