Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Liar, liar

One thing I am always a little surprised by is how horrified people are of the idea of sociopath mask-wearing and lying. Doesn't everybody? The main difference seems to be what sorts of things people bother to lie about? Maybe not even that? From the New Yorker blog's "How to Tell When Someone is Lying":

People lie all the time. According to the psychologist Robert Feldman, who has spent more than four decades studying the phenomenon, we lie, on average, three times during a routine ten-minute conversation with a stranger or casual acquaintance. Hardly anyone refrains from lying altogether, and some people report lying up to twelve times within that time span. I might open a conversation, for instance, by saying how nice it is to meet someone—when I’m really not at all happy about it. I might go on to say that I grew up in Boston—a lie, technically, since I really grew up in a small town about forty minutes outside the city. I could say that the person’s work sounds fascinating, when it’s no such thing, or compliment him on his (drab) tie or his (awful) shirt. And if the person mentions loving a certain downtown restaurant where I’ve had a terrible experience? I’m likely to just smile and nod and say, Yes, great place. Trust me: we often lie without giving it so much as a second thought.

We lie in most any context—Feldman’s work has turned up frequent lies in relationships ranging from the most intimate (marriage) to the completely casual. Some lies are small (“You look like you’ve lost a bit of weight”) and some bigger (“I did not have sex with that woman”). Sometimes they are harmless, and sometimes they are not.

Interestingly, although it is very difficult to become a personal lie-detector, studies suggest that people are pretty ok at subconsciously detecting lying:

In a series of studies, out this month in the journal Psychological Science, the Berkeley team had students watch a video of a possible criminal who was being questioned about stealing a hundred dollars. As in an actual interrogation, the suspect responded to both baseline questions (“What are you wearing?” “What’s the weather like outside?”) and target questions (“Did you steal the money?” “Are you lying to me right now?”). Half of the potential criminals were lying; half were telling the truth. Each participant watched one truthful and one deceptive video.

Next, the students completed a simple assessment: Were the pleaders in the videos telling the truth? Just as in prior studies, ten Brinke’s subjects, when asked direct questions, did no better than chance at determining who was truthful and who wasn’t.

But then the students participated in one of two unconscious lie-detection tasks. In each, they saw still photos of the two pleaders alongside words that were associated with either truth, such as “honest” and “genuine,” or lies, such as “deceitful” and “dishonest.” Their goal was to categorize the words as indicative of either truth or lies, as quickly and accurately as possible, regardless of the face they saw along with it. If “genuine” flashed on the screen, they would press a button to classify it as a truth-category word as soon as possible.

When the researchers dug deeper, they saw that the participants’ unconscious instinct fared far better: in both studies, they were significantly faster at properly categorizing lie- and truth-related concepts when those concepts were presented with the lying or truthful face, respectively, from the video. Seeing a liar’s face made people faster at classifying lie-related words than truth-related words—and seeing a truth-teller had the opposite effect. “When you see a liar’s face, the concept of deception is activated in your mind even if you’re not consciously aware of it,” ten Brinke hypothesizes. “It’s still unclear just how high a percentage of lies our unconscious mind is able to sense accurately, but discrimination is definitely occurring.”

Unconscious discrimination seems to play out in more life-like scenarios, too. In a series of prior studies, conducted by an unrelated group at the University of Manheim, the psychologist Marc-AndrĂ© Reinhard and his colleagues found that the ability of student judges to detect deception improved drastically if they were given time to think—but only if, in that time frame, they thought about something other than the case they were judging. If they had to make an immediate judgment, they did no better than chance. The same was true if they were allowed to deliberate consciously. But when they were kept from consciously deliberating, by, for example, completing a demanding word-search puzzle, their accuracy improved significantly. Reinhard concluded that, in the unconscious-deliberation condition, the brain had had time to integrate the subtle cues that our conscious mind can’t quite perceive into a more complete judgment.

Why is it so hard for people to spot sociopaths then? Could it be that some people are willfully blind?

