

Psychopaths among us - b-man
http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html

======
necrecious
It is expected that there would be different strategies employed by a
population.

Game theory can derive this result. John Maynard Smith introduced the idea of
a evolutionarily stable strategy. The idea is to use the classic game theory
payoff matrix successively to determine a stable mix of strategies used by the
population. Some payoff matrix aren't stable since one of the strategies can
dominate the others and causing the dominated strategy to be extinct in the
population.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy>

The types of strategy typically discussed are:

    
    
      * Doves (always peaceful)
      * Hawks (always attack)
      * Bully (feign attack)
      * Retaliator (peaceful until attacked)

------
pufuwozu
_After they'd heard Hare speak they realized they were dealing with a
psychopath, someone who could feel neither guilt nor sorrow. They changed
their interrogation tactic to, "So you murdered a couple of prostitutes.
That's minor-league compared to Bundy or Gacy." The appeal to the psychopath's
grandiosity worked. He didn't just confess to his other crimes, he bragged
about them._

Nice, reverse psychopathy.

------
100k
There is an excellent book by psychologist Martha Stout called "The Sociopath
Next Door" which examines this subject. The author claims as many as 1 in 25
Americans is a sociopath.

[http://www.amazon.com/Sociopath-Next-Door-Martha-
Stout/dp/07...](http://www.amazon.com/Sociopath-Next-Door-Martha-
Stout/dp/076791581X)

Indeed, this book changed my perception of human nature -- some people are un-
reformable. Most of them aren't serial killers, they're just dicks who get
their rocks off by controlling other people. Think your asshole boss, or a
jerk you knew who was always using people.

~~~
Confusion
It's rather soothing to be able to label your 'asshole boss' with an epithet
like 'sociopath', but that doesn't make it correct. It's just makes it easier
to be less critical and believe someone that is arguing that.

It's ridiculous to suggest that 1 in 25 people could be a sociopath.
Sociopathy is a disorder, a mental illness, a way in which someone can differ
from the norm. If it would affect 4% of the population, it would be an
essential part of the norm. Instead of labeling these people as 'sociopaths',
why not accept that not everyone has the empathic abilities we'd hope for? Why
not accept that, in spite the lack of empathic ability, such people can still
lead meaningful lives and can care for others? Calling them 'sociopaths' is
just another way of dehumanizing those we don't like, so we don't have to face
to darker sides of our own humanity.

~~~
chrischen
> Sociopathy is a disorder, a mental illness, a way in which someone can
> differ from the norm

You don't know that sociopathy is a mental illness or disorder. That was also
explained in the article. For all you know someone who achieves universal
enlightenment might become a sociopath because he/she realizes that we all
eventually die and nothing that happens in this world matters, or something
like that.

In fact I'd say it's simply an effect of a different world view, and the ones
getting caught are the dumber/impulsive ones while the smarter ones are the
ones we label as "assholes."

~~~
Confusion

      You don't know that sociopathy is a mental illness or disorder.
    

It is _defined_ as such. We need a word to describe such cases and this is the
word that is used. It is not sensible to redefine the term to describe
something else, simply because we _want_ to apply it to the something else,
because of its connotations. It's a much better idea to resist the tempation
to label an asshole boss a sociopath and instead apply the terms we already
have for people who behave like assholes out of a deeper conviction. He could
be a fascist, a nihilist, a hedonist or what have you in terms and
combinations of terms to describe world views. Sociopathy is not a world view:
it's a fundamental lack of ability to embrace certain worldviews, that your
asshole boss could readily embrace, if events drove him that way. We all know
the stories of a lifechanging event that turns someone from a greedy asshole
into a generous soul. A sociopath could never experience that: he has to work
to overcome his shortcomings, if he is capable of that at all. That is the
difference between a mental illness and a debilitating philosophical state of
mind.

~~~
phren0logy
I do forensic psychiatric risk assessments, and use the Hare Psychopathy
Checklist regularly.

Neither sociopathy nor psychopathy is listed as a diagnosis in the DSM IV or
IDC 10 (the current canonical lists of diagnoses for mental health). Both are
listed as descriptors to "Dissocial Personality Disorder" in the ICD 10.

~~~
Confusion
I didn't mean a _psychiatric_ definition, but a _common usage_ , 'dictionary',
definition. The point is that you need different words to be able to
distinguish between people incapable of displaying social behavior and people
that _choose_ to display antisocial behavior part of the time. An asshole boss
usually still behaves in a civil way towards his peers and would even show
altruism towards them. You can be a complete jerk that proposes that homeless
people are lazy bums that should be incinerated and that still doesn't make
you a sociopath or a psychopath, if you take out the trash for your disabled
neighbour at the same time. To use those words for such people muddles the
issue: it suggests a lack of ability where we are dealing with a conviction
that can be changed given the right circumstances.

You can't have 1 in 25 people being a sociopath. You can have 1 in 25 people
being an antisocial asshole.

