Sunday, November 6, 2011

Sociopaths and fearlessness

Sociopaths are generally more fearless than empaths. Is it because having no empathy/conscience leads to fearlessess? Or does fearlessness lead to lack of empathy/conscience? One psychologist thinks it's the latter:
Fearlessness is likely one of the inherited traits that predisposes to antisocial personality and addiction.
But does that seem right? Does fearlessness in a sociopath predispose someone to become a sociopath? Or is fearlessness another symptom of the underlying cause of sociopathy?

On the one hand we could argue that fearlessness leads to an inability for sociopaths to learn from experience: if sociopaths don't fear consequences, they are not going to modify their behavior as a result of bad experiences. On the other hand, it is difficult to argue that a trait such a fearlessness would lead to other sociopathic traits like an inability to empathize, failure to conform to social norms, being manipulative, etc.

Or maybe it's neither. Maybe sociopathic traits were evolutionarily selected to make sociopaths a specialty tool in the arsenal of humanity: a subset of human kind that evolved to take care of business while the rest of humanity pussyfoots around. Some sociopathic traits are probably evolutionary spandrels, but the rest might come as part of a package that compliment each other and make sociopaths particularly suitable for certain purposes, just like how a predator has complimentary skills and traits to make him a hunting machine.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Special skill set

People often wonder whether sociopaths are born with their special skill set or whether it is acquired. I think it is a little bit of both. I think it is sort of like perfect pitch. Some people are apparently born with perfect pitch, or the ability to ascertain the frequency of sound waves not only relative to other frequencies, but relative to an absolute pitch, e.g. A = 440 Hz. If they do not keep this talent up (e.g. by never learning a musical instrument or otherwise doing anything musical), they will lose it. Similarly, I think there are a lot of survival or predatory talents that sociopaths excel at that other people have been equally inclined towards at one point in their lives, but have just failed to keep up or continue their education in those areas. I saw this recently referenced in an article about a class on survival skills being taught in New York's Central Park to yuppie urbanites. From the New York Times:
“These are time-tested skills,” Mr. Hobel said. “Many years ago we all used to know them, and now we’re bringing them back.”

The key to surviving in the wilderness, he explained, is conserving precious time and energy by remaining calm and aware. “The more skills we have, the more capable we are,” he said.

One eerie exercise focused on heightening awareness, with students closing their eyes and trying to sense danger lurking nearby. “Two people have been watching us the whole time,” Mr. Hobel said. “Can you feel their presence?”

To our surprise, we all could, and pointed to two thick logs, in front and behind us, in mud and leaves. From behind them suddenly arose two of Mr. Hobel’s associates dressed in full camouflage, their faces painted, who had been lying there unnoticed for an hour.
I actually have noticed my friends improving in these skills after spending time with me. They get used to seeing the world from a slightly different perspective, and ever after they have a bit more situational awareness and/or insight into primitive human nature that they weren't really developing before. Most people don't like to daily drudge through a parade of horrible what-ifs, but it actually can be quite fun once you get good at it. And of course, as I learned from being a musician, visualizing yourself doing something successfully makes actually doing that thing in real life infinitely easier. It may not be a pitch perfect performance, but neither will it be the disaster that it could have been had you never imagined yourself having to do those things or be that person. Not everyone wants to survive or excel in life, but for those that do, practice makes perfect.

I actually think I would be a very effective life coach.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Quote: Confidence

"I believe myself to be writing a book on economic theory which will largely revolutionize - not, I suppose, at once but in the course of the next ten years - the way the world thinks about economic problems. . . . I can't expect you, or anyone else, to believe this at the present stage. But for myself I don't merely hope what I say, - in my own mind, I'm quite sure."

--John Maynard Keynes

Thursday, November 3, 2011

The flipside of overconfidence

I didn't address the flipside of overconfidence. Like the photo of the cat ready to do battle with an eagle from yesterday's post, I feel like I have frequently been the eagle happening upon unwitting cats ready to do battle against what, they don't really know. There are aspects of my personality and my appearance that can lull people into a false sense of security. I can seem very unassuming, easy to not notice in some ways because I keep my own counsel most of the time. I'm not an easy mark by any stretch, but it's not immediately apparent to most people what I'm all about and for some reason that can provoke people who are used to a little more certainty, or provoke bullies that are used to a little more deference. It reminds me of the old "Nutty Professor" movie with Jerry Lewis. He harasses a bar tender and is in turn harassed by a "barroom brawler." I love the depiction of the sudden burst of violence, even if exaggerated and unbelievable, especially given the contrast to the slow pace of the first part of the movie.



