
Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath? - gruseom
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-year-old-a-psychopath.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
======
kcl
I see a danger here. It isn't with this child and his problems, but with the
continued progress of the media and other political groups in co-opting
psychological diagnoses for their own ends. The terms "psychopath" and
"sociopath" are already bywords for "doesn't share my politics or worldview".
You can see this clearly in the article and the comments. The article mentions
"financiers and business people", and the first comment covers explicitly
naming the opposing political party. In fact, how many articles from the last
few years manage to bring up the subject without casually slipping in a
reference to businessmen? I am guessing not many.

The problem is made worse by the highly subjective nature of psychiatry. When
practiced in good faith, it seems to be beneficial for some people. Of course,
as a science, it is particularly soft. It has a long history of shifting its
positions, and a long history of debunked and discredited bodies of theory.
(Why do we continue to teach Freud and Jung in college English departments?)
Psychology is the sort of thing that works only when you can trust the person
employing it, and sometimes not even then.

I am not a psychologist, I am more of a computer scientist. Using leeway in
statistics and figures, I can show you any result I want to. For instance, I
could present a compelling argument that Facebook will expand extraordinarily
over the next decade. I could also present an argument damning the possibility
of Facebook expanding at all. Don't you think that, with a few weeks of study,
I could apply any subset of mental disorders from the DSM-IV to any person I
wished?

Would you trust a court-ordered psychologist to make an accurate appraisal of
your psyche? I don't know that such an appraisal is even possible. And I am
worried about the increasing confidence in these sorts of appraisals. It
sounds like, very soon, anyone interested in furthering American business aims
will be suspect for mental disorders. The pretext is already here in America's
paper of record. How long before this movement grows to having real influence
in our judicial system?

When Tom Cruise begins to sound more sane than the psychology he criticizes,
you know something is wrong.

~~~
gwern
> The terms "psychopath" and "sociopath" are already bywords for "doesn't
> share my politics or worldview". You can see this clearly in the article and
> the comments. The article mentions "financiers and business people", and the
> first comment covers explicitly naming the opposing political party. In
> fact, how many articles from the last few years manage to bring up the
> subject without casually slipping in a reference to businessmen? I am
> guessing not many.

They've slipped in because that's where the research is pointing, after
decades of anecdotes. One of the main instruments for diagnosing psychopathy
is the HARE checklist, as in Robert D. Hare; guess what Hare's latest book is
called? _Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work_. Yeah.

(I could finish by accusing you of baselessly accusing your opponents of
twisting psychology to fit one's worldview, but I don't think most people
would appreciate the irony.)

~~~
javert
_that's where the research is pointing_

Are you defending the claim that businessmen and Republicans are psychopaths?
I'm sorry, but that's generally untrue, and no amount of valid research will
ever prove it.

~~~
perspectiveless
If a group advocates more self-reliance and less organised help for the less
fortunate then it's not unreasonable to accuse them of having less empathy.

~~~
javert
I completely disagree. You can't enjoy life on the dole. The nanny state is a
form of cruelty. I truly believe these things. I could go on at length, but
what's the point.

Fiscal conservativism != less empathy.

~~~
Drbble
You added the word "dole" and thereby changed the content of what you claimed
to reply to.

~~~
javert
I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't edit my post, if that's what
you mean by "added."

I took the reference to Republican advocacy for "more self-reliance" as
synonomous with Republican advocacy for less welfare. welfare == dole.

Although in actuality, almost all Republicans are RINOs (Republicans In Name
Only), because almost all of them are altruists that advocate expanding the
government/nanny state, just at a less rapid rate than Democrats. So
"Republican" in this discussion may be a misnomer.

</rant>

------
Zak
When I was 5 years old and starting kindergarten, I met another boy the same
age who I quickly decided would end up in jail as an adult. He certainly
wasn't the only one who misbehaved frequently or did cruel things to other
children, but I could tell he was _different_ somehow. He never seemed to need
to feel justified in his cruelty.

