Friday, December 4, 2009
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Conversation with a friend
This is a very early, pre-blog conversation I had with a friend.
M.E.: The other night I met these strangers and within hours we had all outted ourselves as sociopaths and started collaborating on internet startup ideas. There was one non-socio there who was asking all these questions.
Friend: Do you really feel no guilt?
M.E.: No, I feel guilt
Friend: Well, that's not very sociopath of you.
M.E.: Well, I am not full sociopath then maybe. But I mean, it's a different kind of guilt.
Friend: Are those people full?
M.E.: I don't know. The other guy was funny, he was like "good sociopaths" do this. I think it is true that there are good sociopaths. I don't know if I feel guilt. I feel regret.
Friend: How many of the symptoms do you think you have? It seems like a lot, I guess.
M.E.: I dunno, like everyone has different symptoms because they deal with the lack of empathy in different ways. Some people see it as a lack and try to make up for it, others don't see it as a lack at all and sort of exploit it. So the symptoms are very varied.
Friend: It seems that there are plenty of consistent things.
M.E.: Ha, yeah, well everyone is manipulative, everyone is trying to avoid detection, everyone is a little reckless. Anyway, I told the empath that it is probably harder for socipaths to become an empath than for empaths to become a sociopath.
Friend: Hah, funny that you call him an empath.
M.E.: Because there is low road and high road mental processes going on. High road is conscious thought, low road is unconscious instinct type thought. So I tried to explain to him that sociopaths are essentially just shifting way more of their decisions into high road thought than the typical empath. Empaths can practice that and get good at making conscious decisions about everything (socio). But how can socios conscious force decisions into the unconscious? I think it could happen but it would have to be through the influences of someone else training you, something that you could remain unaware of.
Friend: It's not really like that
M.E.: Like what?
Friend: high/low
M.E.: Yeah, it is kind of
Friend: Well, we disagree
M.E.: Or I mean, pop science stuff I have read has said that the brain works that way. Are you saying that that isn't the distinction between socios and empaths? Or just that the mind doesn't work that way? Or not all high roaders are socios?
Friend: It's not that you're more conscious. It's that all your conscious thoughts are focused on the single-minded goal of achieving your interests. To the destruction of others. Everything is a war game to you and the fact that you are more conscious than most just means that there are lots of dumb people.
M.E.: Yeah, good point. You hate that I am a sociopath?
Friend: That's like saying I hate you because of your gender or ethnicity. Doesn't mean anything, really.
M.E.: You hate the sociopath in me, though? You hate the tendencies?
Friend: Well, obviously I don't like that you are manipulative and megalomaniacal and reckless abt your life and others. But I mean, that's just a given, isn't it?
M.E.: Given meaning that's just who I am and always have been?
Friend: And I mean, who knows what else arises from you believing you're a sociopath. That's just who you are. Alright sociopath, I'm going to maybe try to take a nap.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
It's alarming how charming I feel (part II)
I could go either way on this letter (link here). It might have been written by a sociopath, or it may have not. But I always think it's an entertaining exercise to look at other people's communication in a critical way, trying to strip it of all your prejudices and preconceptions.
I think the letter is definitely manipulative. There is a certain lilt to it, a certain charm. There is a relatively good cadence, it is interesting to read. There's not really one point made, and though there is an apology, it's not for nothing specific. The apology, to the reader, could be interpreted as an apology for everything and anything that the reader believes the writer did wrong. This was clever, because the writer may truly be sorry for only one thing ("not behaving better") or may not even know what to be sorry for, so instead keeps things vague and lets the reader fill in the blanks. (Or perhaps doesn't feel any real guilt at all.)
I obviously don't know anything about the target of the letter, but I know it was effective because the reader has reunited with the writer. The letter seems clearly designed for one purpose, and that it accomplished that purpose leads me to believe that despite certain prejudices of mine about what I think people want or do not want to hear, this was obviously what the reader wanted to hear. The most interesting thing about it, though, is that although it is what the reader wanted to hear, the writer doesn't actually say much. Instead, the writer relies on the order, the structure, the format, the very cadence and rhythm of the words to lead to what were probably almost unavoidable logical inferences for the reader.
The writer hits hard with phrases like "I loved you" -- phrases that are sure to stand out in the reader's mind much more than the follow-up qualifiers of the love being selfish or narcissistic. The letter seems like an illusion, relying primarily on misdirection rather than outright deceit. The writer knows that he has to be honest, and has to come clean (so to speak) by actually including the various qualifiers and self-effacing statements he includes. That the reader wants to think he/she is reading honest responses is also apparent by the included phrase, "It's funny that after telling you virtually nothing, now I just want you to know the truth." We have talked before about how good lies typically contain a good deal of the truth, and the writer seems very careful about keeping the letter realistic (e.g., it sounds like these two did not know each other well enough for the reader to believe that the writer genuinely loved him/her, which is why the writer says "of course it was, I barely knew you"). The writer seems to be trying to reestablish a shared reality between the two of them, but a reality based primarily on rewritten history.
