Saturday, October 5, 2013

Failure to conform to social norms

One of the primary characteristics of a sociopath is a failure to conform to social norms. Interestingly, this appears to be linked to a particular part of the brain and such that activity in that segment predicts whether and how someone will conform to social norms. From Science Daily:

"We discovered that the decision to follow the fairness norm, whether voluntarily or under threat of sanctions, can be directly influenced by neural stimulation in the prefrontal cortex."

Researchers asked the participants to participate in a classic sharing game:

"[T]hey received money and were asked to decide how much of it they wanted to share with an anonymous partner. A prevalent fairness norm in Western cultures dictates that the money should be evenly split between the two players. However, this contrasts with the participants’ self-interest to keep as much money as possible for themselves. In another experiment, the participants were faced with the same decision, but knew in advance that they could be punished by the partner for an unfair proposal."

Stimulating the right prefrontal cortex changed people's willingness to conform to social norms, but in odd, and seemingly contradictory ways depending on whether there was a threat of punishment:

When neural activity in this part of the brain was increased via stimulation, the participants’ followed the fairness norm more strongly when sanctions were threatened, but their voluntary norm compliance in the absence of possible punishments decreased. Conversely, when the scientists decreased neural activity, participants followed the fairness norm more strongly on a voluntary basis, but complied less with the norm when sanctions were threatened. 

But is that because people's perception of the fairness of the game shifts as well? In short, no:

Moreover, neural stimulation influenced the participants’ behavior, but it did not affect their perception of the fairness norm. It also did not alter their expectations about whether and how much they would be punished for violating the norm.

What does this suggest? Researchers concluded that it is quite possible to know something is wrong, but be more or less likely to conform your behavior to that knowledge based on brain activity:

We found that the brain mechanism responsible for compliance with social norms is separate from the processes that represent one’s knowledge and beliefs about the social norm," says Ernst Fehr, Chairman of the Department of Economics at the University of Zurich. "This could have important implications for the legal system as the ability to distinguish between right and wrong may not be sufficient for the ability to comply with social norms." Christian Ruff adds: "Our findings show that a socially and evolutionarily important aspect of human behavior depends on a specific neural mechanism that can be both up- and down-regulated with brain stimulation."

This was a particularly interesting finding to me because sometimes I have felt like the reason I do wrong things is not because I don't know that they are wrong, but that I don't recognize in that moment that they are or I don't care about the particular consequences, i.e. no threat of punishment. I feel like I respond really well to incentives. If there is a very clear consequence I actually care about (e.g. the certainty of a dismemberment or the possibility of something good), my behavior will naturally maximize that incentive structure. It makes me wonder, if there are people like me who respond best to material consequences (high activity in this part of the brain?), are there people who respond best to just the thought of fairness and being a good person (low activity in this part of the brain?). Either way, I really like the point made at the end about the legal definitions of insanity not just for psychopaths, but for other disorders characterized by a failure to conform to social norms like Asperger's and others on the autism spectrum.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Flexing power

I thought this Hyperbole and a Half comic, "Menace," had hilarious parallels to the mind of a sociopath child (and even sociopath adults). My favorite insight on self-imposed limitations:

The dinosaur costume was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me. The previous Halloween, which was the first Halloween I could actually remember, my parents had dressed me as a giant crayon, and the whole experience had been really uncomfortable for me.

But being a dinosaur felt natural.

And powerful. 

The feeling had been slowly intensifying ever since I put the costume on that morning, and, as I stood there in the middle of the classroom, staring off into the distance in an unresponsive power trance, it finally hit critical mass.

I had to find some way to use it. Any way. Immediately.

The other children screamed and fled. The teacher chased me, yelling at me to stop. But I couldn't stop.  I was a mindless juggernaut, a puppet for forces far greater than myself. I had completely lost control of my body. 

All I knew was that being a dinosaur felt very different from being a person, and I was doing things that I had never even dreamed of doing before.


Of course, I had always had the ability to do these things — even as a person — but I didn't know that. I'd just assumed that I was unable.  As a dinosaur, I didn't have any of those assumptions.  It felt like I could do whatever I wanted without fear of repercussions.

The repercussions were also exactly the same as they were before I became a dinosaur.

I just experienced them differently. 

On why in order to fully feel our power, we often feel the urge to destroy or wreak havoc:

The thing about being an unstoppable force is that you can really only enjoy the experience of being one when you have something to bash yourself against. You need to have things trying to stop you so that you can get a better sense of how fast you are going as you smash through them. And whenever I was inside the dinosaur costume, that is the only thing I wanted to do.

On losing the power of the dinosaur costume:

I was infuriated at the injustice of it all. I had become quite dependent on the costume, and it felt like part of my humanity was being forcibly and maliciously stripped away.  I cursed my piddling human powers and their uselessness in the situation. If only I could put on the costume . . .  just one more time.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Approval vs. power

A reader wonders why people do the things they do and how that affects the relationships they form:

It’s like there are 2 ways to be with people

1. Approval seeking
2. Power seeking

We are a mix of those 2 to different degrees with everyone we interact with, which is exactly why we’re different depending on who we’re talking to . It's usually all subconscious, it’s like our personalities form hierarchies everywhere.