~~~
chrischen
Hare says his classification is being misused, and labeling these people with
a mental disorder is one such way he says it's being misused.

------
adammichaelc
This article reminds me of the submission, "Are You Capable of Being Ruthless
to Get Ahead?" <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1184953> It seems that the
"ruthless" character may have been a psychopath.

------
abstractbill
_They have traits similar to ideal leaders. You would expect an ideal leader
to be narcissistic, self-centred, dominant, very assertive, maybe to the point
of being aggressive._

Is it just me, or would anyone else not follow a person who matched this
description?

~~~
a-priori
They're missing the most important characteristic from that list: charisma.
These natural leaders (who may be psychopaths/sociopaths) have a way of
drawing people to themselves and making people like them and follow them in a
way that makes them ignore all the things in that list.

~~~
abstractbill
That makes more sense. I don't think I've ever met anyone who would match this
description though (the only person who comes to mind when I think about it is
Steve Jobs).

~~~
kylec
Jobs is definitely a psychopath:

 _He returned to his previous job at Atari and was given the task of creating
a circuit board for the game Breakout. According to Atari founder Nolan
Bushnell, Atari had offered US$100 for each chip that was reduced in the
machine. Jobs had little interest or knowledge in circuit board design and
made a deal with Wozniak to split the bonus evenly between them if Wozniak
could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak
reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to
reproduce on an assembly line.

At the time, Jobs told Wozniak that Atari had only given them $600 (instead of
the actual $5000) and that Wozniak's share was thus $300._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Early_years>

~~~
padmanabhan01
How does this make him a psychopath? This is just common sense business/ money
making.

~~~
aswanson
Lying to and screwing over friends for money? Common sense? Okay....

~~~
padmanabhan01
No one knows he lied. May be Atari paid him just 600. I was assuming that when
I posted what I posted.

------
tigger2010
I recently read a book called "Evil Genes" by Barbara Oakley. One of the
interesting stories she tells is about how some of the research into
Machiavellian behavior got started.

The original research group decided to focus on "everyday" manipulative,
lying, power-hungry behavior. Looking for test subjects, they found plenty of
instances, but ended up picking a category of people to study - their own PhD
advisors.

The point is, mild versions of psycho/socio-pathic behavior are unfortunately
commonplace. Changed my perception of people's behaviors in very fundamental
ways.

------
AndrewHay
"The Psychopathy Checklist consists of a set of forms and a manual that
describes in detail how to score a subject in twenty categories that define
psychopathy. Is he (or, more rarely, she) glib and superficially charming,
callous and without empathy?"

What question springs to my mind is, given that these people have something
like their 'appreciate other people's emotions' bits of their brains not
working properly, why don't we see many female psychopaths?

Off the top of my brain, I can come up with a few likely answers: 1: Female
'psychopaths' don't exhibit the same sorts of criminal behavior that male
psychopaths do. 2: Females are less susceptible to being a 'psychopath'

~~~
ardit33
They are the same (if you read hare's books), but it seems that women are more
likely to be diagnosed as Histrionic.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histrionic_personality_disorder>

------
Tycho
So... anyone here reckon they're a psychopath? ;)

~~~
GFischer
Is the Hare Psychopathy Checklist / PCL-R available online?

I only found the okcupid one (and I'm definitely not taking it from there :) )

No, I don't think I'm a psychopath (an introvert sure, aspergers or autism-
related stuff maybe - I did score very high there - but probably not
psychopath).

------
aphyr
The thing that fascinates me about psychopathy, along with ASPD, autistic-
spectrum, etc, is that many of these "disorders" or "syndromes" are just
different ways that minds can work. Humans come in so many flavors! In some
ways, it's the closest thing we have to interacting with alien intelligences:
people who can communicate, process information, make plans, but who don't
line up with our deeply ingrained expectations of eye contact, trust, low-risk
behavior, or empathy.