I'm in a similar situation now where someone has grossly underestimated me. I don't know what makes people want to pick fights, you know? That's what I always wonder when it happens. Sometimes I pick my own, but a lot of the time people will come to me wanting to start something. If they're planning on fighting fair, I will best them. If they are planning on fighting dirty, I will fight dirtier than them. The real problem in going up against me, though, is that it is just so hard to land a punch. I have vulnerabilities, like anyone else, but it's hard for most people to find them and they're small targets that require a precision attack, not your usual wild flailing you see from a typical thug. See, for me, I'm used to fighting your average normal person and the other typical variants of aggressors (bullies, narcissists, aspies, what have you). I have had at least a few of fights with each type and they're relatively easy to spot, so I more or less know what to expect. But it is quite unlikely that any of those people have ever gone up against someone like me, or unlikely if they had, that they would have identified that previous assailant and or identified me as being in a similar fashion to that previous assailant. Consequently, I almost always have the element of surprise to the point where some fights are just so outweighed, they're not even fun to fight. When someone picks a fight like the barroom brawler, of course, you don't really have a choice not to fight. But it is some small consolation knowing that even if they won't be memorable to you, you certainly will be memorable to them.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Overconfidence

Confidence is an amazing thing. Because appearances are essentially all that matter, especially in circumstances of information asymmetry, confidence is an incredibly important for any leader or successful individual. The hazard of confidence, as this New York Times article by famed behavioral psychologist/economist, are when the individual starts believing his own inflated stories. Here were the more poigant parts:
The confidence we experience as we make a judgment is not a reasoned evaluation of the probability that it is right. Confidence is a feeling, one determined mostly by the coherence of the story and by the ease with which it comes to mind, even when the evidence for the story is sparse and unreliable. The bias toward coherence favors overconfidence. An individual who expresses high confidence probably has a good story, which may or may not be true.

When a compelling impression of a particular event clashes with general knowledge, the impression commonly prevails. And this goes for you, too. The confidence you will experience in your future judgments will not be diminished by what you just read, even if you believe every word.

True intuitive expertise is learned from prolonged experience with good feedback on mistakes. You are probably an expert in guessing your spouse’s mood from one word on the telephone; chess players find a strong move in a single glance at a complex position; and true legends of instant diagnoses are common among physicians. To know whether you can trust a particular intuitive judgment, there are two questions you should ask: Is the environment in which the judgment is made sufficiently regular to enable predictions from the available evidence? The answer is yes for diagnosticians, no for stock pickers. Do the professionals have an adequate opportunity to learn the cues and the regularities? The answer here depends on the professionals’ experience and on the quality and speed with which they discover their mistakes. Anesthesiologists have a better chance to develop intuitions than radiologists do. Many of the professionals we encounter easily pass both tests, and their off-the-cuff judgments deserve to be taken seriously. In general, however, you should not take assertive and confident people at their own evaluation unless you have independent reason to believe that they know what they are talking about. Unfortunately, this advice is difficult to follow: overconfident professionals sincerely believe they have expertise, act as experts and look like experts. You will have to struggle to remind yourself that they may be in the grip of an illusion.

I've mentioned several times that I believe one of the primary practical differences between a narcissist and a sociopath is that a sociopath does not believe his own lies. Sociopaths are able to lie to others and also lie to themselves, but some compartmentalized version of them will always hold on to the truth, lest they make some of these mistakes of overconfidence or underestimation that are so apparent in our brother narcissists. I fully agree with the article, though, that the only real way to avoid the perils of overconfidence is to have some touchstone that allows you to verify the validity of a particular belief. For me, I like to have people around me whose opinions I trust. If they tell me something is or not so, I have to basically take them on their word, like playing a game of mental blind man's bluff where I'm being guided by one or more participants. Luckily I learned how to trust people in my early 20's, otherwise I don't know what I would do.
Join Amazon Prime - Watch Over 40,000 Movies

.

Comments are unmoderated. Blog owner is not responsible for third party content. By leaving comments on the blog, commenters give license to the blog owner to reprint attributed comments in any form.