Going back to the phrase "I loved you," the past tense of the word loved is curious, but it seems purposeful, perhaps wanting to instill a sense of fear of loss or actual loss in the reader. Also it suggests that the writer is harmless, impotent -- because he/she no longer loves, he/she no longer has an incentive to "behave [poorly]". This seems designed to assuage any fears or misgivings the reader has about letting the writer back into his/her life, all while piquing the reader's interest --wanting the reader to not just think it is harmless to allow the writer back into his/her life, but actively wanting the writer back in his/her life.
The letter is also a Trojan horse, however. It promises love and eternal devotion, but those very promises are designed to guilt the reader into some sort of a response -- the writer's desired goal. The writer says, "It feels like you never really gave me a chance," followed by "I loved you." There are also the recriminations: "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." This is not only a plea for sympathy but a pointed finger of look-what-you-have-done-to-me-what-did-I-ever-do-to-deserve-this accusation. If the reader sees his or herself as a good, open-minded individual, he/she may have misgivings about his/her actions after reading this.
There is a suggestion that if they start over things will be different ("I guess I just wish that I had known it was coming"), but no direct promises or even a direct suggestion that it would have made any difference to the writer to know that the reader was leaving him/her. Finally, there is a plea to vanity: "I know I'll get over you, but I don't want to." I feel like that must work like a charm with empaths, if only because it sounds like a sappy movie line to me.
Our reader who sent this letter is right to be suspicious, I think. Even if the writer is not a sociopath, I am sure the friend has a very different understanding of the contours of their proposed renewed relationship than does the writer of this letter. Not only that, I believe that was the writer's exact intention.
I think the letter is definitely manipulative. There is a certain lilt to it, a certain charm. There is a relatively good cadence, it is interesting to read. There's not really one point made, and though there is an apology, it's not for nothing specific. The apology, to the reader, could be interpreted as an apology for everything and anything that the reader believes the writer did wrong. This was clever, because the writer may truly be sorry for only one thing ("not behaving better") or may not even know what to be sorry for, so instead keeps things vague and lets the reader fill in the blanks. (Or perhaps doesn't feel any real guilt at all.)
I obviously don't know anything about the target of the letter, but I know it was effective because the reader has reunited with the writer. The letter seems clearly designed for one purpose, and that it accomplished that purpose leads me to believe that despite certain prejudices of mine about what I think people want or do not want to hear, this was obviously what the reader wanted to hear. The most interesting thing about it, though, is that although it is what the reader wanted to hear, the writer doesn't actually say much. Instead, the writer relies on the order, the structure, the format, the very cadence and rhythm of the words to lead to what were probably almost unavoidable logical inferences for the reader.
The writer hits hard with phrases like "I loved you" -- phrases that are sure to stand out in the reader's mind much more than the follow-up qualifiers of the love being selfish or narcissistic. The letter seems like an illusion, relying primarily on misdirection rather than outright deceit. The writer knows that he has to be honest, and has to come clean (so to speak) by actually including the various qualifiers and self-effacing statements he includes. That the reader wants to think he/she is reading honest responses is also apparent by the included phrase, "It's funny that after telling you virtually nothing, now I just want you to know the truth." We have talked before about how good lies typically contain a good deal of the truth, and the writer seems very careful about keeping the letter realistic (e.g., it sounds like these two did not know each other well enough for the reader to believe that the writer genuinely loved him/her, which is why the writer says "of course it was, I barely knew you"). The writer seems to be trying to reestablish a shared reality between the two of them, but a reality based primarily on rewritten history.
Going back to the phrase "I loved you," the past tense of the word loved is curious, but it seems purposeful, perhaps wanting to instill a sense of fear of loss or actual loss in the reader. Also it suggests that the writer is harmless, impotent -- because he/she no longer loves, he/she no longer has an incentive to "behave [poorly]". This seems designed to assuage any fears or misgivings the reader has about letting the writer back into his/her life, all while piquing the reader's interest --wanting the reader to not just think it is harmless to allow the writer back into his/her life, but actively wanting the writer back in his/her life.
The letter is also a Trojan horse, however. It promises love and eternal devotion, but those very promises are designed to guilt the reader into some sort of a response -- the writer's desired goal. The writer says, "It feels like you never really gave me a chance," followed by "I loved you." There are also the recriminations: "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." This is not only a plea for sympathy but a pointed finger of look-what-you-have-done-to-me-what-did-I-ever-do-to-deserve-this accusation. If the reader sees his or herself as a good, open-minded individual, he/she may have misgivings about his/her actions after reading this.
There is a suggestion that if they start over things will be different ("I guess I just wish that I had known it was coming"), but no direct promises or even a direct suggestion that it would have made any difference to the writer to know that the reader was leaving him/her. Finally, there is a plea to vanity: "I know I'll get over you, but I don't want to." I feel like that must work like a charm with empaths, if only because it sounds like a sappy movie line to me.
Our reader who sent this letter is right to be suspicious, I think. Even if the writer is not a sociopath, I am sure the friend has a very different understanding of the contours of their proposed renewed relationship than does the writer of this letter. Not only that, I believe that was the writer's exact intention.
Monday, November 30, 2009
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.I had my own opinions about this letter but wanted unbiased viewpoints on it to verify. Thoughts?
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.
Friday, November 27, 2009
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
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