While I suspect that normal human behavior has significant adaptive advantages
in promoting the success of the species, I frequently wonder about a society
of people who are all autistic-spectrum, or who all exhibit schizoaffective
disorder, or are all manic-depressive. Would their psychologists form
diagnostic handbooks for the clearly maladaptive trait of aggressive
interpersonal contact, or trusting another person to watch their children?

Bonus question: if you're religiously inclined, do the deities of your choice
love and respect these societies? Is there something morally superior about
normal human behavior? What spiritual beliefs might they form for themselves?

------
bryanh
A great, enlightening comment on Reddit's Sociapath IamA that discusses 13
rules for dealing with sociopaths:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/a5xvv/iama_diagnosed_s...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/a5xvv/iama_diagnosed_sociopath_ama/c0g0qyk)

------
metamemetics
What a loaded sensationalist witch hunt. Someone either is an axe murderer or
they aren't.

There is no physical thing known as Psychopathy, it is an arbitrary
descriptive label known as a category used to group similar behavior together.
It is not a scientific discovery but a classification.

This psychology professor is just asserting the classification he's devoted
his life's work to is now bigger and applies to more people. He is simply
coming up with an excuse to inflate his self-worth and sell more books, even
though he is not making any discoveries and doing research.

He's not even making the genetics argument, and if he was I would post
articles citing nutritional deficiencies as causes of aggression or how gene
expression changes due to epigenetics.

I just want to insist that anyone interested in reading up on psychology stick
to the scientific research, specifically cognitive-
psychology\neuroscience\computing\science

~~~
samd
Behaviors are caused by physical things, namely brain states, so it's
perfectly reasonable to attribute a category of behavior to a physical
characteristic of the brain. If people who behave fundamentally differently
than others aren't physically different then what accounts for their behavior?

~~~
metamemetics
Your making what's known in social psychology as the Fundamental Attribution
Error: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error>

~~~
AndrewHay
Can you enlighten us as to how he is making this error?

~~~
metamemetics
We are always biased to overestimate the component of behavior attributable to
some intrinsic quality of the person.

The classic example is Nazi Germany\The Holocaust. Everyone started asking how
could the Germans commit so many horrible atrocities, it must be something
intrinsic and Freudian about their personality maybe they have a strong need
for discipline, etc.

Then along comes Milgram and his famous electroshock study
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment> , showing that Americans
will perform actions even if they directly violate their internal beliefs,
returning the primacy of behavior to the situation. It has been reproduced
cross-culturally\many different times and variations. Another influential
study is the Stanford Prison Experiments.

Personally I still agree with the poster (samd) that everything is physical
including brain states, and dualism is bonkers. But if we take that step,
there is no longer a metaphysical ego holding personality. There is no
distinction between individual and environment and the causality between the
two is bidirectional, rendering the question moot.

~~~
samd
_There is no distinction between individual and environment and the causality
between the two is bidirectional, rendering the question moot._

You are definitely on to something.

------
sukuriant
Am I the only one that finds it ironic that both this article and an article
titled (though I haven't read it), "Why theatre was the most important class I
ever took", are on the front page at the same time?

I figured the theatre paper was on a subject related to a different article
the other day (the title of which I've forgotten, but it was about a
particular subculture fitting in to regular society by faking the role), but
this was something I found rather interesting and ... ironic?

[as an immediate side-note upon starting to read the theatre article: it
doesn't seem to be on what I expected it to be, at all; furthermore, I'm
finding the other subject quite interesting]

------
olalonde
I wonder what makes some psychopaths violent and others not.

~~~
mixmax
Probably circumstance.

------
earl
This is a blog by a parent raising a he has identified as a psychopath. The
description of his son's behaviors is both interesting and chilling.
<http://raising-a-psychopath.blogspot.com/>

~~~
scotty79
Citation from the blog:

We offered Lucas $20 for taking out the garbage each week. Twenty dollars for
five minutes of work, an extreme amount, just to see of our instinct was
accurate. He seemed excited by the prospect of all that money and the first
week eagerly took the garbage out. We immediately paid him the $20 he had
earned.

The following week I ended up taking the garbage out. Even though the $20
offer was still in effect, Lucas had no interest. It simply wasn’t worth it
him to do something he didn’t want to do. We could have raised the offer to
$100, or $1000 and it wouldn’t have mattered.

Question:

Does any one know how to alleviate motivational problem described above? Not
in psychopath but in otherwise almost normal person.