In 1998, at age 19, he took part in a murder. He was sentenced to 20 years
with 5 suspended. I think he's out on parole now.

~~~
K2h
i have had similar thoughts about kids i knew growing up, and a few have had a
tough time in life. kids (peers) may be better at identifying warning signs
than adults.

~~~
PaperclipTaken
If this is true (and it might be), it would be only because most adults are
completely oblivious when it comes to children. Adults in our society are
notoriously good at seeing only what they want to see (I'm not talking about
the HN type of person, I'm talking about your general population adult), and
often this means overlooking certain characteristics in children. Or only
seeing aspects of ADHD, or bipolar. Or not seeing that a parent is a really
awful parent, etc.

Kids generally do not have as many biases as adults, and as a result they have
less expectations. They don't see their peer as some angel, because they don't
expect him to be an angel. They don't expect anything at all, so their
perceptions aren't clouded.

But in general adults are much better at picking up on things like social cues
and odd behavior.

~~~
Drbble
Kids are also more likely to accept their environment as normal because they
have never seen different, and so don't think to complain about abuse,
neglect, religion (if you think that is vrainwashing), etc

~~~
PaperclipTaken
Generally by brainwashing, I refer to things like media stereotypes. While
religion can have a very brainwashing effect, it really depends on the
institution.

------
nazgulnarsil
I don't believe in cures for anti-social personality disorder. I think the
children who go on to display no symptoms in adulthood are the ones who have
learned to successfully fake it. I say this as someone with many symptoms of
ASPD who has learned to fake it.

~~~
VMG
That may be good enough. A psychopath doesn't necessarily have to understand
the rules of society intuitively, it would suffice if he accepted and followed
them.

~~~
zanny
We lose so much potential in these people to change social norm from
conventions nobody else is willing to question. Especially when you drug them
from a young age into a continuous waking stupor.

A lot of aged traditions that will not mesh with an instantaneously connected,
constantly communicating and sharing global society will not work in the next
several decades, and some of the textbook "unbalanced" will hopefully be the
ones to push change to match changing realities.

~~~
Drbble
I don't think kids who torture cats are the heroes of change you are looking
for, though.

------
tokenadult
Reading into the article is good for finding an important point often lost in
discussions of issues like this: "While the chance of inheriting a
predisposition to psychopathy is high, Lynam noted, it is no higher than the
heritability for anxiety and depression, which also have large genetic risk
factors, but which have still proved responsive to treatment. Waschbusch
agreed. 'In my view, these kids need intensive intervention to get them back
to normal — to the place where other strategies can even have an effect. But
to take the attitude that psychopathy is untreatable because it’s genetic' —
he shook his head — 'that’s not accurate. There’s a stigma that psychopaths
are the hardest of the hardened criminals. My fear is that if we call these
kids "prepsychopathic," people are going to draw that inference: that this is
a quality that can’t be changed, that it’s immutable. I don’t believe that.
Physiology isn’t destiny.'"

The key issue, of course, when a child's behavior is already as off-track at
age nine as the child profiled in the article, is to figure out what to do
about it. My own sense after reading the article is that grouping kids with
these kinds of behavioral characteristics is a distinctly bad idea. But giving
them very close adult supervision by prevention-minded adults like the
psychologists profiled in the article is a first step to figuring out what can
put the kids on the track to being empathetic and better able to control their
own behavior for the good of others as well as for their own desires.

From further along in the article: "In the 1970s, the psychiatry researcher
Lee Robins conducted a series of studies on children with behavioral problems,
following them into adulthood. Those studies revealed two things. The first
was that nearly every psychopathic adult was deeply antisocial as a child. The
second was that almost 50 percent of children who scored high on measures of
antisocial qualities did not go on to become psychopathic adults. Early test
scores, in other words, were necessary but not sufficient in predicting who
ultimately became a violent criminal."

------
gfody
The Onion was on to this years ago: [http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-
study-reveals-most-chil...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-study-
reveals-most-children-unrepentant-sociop,2870/)

------
mratzloff
This kid is a textbook psychopath. I can't even imagine being a parent in that
situation. What can you do, even if you think he may someday hurt someone
else? I mean, you can't just drive them out to the desert and push them out of
the car and speed away.

