Appealing to Cognitive vs. Emotional Empathy

From a reader:

Thoroughly enjoyed your book. I'm pretty sure you hit on the right conclusions in the closing chapters. I used to work with batterers and some violent offenders. Emotional self regulation and empathy tend to range along a spectrum. The highly emotional men (empaths - as you refer to them) that I worked with responded well to empathy. Men on the sociopathic end of the spectrum tended to view emotional displays of empathy as pathetic and useless. The sociopaths I encountered tended to be quite adept at "cognitive empathy" (the ability to model and predict behaviors from an intellectual perspective), but were blind to feeling. As a consequence, they didn't seem to perceive compassion or guilt. It took me a while to come to the conclusion that the soft, tender, vulnerable part of them just wasn't there in the same way as it often is in others. 

They were however exquisitely stunned to consequences. I learned very quickly to drop empathy as a psychotherapeutic intervention, and to focus on rewards, punishments and outcomes in their lives. They were quick to pick up the fact that kindness was often a far better long term strategy for getting what they want than cruelty. 

Pro social behaviors can be taught to children without a conscience. Parents and teachers just need to know what they are working with. I could go on and describe the manipulative games the sociopaths I worked with used to engage in, the special interest they took in manipulating their therapists, the telltale language they used to describe others, or how they game the system, but you already know these things. I liked working with them. I think I was a puzzle to them. Encountering someone who could be "touchy/feely", and who could abruptly turn off their empathy to confront them directly seemed to confuse them. I imagine that I was able to promote some interest and a sense of unease in knowing that I could see through them. Interesting people. Everyone's trying to make their way in the world.

Trust as Explained by Game Theory

This was an interesting page/exercise sent to me via Twitter applying the concepts of game theory to the generation and maintenance of trust.

People no longer trust each other. Why? And how can we fix it? An interactive guide to the game theory of trust: http://ncase.me/trust/

It takes like 20-30 minutes to complete. At first I was turned off a little by the arbitrary constraints of the game, but they end up dealing with that issue later on -- so patience pays off! I've seen these models before, but it was interesting to apply it more directly to trust. Also, I hadn't seen the addition of mistakes/misunderstandings into the model before too. That has already changed the way I view others and the world. For instance (this might not make sense until you do the exercise), a friend of mine recently had an Amazon package fail to be delivered. She assumed that it was some shady neighbors stealing the package and was going to stop having any packages delivered, even though she has had like 20 successful package deliveries so far. I encouraged her to keep trying until she has another package go missing, just in case there was a mistake or other one off occurrence that shouldn't necessarily change her game playing strategy. It's a risky strategy maybe, but in her case she has no other convenient alternative for package delivery.

Without really remembering, I had applied essentially the "Diamond Rule" to this game. I think this worked ok (and probably works better with actual people than bots?), but it is true that in a situation in which there is a mistake, it can also compound a mistake into a global loss.

There's that phrase "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me". But this game suggests a more optimal rule, when mistakes are factored in: "Fool me once, ok, I take it on the chin. Fool me twice, shame on you with punishment."

Narcissism pros and cons

A reader sent me this article discussing recent research on the pros and cons of narcissism in business leaders. According to the research, narcissism is good up to a point because it often gives people the determination, confidence, and drive to pursue difficult and risky tasks. At a certain point, however, people don't like dealing with the narcissist as a boss, motivation drops, and unchecked narcissism can lead to unnecessary and stupid risks and an personal agenda substituting for the broader group agenda.

The article uses Steve Jobs as an example. Being a raging narcissist facilitated his early development of Apple, but once the company achieved a particular size and needed to keep attracting new talent, it became a detriment. During his time away from Apple, he learned lessons in humility that helped him become an even better business leader when he returned to run Apple 11 years later.

Not only does the article/research do a good job of examining both the pros and cons of a trait that we often associate as being negative, it also deals explicitly with the idea that people's personalities are more fluid than many people give them credit for, otherwise how would Steve Jobs be able to learn humility:

“Even if you have a narcissistic leader, and in a sense it’s causing them to be less effective in certain ways, people can proactively practice virtues like humility and develop their character,” Owens said. “Over time, it will begin to stick and enhance their leadership effectiveness.