Monday, April 28, 2014

Podcasts

A reader collected this list of podcasts related to the book (see also list of links below):  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/28/me-thomas-sociopath-diagnosis_n_3517982.html
        517837276.webm - video
        517837278.webm - video


http://audioboo.fm/boos/1579008-confessions-of-a-sociopath
        1579008-confessions-of-a-sociopath.mp3



http://programs.wypr.org/podcast/lawyer-sunday-school-teacher-sociopath-monday-july-22-1-2-pm
        Midday_07_22_13_HR_2_Sociopath.mp3



http://programs.wypr.org/podcast/confessions-sociopath-monday-sept-2-1-2-pm
        same as above



http://ttbook.org/book/beast-me
        tbk130811a1.mp3
        tbkthomasuncut.mp3
        tbk130811a.mp3



http://www.cbc.ca/q/blog/2013/08/01/confessions-of-a-sociopath/
        Audio | Q with Jian Ghomeshi | CBC Radio.mp3



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQrcqO0Qu7k
        Confessions of a Sociopath....mp4 - video
        Confessions of a Sociopath....webm - video



http://rt.com/shows/big-picture/fossil-fuel-industry-egypt-542/
        bigpicture_0207.mp4 - video



http://audioboo.fm/boos/1475635-how-psychopaths-have-successful-careers
        1475635-how-psychopaths-have-successful-careers.mp3



http://www.npr.org/2013/06/19/193099258/inside-the-mind-of-a-sociopath?sc=tw&cc=share
        20130619_tmm_05.mp3



http://www.opednews.com/Podcast/Interview-with-a-Sociopath-by-Rob-Kall-130628-524.html
        confessions-of-a-sociopath-part--20130628-630.mp3



http://www.opednews.com/Podcast/Part-2-Interview-With-a-So-by-Rob-Kall-130708-879.html
        confessions-2-sociopath-part-2-1-20130708-542.mp3



http://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcasts/arts-culture/q-the-podcast/
        qpodcast_20130802_28534.mp3



http://glucksolutions.podomatic.com/
        glucksolutions_2013-06-20T07_30_59-07_00.mp3



Jefferson Public Radio: The Jefferson Exchange Podcast
        01 Meet a Sociopath.mp3



Life Matters - ABC national Radio
        lms_20130627_0930.mp3


Psychopath Night bittorrent::

http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/9351150/Ch4_Psychopath_Night_x264_AAC_HDTV_

https://mega.co.nz/#!KV5DiaoT!2bhw2HmJh0v38BIEsbYVNdvtpowwG-CwwzZUjeMSQME

https://mega.co.nz/#!CQJmiIRK!1Hypf_02ncu8iytaPfWdZk24ZcqwVGX6IzNpLbaC-7M

https://mega.co.nz/#!bFIDALBL!8Qcx69xiJcZx_9CU8bLVRzJSd5ay_BWTP_n9AOuUWBA

https://mega.co.nz/#!2YQE0J6b!nYBDs8hNVHV0dcwoOfoX9YpgugtgaGq7OgFpyp8Ul-w

https://mega.co.nz/#!WB4SgQiI!NXP0ZtcZ1MYNF5DL48O4hl6Gppj2uBRgxo_Jw9WsJvA

https://mega.co.nz/#!rFw0TAiZ!IaiW9wQdVUBlR1DMURhGeNIJ4mJJLJnDs9Dxfh2SVKA

https://mega.co.nz/#!uZpCxYAZ!-6SzUnIiZMTxtXoasS1xHTQvR2RMrW2YokSZ3cw5Xc8

https://mega.co.nz/#!uFZ1FajY!quf0aPOJAlLyx4O1McLsRk0MY4JFUftq_ImgeoOpyHk

https://mega.co.nz/#!XVgUDLxR!HZ8oks4tnpa7btkpSe5i5MQJNIQKSkU4LG2EcLRZgv8

https://mega.co.nz/#!udw2iKTS!xR5JTL6yujplSfWHNSWr2nM08DjGfOqQDdOdpv5lgfw

https://mega.co.nz/#!ONo3jZAJ!tnc2jG-Gu0pi-Fd0TiWPtgFwWgJjGU1UnHDMdCse2T4

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Power and obsessions

A reader asked me, "I enjoy having power over people, and I think that this power will help me in life, however since it is important to me I worry about the possibility of losing it. What are some ways you have lost power or what are ways that I could end up losing power?"