~~~
brazzy
What you can do is teach him rational thinking and explain social and moral
rules in terms of how they create an environment that is safer and more
pleasant for everyone to live in, and how breaking the rules for personal gain
tends to be risky. Then try to make him risk-averse.

~~~
Drbble
You are deeply missing the difficulty. If a kid would listen to reason or
threat, this problems would never existing. Or worse, he could rationally know
the profit in evil.

~~~
brazzy
No, it's you who is completely missing it. Psychopaths listen to reason or
threat just fine. What they don't care about is the feelings of others or
social approval.

And rationally, the profit in evil is negative in most cases. Criminals get
caught most of the time, especially repeat offenders.

------
pazimzadeh
One day this kid will make a reddit account and a few months later he'll be
the Hegemon.

~~~
javert
Reddit is way too stupid for an intelligent person to make progress there.
Much more likely, the kid will create a Hacker News account and become the
Hegemon.

~~~
unimpressive
>the Hegemon.

Okay, after searching the web I give up. Can you please explain what that is?
(I get a general gist from related words but it would be nice to know what
you're specifically referring to.)

~~~
javert
It's a reference to this:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender%27s_Game_(series)>

More specifically, a pair of kids (neither of which is the main character)
create online pseudonyms ("Locke" and "Demosthenes") and eventually use them
to convince the world of their great ideas (that they post in online forums).
One of the kids eventually becomes "Hegemon," or the world leader.

By the way, I'd extremely highly recommend "Ender's Game" (the first book).
Besides being an utterly awesome book, I even got a friend who "hated" reading
to try it, and even _he_ liked it. I mean, it's _that_ good.

~~~
caf
...or listen to it - the audio book of Ender's Game is very good, and I
believe Orson Scott Card may have said that he felt that this was the optimum
form for the work.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
He did, in fact, say that. The 20th Anniversary Edition[1] is a full-cast
production with an afterward by the author. Highly recommended.

1\.
[http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B002V5A12Y&qid...](http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B002V5A12Y&qid=1336884609&sr=1-1)

------
gavanwoolery
Son of two Psychiatrists here. Psychopathy and Sociopathy are two fairly broad
conditions. Socio/Psychopaths (henceforth, SPs) can actually function pretty
normally (I have worked with one before)...Hollywood tends to portray them as
ruthless killers (a select few are). To answer the title's question, you can
determine if a kid is a psychopath at a relatively young age...and you should
take whatever precautions necessary. In particular, you should be careful if
your kid wets his bed at a later age and is cruel to animals -- two symptoms
of more agressive SP archetypes.

------
siculars
If there are 9-year-old prodigies then there are also 9-year-old psychopaths.

------
leot
If the mind/brain is relatively modular (as is widely believed), then it's
entirely likely that compassion is subserved by a particular (perhaps widely
distributed) subsystem.

One irony, then, is that sociopathy or psychopathy might arise not only from
too little empathy, but as a way of coping with an empathy "subsystem" that is
overactive -- one easy way to deal with this is thus to turn the gain on this
signal "way down".

In other words, it would be ironic if psychopaths suffer not from too little
empathy, but from so much that it's disabling, and needs to be shut off.

------
bjornsing
I know it must be the most difficult job on earth being Michael's mother, but
I can't help thinking how it would feel to have a mother say in public that
you will grow up to be a serial killer... How ever their relationship got to
this point, and I agree a personality disorder on Michael's part seams likely,
it's sure not an easy situation to turn around, even for a healthy kid. :/

I hope it works out...