Also, I don't know why this did, but one thing that surprised me about people's reaction to the book was some people were really turned off by what they perceived to be my narcissism and some people were really turned on by what they perceived to be my larger than life confidence. For some reason, it tended to split along gender lines with women being much more likely to be turned off and men much more likely to be attracted to it. I wonder why?

Grains of sand

From a reader:

4 minutes ago I finished your book. Loved every page of it. Devoured it in 3 days I loved it so much. I've always been so intrigued by psychopathy and other behavioural disorders. I've thought for a long time that it's unjust to punish people for who they are and their genuine wants and desires. My opinion even extents to pedophiles and all the rest.. But it does leave me confused as I do feel hurting people is wrong (I am an empath). Irrelevant. Anyways.

On the last page you invited the reader to email you to discover your real name. I would love to know it. I had a suspicion too that you were perhaps a male? Throughout the book I kept thinking about your motives for writing.. In the conclusion you mentioned changing the world, suggesting that a motive was to end the stigma around sociopathy, in hopes for an easier future for you, 'in the light'? But was it also somewhat out of boredom, the need for a stimulus? Or not only a protection of yourself, but the possible protection of future sociopaths ("inclusive fitness theory"). Which gave birth to my final question below.

Final query: Can you empathise with other Sociopaths? You don't mention having a relationship with other sociopaths.. I don't know how that dynamic would go, do you?

My response:

I don't think I have empathy for other sociopaths, but for whatever reason I have always had a sense that there is not as much separation between us as some people think. What is bad for one group of people really is bad for all people. I have always intuited that, but used to come up with utilitarian reasons to justify that belief. Just in the past few weeks I feel like I have realized the underlying belief is that for each one of us, part of our identity is our individuality and part of our identity is we collectively make up the universe -- like how cells in the body are both individual and collective, or like how a beach is really just a collection of grains of sand. 

Sociopath's perspective on being in love

From a reader:

I’m a male sociopath in his late 20s, and M.E. has loaned me her pulpit, because I’ve been in love, which I know from personal experience that that’s not something entirely unique for somebody like me (I know at least one other outlier), so it may apply to some of her readers. And because, well, I asked for the use of said pulpit. And, of course, because she’s been gracious-enough and interested-enough to see where I might be going with this.

            I’m high-functioning. I blend. I excel, and I don’t draw suspicion. The medical parameters that define sociopathy by the prerequisite of pre-adult fuck-ups and missteps seems just as asinine to me as to anyone. Not screwing up or making mistakes before a diagnostic age doesn’t change who you are, or what you are; just means you can watch your ass. You aren’t a total idiot. Good for you. But kids are idiots, across the board, and at the end of adolescence, I met a girl.

            Started off pretty mundane, really. She agreed to go out. She got cold feet. I saw reluctance as a game. I successfully made her go out with me, and that was pretty much it, as far as I was concerned; I won. But she wanted to hang out with me the next day, and for some reason, I did too. We spent time together, and then she had to leave. Maybe because I wasn’t ready for her to leave yet, and because it wasn’t on my terms, but the absence made the heart grow fonder.

        After weeks of talking to another human being, every single night, for 2 – 6 hours at a time, I finally had a moment of clarity; I (still) forget what my mother looks like if I haven’t seen her in a week, but I actually miss somebody when I don’t see or hear from her. I might be feeling something for somebody. Faced with two options, instead of cutting and running, I went all-in, because this was the weirdest game of my life. Either I was wrong, which’d be a first, or else I actually had a shot of an emotional bond, which was also a first. So I bet it all, threw caution to the wind, and invested in whatever other bullshit poetic stereotypes I could think of. I even wrote her a poem and asked her to go steady with me; we both cried. Well, I shed one tear, but that was a personal victory.

        I attempted self-delusion. I’d read everything there was to read about sociopathy, ASPD, and about psychopathy. If I felt love, I must’ve been wrong; I couldn’t be a sociopath, by definition. But I still couldn’t make myself care about anyone or anything else, and I still gut-laughed when cripples fell, despite my best efforts. I grew to quietly accept that I was still an asshole, and she was just the one exception to all my rules: the one I didn’t get tired of, the one I didn’t want anything from but her company, the one I gave a fuck about even when it had no bearing on myself. The one I resolved to never manipulate in any way.