I responded: Interesting question. Probably the most common way for me to objectively lose power is to suffer some sort of defeat or loss, like an accident or getting fired, but usually those don't bother me too much. The losses of power that bother me more are the personal ones.

The most unpleasant loss of power to me is being rejected by someone as a despicable human being. I hate that, it makes me very very angry to the point of a violent all consuming rage, which is its own form of loss of power.

Another form is having an obsession or an itch that can't be scratched. There are a few people that have somehow planted themselves in my mind. To them, I am nothing. I don't even know how they got there in my mind, except that to some extent I invited them there. I wonder about them, what they think about, what they do. They are my playthings in a different way than most -- they're fun and interesting to me because they are *not* mine, and the game is to acquire them. It's not unpleasant, this feeling of obsession. It actually gives me some insight into how to do that to other people -- burrow my way into their minds and take up residence there. There have been times when the obsession starts to get out of control, though. If it gets bad enough, I have learned to talk myself down from the obsession by remembering that they are not really the person that exists in my mind, that I am really obsessed with a figment of my imagination that I have populated with the image of that person. So there's both control and powerlessness in an obsession. Have you seen the movie Vertigo? A delicious depiction of obsession, my favorite movie for how unapologetic it and the characters are about indulging their respective obsessions (and for Bernard Herrman's exquisite score).

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Auteur

A friend recently called me an auteur. She meant that I seem to do things my own particular way, "you are so essentially you. You have such an M.E. signature. You leave an M.E. wake." It's interesting to think about it in those terms, it made me curious about the definition and origin of the word auteur, "an artist whose style and practice are distinctive." Literally meaning "author," it originated as a way to distinguish certain filmmakers whose unique style and artistic vision pervades their films, despite the many other participants in the process. Those filmmakers are the "author" of their films in ways that most filmmakers simply are not, due to lack of control or influence.

I wondered, if I am an auteur of my life, than what is my distinctive signature? I don't feel particularly definite, particularly rigid, or concrete in my beliefs or personality characteristics. My friend is right in that I do happen to have a set of preferences, though, and my choices always reflect those preferences. Although some of those preferences line up with decisions that others based on morality, I wouldn't say that it is a moral code anymore than you could say that Woody Allen's films are uniquely his due to his particular moral code, although it certainly would have some influence.

I don't know how I acquired my value system. I imagine that every aspect of it was once a choice, although it has been so long since I made those choices that I have long since forgotten how or why they were made, or even the very fact of a choice being made in most cases. I guess I just chose to be the way I am because I preferred it over all other options, at least at the time. There's nothing objectively hierarchical about my choices, no inherent judgment as to the choices of others. It's just what happened to happen due to a confluence of events (and genetics).

Recently I was flying over wooded areas demarcated by winding rivers. I wondered at the lack of logic that informed the flow of these rivers. Some of their path was obvious, avoid a hill here, follow a low land there, but some of it was absolutely random. I wondered at the initial water drop that moved in one particular direction over another, making a bend in the river. Maybe a little pebble forced it one way instead of the other, maybe even something as transient as the foot of an animal. The moment before was a universe of possibilities in which the water could have gone any number of directions. After, the cohesiveness of water molecules combined with the ease of repetition meant that every other water molecule would follow suit, self-reinforcing ad infinitum until the universe of possibilities added up to exactly one result.

We talk a lot here about what certain things must mean about a person. If you look at the end product without analyzing the process, you might be tempted to infer any number of different "truths" about a person, project any number of generalizations based on your own experiences, despite how paltry they are when compared to the universe of possibilities. The truth is that human behavior so often defies definition and explanation that any attempt to take such a pursuit seriously seems ill-fated and ignorant. I have been realizing lately that this futility in achieving real understanding applies equally (if not more so) to attempts at acquiring self-knowledge.

In other words, the more I learn about myself, the more I realize how little I know about everything.

Friday, April 25, 2014

Appeal to emotion

Via the Washington Post/Volokh Conspiracy, this political advertisement attacking someone for having been a criminal defense attorney:


RGA spokesperson Jon Thompson defended the ad by commenting, “Vincent Sheheen made a deliberate choice to defend violent criminals who abused women and children. He is unfit and unprepared to serve as governor of South Carolina.” 