------
Shenglong
Reading this article was oddly reminiscent, as he sounds like me when I was
younger. In fact, I can seem to relate to a large portion of the article. Let
me try and shed some light on several points:

 _His gaze settled on Allan. Grabbing a wooden chair, he hoisted it overhead
as though to do violence but paused for several seconds, giving Miguel a
chance to yank it away._

Right - first, psychopaths (let's just call it that for now) absolutely
understand reward and punishment. The question, however, becomes more "can I
avoid the punishment?" rather than "oh no, if I do that, will I be punished?"
It's not entirely conscious - it's natural. Maybe this only happens with a
certain degree of intelligence, but if his parents made it clear that he'd
have no way of weaseling out of a punishment, and would be caught for sure,
then it would deter his behavior. That is, of course, unlikely. His parents
are emotional, and I'm sure he knows it. Either that, or the punishment just
isn't affecting him. He just screams and pretends, so they won't try something
new. All tactics I've used. He realizes that if he throws the chair, he will
ACTUALLY get in trouble. He just wanted to get a point across. He overreacts,
and his parents respond accordingly, and lectures his brother. Win-win.

 _Some, including Michael, were actually worse; one had begun biting the
counselors._

This is probably misrepresented. When a kid throws a tantrum, often the
counselors will try to restrain him. Yes, this happened to me (twice). If the
kid cannot use his arms or legs, it should really be expected that he's going
to bite. He believes he has a logical reason for throwing a fit - restraining
him isn't going to change that.

 _Coldblooded, callous-unemotional children, by contrast, are capable of being
impulsive, but their misbehavior more often seems calculated. “Instead of
someone who can’t sit still, you get a person who may be hostile when provoked
but who also has this ability to be very cold. The attitude is, ‘Let’s see how
I can use this situation to my advantage, no matter who gets hurt from that.’
”_

I'd argue that psychopaths have both 'hotblooded' and 'coldblooded' elements.
Which they display at any given time, is simply a question of which has the
most reward. If the situation is hopeless, even the most hotblooded psychopath
will return to being coldblooded. They'll probably never swallow their pride,
but they'll win, one day. The trick is understanding their logic - because
their logic is more cause-effect, than reflecting on societal norms we've
grown up with.

 _So they don’t develop the same aversion to punishment or to the experience
of hurting someone.”_

That's not true at all. My parents used to beat me (Chinese family, accepted
norm) when I threw tantrums and did something wrong. I used to hate it, but I
doubt I would've grown the same way without it. Rather than having to form my
own mental punishment, I could relate "if I do this, I'll get beat". Then the
question became, "is it worth the potential of a beating, and can I prevent
them from finding out?" Psychopaths understand punishment just fine... at
least intelligent ones do. When I entered high school, however, I found out
that any suspensions go on my record for University. I also heard that good
universities don't accept people with bad records. I was suspended over 50
times in elementary/junior high, but since high school, I've had excellent
behavior. It's easy to trick your parents into thinking you're remorseful...
it's harder to convince an organization that deals with thousands of
applications.

 _In another study, the researcher Mark Dadds found that as C.U. children
matured, they developed the ability to simulate interest in people’s
feelings._

It's not just simulating interest - it's simulating emotions altogether. It
was difficult as a child, but over the years, I've learned what emotions are
supposed to be, when people display them, and what degree they should be
displayed. Hence, if a psychopath starts to live two different lives, they can
easily switch between different levels of emotional display. It makes
adaptation a lot easier, and people don't really consciously notice.

It's like programming. if(situation) { respond(situation.severity)}
Eventually, you get to see enough situations, and can extrapolate responses
for situations you haven't seen. Once in a blue moon, you're completely off.
That isn't to say ALL emotions are restricted. Shame, guilt, fear, sadness,
and love may be difficult, but happiness, boredom, and anger come easily.

All in all, I feel people really misunderstand psychopaths. If you're a
parent, and have psychopathic children, find something they inherently cannot
live without, and threaten it. Beatings may work, but it's not fool proof. You
can't starve them, because they realize it'll hurt you more than it'll hurt
them, and mutually assured destruction (up to a point) is acceptable. Remember
- it's not how they inherently behave. It's how they behave, given the
circumstances. Instead of trying to fix the root problem, go after a
symptomatic treatment. Just because they misbehave, doesn't mean they won't be
productive members of society later on.

~~~
Tichy
"it's simulating emotions altogether."

Find a good therapist. You do have emotions, they are just buried. Or again,
even if I was downvoted in another thread, at least read Alice Miller.

------
mynameishere
Psychopaths exist for an evolutionary reason. The fact that the military
essentially screens for them in order to make the most of the mounted 50
calibers suggests why. But they are less important now, and given the
demographics of the prison population, it's clear why.

It's actually best not to treat such a thing. Just evict them from the gene
pool via the justice system and the problem will solve itself.