        I was happy. Not satisfied, like winning a fight, or getting my way, and not amused or entertained, but happy. It was fucking intoxicating. Addicting. Like nothing I’d ever felt before; I felt simple for ever doubting the empaths I saw with their dumbass little bliss, because I actually had it. And it was real.

        We were together for years. I joined the military, because I’d already had plans to kill people and not go to jail, and I wasn’t going to bitch out on plans I’d told others of just because of somebody else or their feelings, and still she stayed loyal. Finally, she broke it off, for her own personal reasons. I didn’t blame her. What’s incredible is that I still don’t. The only person I haven’t ever been able to be mad at, even if I tried, and rage is the one thing I’m truly good at.

        I imagined that I should be furious at how she could be so dumb to throw away one of the only times lightning struck and somebody like me felt love. I wanted to think her stupid for throwing away my complete, unfettered, and unchallenged love, because nobody could love her with the same focus I could. And her friends did.

        But I realized that the reason I couldn’t actually judge is because I don’t know. I can’t claim that. I have no idea how somebody else would love her, and maybe a normal man would be able to love her, and her family, and his family, and whoever else, and still be full of love leftover. Maybe somebody else would have room in his mind for all the love I felt and other loves, but without all the hate that I always have in me. Even if she could appreciate the statistical anomaly, I’d never tell her what I was, so it’s not like she could be culpable. And even if she’d known, if leaving me was what she needed, I actually just wanted her to be happy, for whatever fucked-up reason, far more than I’ve ever wanted myself to be happy.

        I’ve read, all my life, the “studies,” the bullshit, about how sociopaths aren’t capable of love. I’ve heard the “prognosis,” all of which end with the same recommendation: everyone who knows any sociopath should cut all ties and abandon them. I’ve even read sociopaths’ accounts of being in love. One described it as all-consuming, wanting to suck the air out of the person’s lungs. I think that might actually be the sociopath’s infatuation, but I’m not positive that’s love. When you don’t care about anything, the one thing you do care about can be intoxicating.

        But to actually love somebody, it’s selfless. When all you have is yourself, that’s dangerous. It’s addictive, it’s destructive, and it’s terrible. Love actually is all they crack it up to be. But if you don’t even love your family, if all you love is one person, it’s crushing, unrelenting, and as single-dimensioned as a fucking fairy tale.

        To say I love this girl more than myself isn’t that impressive. I couldn’t give a shit about my own personal well-being. If picking a fight or riding a motorcycle breaks up the monotony of the day, let’s roll the dice. But I can say that I was willing to grow old for her, and that I still dream about her, and both are equally horrifying.

        I’m proud of her for stepping away before I or my lifestyle scarred her, but I hate myself every single day for it. Letting her go without manipulating her into staying, every day that I don’t call her and worm my way back into her life, is the only selfless thing that I’ve ever done, probably my only “redeeming factor.” But I also live every day knowing that I could. Not contacting her seems to be the only “decent” thing I’ve ever really done. The voice that says I could tells me I’m a little bitch for losing the only game I actually care about anymore. And I live with the self-directed anger. The fact that I don’t is more proof to me that I actually do love her than any proof I ever saw while riding the high.

        I’m working on being as angry as I used to be, but instead of fueling fearless aggression that drives success, my apathy now tends to be a shitty little anchor tempting me towards comfort and complacency. I’m open to tips from anyone who’s been there before, to get back to where I was. I do not value this “personal growth.”

        This isn’t a tale of redemption; I never stopped treating people like the social commodity they are before, during, or after being a mutually loving relationship. This isn’t a bitch-session; if I had to do it again, knowing what I know now, I’d still do the same, because that high was indescribable. And it isn’t advice, because I’m not “better” for having been through the experience. If you have the chance, do whatever you fucking want. These are just words, and one solitary account. If you’ve been through the same, you aren’t alone. If you haven’t, you’re in the majority. But the concept that a sociopath can’t feel love, under the right circumstances, real, selfless love, is utter bullshit, and I’d beat to death anybody that tried to argue. And I wouldn’t even feel bad about it.