The comments are hilarious. From one:

You (as a lawyer) are much too easy on yourself. If you attend a top school and do well enough to freely choose the form of your practice, you should know at that time that you may be judged for your choice. If you followed the money to serve bad clients, and especially if you made a career of it, you should definitely be able to answer for it. If you can't or won't, we'll assume you're greedy, ambitious, or both; these may not disqualify you, but they certainly won't ennoble you

Obviously the author of the original post is biased and is just self-interestedly defending his own livelihood, right? It can't be that he has some special knowledge of the way the world works that makes it impossible for him to believe that justice could be adequately served if we just make sure we "punish the guilty".

Or this slightly more naive one:

I don't agree with the ad's criticism of Sheehen, but I don't see why it's out of bounds. Its an opportunity for Sheehen to respond and explain something about the legal profession, the adversary system, why he does what he does and why he believes that is right and why it makes him a good candidate for office.

Too funny, because the marketplace of ideas works so well and people love a good, passionless appeal to reason. Which is why this guy's comment is so great:

And Romney did a poor job of explaining why private equity firms like Bain are good for the country (if they are) just like the legal profession does a very poor job of explaining why the guy waving his willy at a bunch of kids on the playground gets a taxpayer funded legal aid lawyer.

Yes, that seems right. People just don't do a good enough job explaining why people's negative emotional reactions to things like being a corporate raider or criminal defense attorney may be misplaced. Another:

Why is the comment that this is what this man chose to do with his life out of bounds? Because we think what he did with his life is good? I don't see how its a special category of criticism.

He doesn't stop there:

Neither you, nor [the author] has explained why criticism of the legal profession is in some special out of bounds category. Is it because we think defense lawyers are important? 

Somebody's attempt to provide a well-reasoned rebuttal to the argument:

"Innocent until proven guilty" and "reasonable doubt" (not to mention “equal justice for all”) are no longer operative principles when defense counsel "spins", "lies" and "withholds" (etc.) all in the name of "justice" for a "client" (especially one with monetary resources). Clearly all levels of this nation's regulatory and judicial systems also greatly discount these “ancient” principles, concurrent with the abandonment of "mens rea".  

For those of you not versed in legal speak, mens rea is the mental state required for the commission of a particular crime (e.g. intent to kill for murder, whereas manslaughter doesn't necessarily include intent to kill). I think what this person is saying is that it's not what people do that matters, it's whether they are good or evil people? :)

He continues:

In the prescriptive and procedure driven society we in the USA are burdened with I think it is naive to believe that politicians, prosecutors and attorneys in general are guided by a certain set of highly developed, balanced (i.e., “professional”), ethical standards; like the rest of the populace each individual must consistently demonstrate their personal character and the "ethical standards of behavior" by which they conduct themself.

I think what he means is that people who just follow the letter of the law can still be criticized for not having the right personal character.

If the self-assuredness of people like this doesn't freak you out a little bit, then perhaps you and I have different levels of fear about the strength of emotion-fueled mobs.

Finally, perhaps my favorite exchange:

It's not that the RGA thinks that defendants shouldn't be represented at trial, it's just that the RGA thinks criminal defense attorneys are reprehensible scum who should be hounded out of all decent society to live lives of shameful remorse for their heinous deeds.

Followed by the rebuttal:

There are many members of "decent society" who are not governors of their state.

I mean, these people supporting the advertisement are absolutely right -- this candidate has apparently fallen short of their expectations of moral character. And they have every right to not vote for him based on that. But isn't that a little like saying that it's fine for Catholics to have certain jobs but not be governor (especially if we happen to be God fearing protestants)? That we can allow atheists to join the city council maybe, but definitely not allow them to corrupt our children as grammar school teachers? If you're Sunni and we're Shiite, you have failed our moral character test? I know some of you have strong feelings about morality. I guess I'm just making the point that they are largely subjective and that a lot of people would not agree with you and that they are just as right as you are, or at least you can't prove otherwise. Also, when sociopaths manipulate it is wrong but when other people manipulate to get someone elected with stronger moral character, that is better?

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