~~~
philwelch
> The fact that the military essentially screens for them

No, no they don't. What makes you think that they do?

~~~
mynameishere
Because it's a huge field.

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

It's actually pretty common sense. Pulling a trigger is not easy when it's
aimed at another creature, and I've seen people refuse to shoot deer. When
training infantry costs a million dollars, you have to economize by
distinguishing who will be a state-sponsored killer, and who will shoot in the
air out of compunction.

[http://www.amazon.com/Men-Against-Fire-Problem-
Command/dp/08...](http://www.amazon.com/Men-Against-Fire-Problem-
Command/dp/0806132809)

I maybe wouldn't believe it, but I've seen it.

~~~
philwelch
Being willing to effectively fight in combat isn't equivalent to being a
psychopath. It's something most men can be trained to do. Once you've in an
actual combat situation it's either you or them--at that point it's just a
rational manifestation of self-preservation. Even more to the point, people
will kill in order to defend each other, which certainly favors empathy
towards one's comrades over psychopathy.

I'm sure some psychopaths get through, but for anything important the military
tries to screen _against_ them, and for good reason--the foundation of an
effective military is teamwork, and military culture strongly honors heroism
of the self-sacrificial sort, certainly not the stuff psychopaths are made of.

~~~
nekitamo
You would be surprised at how many soldiers deliberately miss the enemy, or
don't fire at all.

Discussions on the matter:
<http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=536561>
[http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-
bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_to...](http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-
bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=48;t=000511;p=0)

I can provide more solid material if needed.

~~~
philwelch
I know about that; I'm not _contesting_ that, I'm contesting the notion that
the military deliberately screens in favor of psychopaths. They don't, and
it's absolute bullshit to say that they do.

------
personlurking
I just saw a film about this topic last night called "We Need to Talk About
Kevin."