1. Does a lot of stupid things for approval, and has since the dawn of time. Like the things people did for kings and god and people that stay in relationships that aren't any good for them, hazing, the desire to be in the ‘inner circle’ regardless of how bad it is. It explains people like Snooki. These people let others mold them. This also explains the existence of the all-forgiving, all-accepting powerful paternal father figure also known as god in most cultures, people create someone that gives them approval whenever they want, and I think people need it to be happy and to function, like sort of a feedback that they’re valuable people.

Also 1 seems to be stereotypical woman behavior and 2 seems to be stereotypical guy behavior, they seem gender related but it’s actually only so because (generally) women are more submissive and men are more assertive.

So most emotions seem to come out of interactions with 1. and 2. These are extreme examples, but people mix and match these and things come out more balanced.

Like
1-1: to equal degrees is where true bonds form, like real friendship and love.  But the problem is that people have to make themselves slightly vulnerable and easy to take advantage of for this dynamic to work. This is where functional families are too, regardless of who they are they get down or up on each others levels and reciprocate. Reciprocation is the best way to have 1-1 and it works with uneven playing fields.

1->2: the 1 will feel like the 2 is emotionally unavailable, distant, they will get clingy onto them, which will reinforce 2’s behavior and drive them further away. This is why most guys are all like ‘bitches be crazy’. They don’t understand that it’s a normal response to neglect. The 1 will wrongfully take this personally, and think there is something wrong with them. They will want to re-balance things but will usually go about it the wrong way. The irony is the harder they try, the more they'll be a nuisance.

2->1: 2 will experience boredom with 1, so they’ll either end the relationship, enjoy the attention, or reduce 1 to more and more of a functional role. Which is why most girls are like ‘guys are assholes’. 

So say 1 gets reduced to more and more of a functional role, the gap between 1 and 2 widens. There’s obviously a sub/dom thing going on, but at a certain point, sub/dom turns into inferior/superior in the mind of the dom, this can also happen if people are told they’re more worthy than others,and if they believe it. They start to build their self-worth on that concept that that’s when things unhinge because for them to feel worthy, they need to keep that dynamic in place. If 1 tries to reassert themselves, 2 will resent that [like with all the hateful comments on yt when porn stars try to conduct a normal interview, proving that they have a brain] and crack down further. This may be because the animal brain finally gets engaged, and that part deals with dominance, hatred and lust. That exact thinking pattern is present in racism, lust, treatment of POWs, in domestic abuse, murders, gang members, bullying, it explains why those hot-headed middle easterners are so angry at everyone that’s female or not of their religion, why some people have authoritative personalities, why bosses can be intolerable. They’re all equally as bad. There’s also a study that proves that people like to exert more and more dominance over people that allow them over time, not out of malice but out of a want to control, and they sort of gain joy out of that process. The people that do this in a way that's not considered socially acceptable are the sociopaths. Pure 2.

So why do people do this if it’s bad? Complete dominance over someone is euphoric, seriously, it feels amazing in a twisted kind of way. It induces guilt and regret for a regular person, but sometimes the (empath) 2s come up with ways to circumvent that and allow them to act that way at will, to their benefit. These excuses make no actual sense, but if they’re socially supported that’s all that matters (screw logic if we can feel good about ourselves is a stance people love to take, case in point: religion). These excuses are : She/he’s black, she’s a whore she/he’s a communist, she/he’s dumb, she/he is an enemy of god and in the way of my blissful afterlife where 7 virgins will cater to all my needs. In this way, they can relish in the fact that they think they're better than at least one person, the ego boost that it gives them, and can partake in the illusion that it actually means something.

2-2: Could be bad, like wars and armed standoffs. But could also result in competition, which is what pushes thing forward the fastest. Competitions don’t always endanger lives and they’re not always about interpersonal relationships so they're not always destructive.

I've learned not to be angry despite this, it’s not really peoples fault that they are SOO easily manipulated by their context, I mean it is but it's clearly not an individual problem since it's so widespread, it's more like the wiring. It seems that it’s just  what happened to their brains after experiences, outcomes, and places where social reinforcement was applied. It makes a ton of evolutionary sense, not actual sense, and that can only work if people see things through a self-serving perspective. 

Fear leads to anger

This is an interesting quote from the movie "A Single Man." In the movie it refers to the gay population, but I think it works equally well for any persecuted minority, whether an ethnic minority in Africa targeted for genocide, or people whose minds work a little bit differently. I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to say that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but it's not much of one.


The Nazis were obviously wrong to hate the Jews. But their hating the Jews was not without a cause… But the cause wasnʼt real. The cause was imagined. The cause was FEAR.

Letʼs leave the Jews out of this for a moment and think of another minority. One that can go unnoticed if it needs to.