~~~
BigZaphod
I'd love an answer or discussion about this, even if only for myself! Promise
of money has never successfully motivated me to do anything. In fact, try as I
might, I don't know _what_ motivates me - and by all accounts, I'm a pretty
introspective person! At least I know money by itself isn't enough - I guess
that's a start, but I've been stuck there for years now. :/

~~~
techiferous
Certainly you end up making many decisions and doing many things each day,
even if they are small things like brushing your teeth, right? So at least for
some activities you've got motivation. What are the kinds of activities that
you get stuck on?

~~~
BigZaphod
Ironically, the teeth brushing thing is a good example - it's the simple
routines that I latch on to; going to the same places each day at the same
times, etc. Not obsessively, but just automatically. I don't even know how
some habits began.

Sometimes the things I do aren't even that enjoyable by themselves. (Why do I
bite my fingernails? I certainly don't enjoy _that_ but I can't seem to stop
doing it and I've tried several techniques.) I feel like I program because I
need to and I need to because I feel like it. Or something. There's a logical
loop here that I can't seem to break out of - but it makes it hard to get me
to do things I don't want to do and it's even worse when _I_ know there's
something I need to do that I don't want to do because I'll put it off as long
as possible (and sometimes slightly longer).

What's weird (to me) is that the trait will even infect the things I enjoy -
like programming. If there's a certain "big" thing I need to do (maybe it's a
bunch of boring boilerplate or adapting old code to some new use-case) in
order to progress on the part that I consider to be the real problem that I'm
working on, I'll put it off and comment on Hacker News instead - sometimes for
days. I feel terrible about it and it nags at me the whole time, but I still
do it. Why?! :P

~~~
scotty79
If you ever successfully hack your motivation please let me know how you did
it.

I have same problem as you but I fail to develop even simplest routines
myself. I do things periodically only when there is outside pressure to do
them periodically. Like going to school or to work. Otherwise I do things only
if they bother me directly or I have spark of enthusiasm to try something out
or straighten something out.

I could just sign last paragraph of your comment with my name.

~~~
techiferous
For developing a simple routine, I've found the Seinfeld calendar to be a nice
tool: [http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-
se...](http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret)

------
TheAmazingIdiot
Hmm. Unreformable? It doesn't appear so. As the case with the police using
reverse psychotic techniques encouraged the perp to brag, we could also find
out other techniques that show these types of people how to care. Now, they
may not have empathy. Not everyone does in the same degree, but that's ok, as
that is what makes us unique.

The interesting research would be to see if there are techniques that would
help a psychopath to integrate into society while limiting destructive
tendencies. Perhaps others are doing this research, but Ive heard none of it.

~~~
anamax
> As the case with the police using reverse psychotic techniques encouraged
> the perp to brag, we could also find out other techniques that show these
> types of people how to care.

The conclusion doesn't seem to follow from the premise. Can you fill in some
more of the intermediate steps?

~~~
TheAmazingIdiot
Sorry, I was just presuming another path of treatment would be possible.

As evidenced in the article, normal people show remorse after committing
violent crimes. Police take that as a way to focus their attention during an
interrogation to get the suspect to admit fault. In a psychopaths case,
appeals to emotioon does not work. Instead the example that worked was to
compare to the "greats" of what they committed. That lead the suspect to start
bragging and admit fault.

Perhaps, in this similar vein, that psychopaths are trainable. They have
different emotional processes and thoughts. Perhaps we can make a training
course that focuses on using their uniqueness to reform them.

And as I said, these steps would require a great deal of research with all
types of psychopaths, and not just the ones in prison.

~~~
rue
The article actually mentions a rehabilitation plan based on the subject's
self-interest.

------
eplanit
I don't know. That long, rambling, breathlessly-written article makes me
wonder about its author's mental stability.

------
known
I believe <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin> pill cures psychopaths.

~~~
tdoggette
[citation needed]

~~~
known
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4599299.stm>

~~~
tdoggette
The words "psychopath," "sociopath," and "antisocial [personality disorder]"
do not appear on that page.

The closest thing to your original claim is _"'Our results might lead to
fertile research on the role of oxytocin in several mental health disorders
with major public health significance.'"_

~~~
known
[http://www.google.com/search?name=f&hl=en&q=oxytocin...](http://www.google.com/search?name=f&hl=en&q=oxytocin+sociopath)

------
jimduey
Another article about sociopathy:
[http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/the_sociopathic_epide...](http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/the_sociopathic_epidemic.html)

~~~
malkia
Sorry, but this article is nothing but political propaganda.

~~~
jcmhn
It appears more like a subtle joke than propaganda: a right-wing conspiracy
story told in the style of left-wing sociobabble.