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1242460/> Trailer
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLRgAe2jLaw>

~~~
vchoi
Perhaps the article is lazy with elaborating on its normative perspectives
onto a mass. The primary danger is when normative behavior is hegemonic and
enforced with a uniform acceptance on what a person/child should behave like.

Stories of 'psychopathic' children reminds me of the following, but there are
probably many more examples of stories about children being cruel and how
people have responded to such cruelty (what are others you have seen?): Cidade
de Deus (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_God_%282002_film%29>) Akira
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_%28film%29>) Léon: The Professional
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_%28film%29>) Monster
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_%28manga%29>) GTO
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Teacher_Onizuka>) Dogtooth
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogtooth_%28film%29>) Heathers
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathers>)

------
Tichy
Sure, there must be something wrong with their brains. Never blame the
parents, after all, they did everything by the book.

There exist theories about why people suppress their emotions. I recommend
reading some Alice Miller.

Funny, I suppose as long as the diagnosis is "Depression" or something, the
reaction is probably "oh noes, what have we done, what can we do", but I
suspect for psychopathy it might be "a heck, but at least he'll become a
badass boss and make millions on Wall Street".

Didn't read the story to the end, but where there even acts of "liking" by the
mum? Not just "don't bounce the ball", "stop it" or "share your toys, honeys"?

------
Tichy
So how come the supposed psychopaths allegedly can't feel, but they can hate?

To me the story (stories) doesn't really add up so far.

------
runeks
We are missing the solution because we don't understand the problem.

If I break my leg the cure is obvious: don't do anything for a month.
Conveniently, it will hurt when I move my leg, so I won't try to move. The
cure is only obvious because what actually constitutes the ailment (a broken
leg) is obvious.

Now transfer this to psychological disorders. We don't know what exactly is
wrong. Imagine if that were the case with the person with the broken leg.
Current practice would be that the person goes to a doctor complaining that he
doesn't feel like moving (because his leg hurts). The patient doesn't
understand why, the doctor prescribes pain killers and - lo and behold - the
patient feels like moving again. It worked! Great. But as soon as the patient
tries to get off the medication, he finds that the pain returns (because the
root cause of his symptoms has not been solved at all, he's probably worse off
than he was before). In this example the so-called disease (leg pain, lack of
willingness to be active) is not a disease at all. It is actually a part of
the _solution_ to the disease.

We are trying to 'cure' a disease without knowing what it is. When we try to
solve problems without understanding their cause, we are bound to fail.

Human beings have accumulated enormous amounts of pent up emotion, that we
began accumulating when thought activity started to appear in us hundreds of
thousands of years ago. Before thought, emotion was solely the body's response
to its physical environment, or more precisely: the body's response to its
five senses. The body's natural response to emotion - fear, anger - is action
which seeks to eliminate the threat: escape, fight (respectively). When
thought activity starts creating emotions, this approach no longer works. The
mind can neither be escaped from, nor can we fight it. Well, we can fight it
with alcohol, which many people resort to, but this is obviously not a real
solution.

We have been trying to escape all these emotions that have pent up over the
many many generations that have passed since thought first appeared in us, but
are still stumbling because we don't understand what is happening. In some
people emotions simply break out because it needs to. The body can simply no
longer hold back the massive amount of emotional energy that has amassed in us
since the birth of thought. Many people become insane when this happens; they
are simply not able to handle the power of the emotions being released. Some
jump off a building, others turn to drugs and alcohol, and yet others discover
what is actually happening. They find out that there is nothing wrong with
them, what is happening is actually quite healthy. They discover that they
don't need to do anything; they are not sick. The symptoms that might be
perceived as a disease (the massive out-flux of emotion) is actually the cure.

Resisting this process is what causes insanity. Emotional energy held back
energizes the mind instead (it can't be held back) and the hyperactive mind
creates more emotion, thus creating a vicious cycle that ends in either death,
self-medication or a realization of what is happening. There is nothing wrong
with anger, sadness or fear. Treating emotions as a disease _is_ the actual
disease.

~~~
ZenPsycho
The idea that emotions are a kind of gas that you build up and need to release
has been debunked for quite a long time. In fact it has been shown to be
actively harmful. If you think carefully about what emotions are, that is, a
nervous response to stimulous- it is a thing that happens. Not a substance.
Emotions aren't a physical thing you can collect in a canister. The idea is
kind of silly and outdated.

~~~
runeks
My experience says otherwise :). But we can agree to disagree.

Regarding your bicycle metaphor: just as a balloon releases gas into its
surroundings, a bicycle - when we stop adding to its kinetic energy -
transfers energy from itself to its surroundings until it stops. I think it's
largely irrelevant whether we use the release of a physical substance or
energy as a metaphor, but whatever works for you.

I also realize that I missed an important point in my previous post, which is
gaining the ability to stop thinking when thinking isn't needed. This is
basically the development of an awareness of thought activity. Since, as you
correctly say, thoughts create emotions and vice verse, releasing emotional
energy will not work if you keep creating new emotional energy through
unconscious thinking. But this is really an integrated part of the release of
emotions; the two things happen simultaneously. Indeed, some emotions cannot
even be released/experienced until you become conscious of the previously
unconscious thought patterns that held them back.

> The correct analogy is not of a balloon releasing gas, but a bicycle slowing
> down.

I guess part of my point was that just as the bicycle wheel doesn't stop
immediately after we stop propelling it, emotions don't disappear immediately
either even if thought activity subsides completely. There is an inertia left
that can make us experience emotions related to an incident long after it has
happened (even with no thought present). Very much like the remaining momentum
of the bicycle wheel in the analogy.

~~~
ZenPsycho
What I mean is that, "venting" the traditional process of "releasing"
emotions, rather than releasing the gas in a balloon, is actually just
pedalling the bicycle, adding more energy to it.

------
robwgibbons
Kill them with fire

------
giardini
Children such as the one portrayed in the article are the reason I believe
that the age at which abortion can be performed should be extended to 18
years.