There are all sorts of minorities, blondes for example, but a minority is only thought of as one when it constitutes some kind of threat to the majority. A real threat or an imagined one. And therein lies the FEAR. And, if the minority is somehow invisible……the fear is even greater. And this FEAR is the reason the minority is persecuted. So, there always is a cause. And the cause is FEAR. Minorities are just people. People……like us.

Fear, after all, is our real enemy. Fear is taking over our world. Fear is being used as a tool of manipulation in our society. Itʼs how politicians peddle policy and how Madison Avenue sells us things that we donʼt need. Think about it. Fear that weʼre going to be attacked, fear that there are communists lurking around every corner, fear that some little Caribbean country that doesnʼt believe in our way of life poses a threat to us. Fear that black culture may take over the world. Fear of Elvis Presleyʼs hips.Well, maybe that one is a real fear. Fear that our bad breath might ruin our friendships… Fear of growing old and being alone. A fear that we’re useless and no one cares what we have to say.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Sociopath child, to teen, to adult

Based on my own personal experiences and the experiences of many others, I have come to believe that there are certain key developmental stages that most (high-functioning?) sociopaths experience when growing up. I believe these developmental experiences are much more consistent across young sociopaths than the trinity of animal torture, fire play, and bed wetting, albeit less observable by a third party.

Sociopath child tends to slip under the radar at first because all young children are self-centered and frequently perverse. He is unaware that he is different from others until about age 11 or 12. At this age, he realizes that he has missed a cognitive/emotional fork in the road somewhere along the way (age of 4-6?), a departure from the developmental path of his peers that does not manifest itself until years later. This manifestation is characterized by a short Asperger's like social awkwardness and social rejection beginning just before the age of puberty. All of sociopath child's hormonally/emotionally driven peers are acting differently, and in ways that sociopath child doesn't understand or respect. Sociopath child doesn't play their game at first, doesn't bother to try to pretend to be an idiot like them, insisting instead that they adapt to him. They do not adapt to him, but rather reject him socially as being a nonconformist "weirdo". It becomes clear to pre-teen sociopath relatively quickly (1-2 months?) that the days of effortless fitting in that he enjoyed throughout his childhood are over. The rules have changed, his survival instincts kick in, and he realizes at some level that even if he can't understand why his peers are behaving the way they do, he must learn to adapt. Specifically sociopath teen must learn how to actively pretend to be like everyone else. In terms of mask-wearing skills, pre-teen sociopath is like the smart kid who has always "naturally" done well at school, who suddenly goes to secondary school or university and realizes that he must study to get good marks. Likewise, although child sociopath "naturally" fit in with ease, pre-teen sociopath must learn people study skills. He will use these skills in monitoring his peers to discover what he is missing and to mirror these traits back to them.

Young teen sociopath eventually overcomes this little roadblock (1-2 years?) by acquiring a baseline proficiency at mimicry and manipulation. This process hardens him to the humanity of others. To accomplish his goals, he has resorted to objectifying everyone around him, seeing them either as targets, threats, or assets.

Teen sociopath gets more reckless with his manipulation exploits as he gets more comfortable with his skills. He sometimes makes mistakes, pushes people too far, makes people very angry. These moments are frequently overlooked or quickly papered over because his peers are in such developmental flux themselves. His worst moments are written off as being hormonally based or isolated incidents. As his peers mature, however, teen sociopath's tactics will begin to seem heavy handed and artificial to them. They will tire of the manipulation and will start responding negatively to his primitive skills.

As late teen sociopath begins experiencing more pushback/blowback from his increasingly riskier exploits, he will begin to see that the majority of his life consists of manipulation and mask wearing. Late teen sociopath begins to truly understand who he is only after one of his friends hates him.
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Despite his increasing social difficulties, late teen sociopath will try to ignore the warning signs that suggest that he is not just different, but damaged. This is, after all, the only way of life he has ever known. He will do anything to maintain his status quo, including going to war against anyone who would threaten it, including himself.

Self-deception will reach a fever pitch in the early twenties as he tries to convince himself that nothing is wrong with him or what he is doing. Young adult sociopath will eventually hit some form of rock bottom, however it is that he defines that to himself. If he is smart, this will be the impetus for him to do some deep "soul" searching, and come up with some other, more sustainable way of living. If he is not smart, he will keep repeating this pattern indefinitely -- cheap manipulation tricks, backlash, self-deception, return to the status quo of cheap tricks.

For the sociopaths who move beyond the cycle of self-deception, the typical age of self-awareness is early to mid twenties, although it can still happen into the early thirties.

This is what I have come to expect in the portrayal of the development of a sociopath from small child through his mid-twenties, at least in broad strokes. Again, I think these are relatively consistent experiences, at least among high-functioning sociopaths. Depending on where the sociopath is in the stage, though, they may or may not see things this way. For instance, child sociopath doesn't realize he is manipulating, pre-teen may not necessarily be able to articulate a missed "cognitive fork," etc., but I have found that sociopaths who make it out of the cycle of self-deception will more or less recognize themselves in this description. Thoughts?

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