The Neuroscientist Who Discovered He Was a Psychopath 241
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Joseph Stromberg writes at the Smithsonian that one afternoon in October 2005, neuroscientist James Fallon was sifting through thousands of PET scans to find anatomical patterns in the brain that correlated with psychopathic tendencies in the real world. 'Out of serendipity, I was also doing a study on Alzheimer's and as part of that, had brain scans from me and everyone in my family right on my desk,' writes Fallon. 'I got to the bottom of the stack, and saw this scan that was obviously pathological.' When he looked up the code, he was greeted by an unsettling revelation: the psychopathic brain pictured in the scan was his own. When he underwent a series of genetic tests, he got more bad news. 'I had all these high-risk alleles for aggression, violence and low empathy,' he says, such as a variant of the MAO-A gene that has been linked with aggressive behavior. It wasn't entirely a shock to Fallon, as he'd always been aware that he was someone especially motivated by power and manipulating others. Additionally, his family line included seven alleged murderers, including Lizzie Borden, infamously accused of killing her father and stepmother in 1892. Many of us would hide this discovery and never tell a soul, out of fear or embarrassment of being labeled a psychopath. Perhaps because boldness and disinhibition are noted psychopathic tendencies, Fallon has gone in the opposite direction, telling the world about his finding in a TED Talk, an NPR interview and now a new book published last month, The Psychopath Inside. 'Since finding all this out and looking into it, I've made an effort to try to change my behavior,' says Fallon. 'I've more consciously been doing things that are considered "the right thing to do," and thinking more about other people's feelings.'"
Or, perhaps the test is not 100% selective (Score:4, Interesting)
If he were a psychopath, he'd not be disturbed by it. Of course, maybe he's only faking being disturbed by it to promote his career.
Re:Or, perhaps the test is not 100% selective (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Or, perhaps the test is not 100% selective (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not the attention. Its the challenge. They sometimes leave clues because its like playing chess against the police. More often than not however they leave clues because it's part of the ritual or pathology, not because they crave attention. Hence the reason the FBI often says they want to get caught. Very few care or have cared about the attention. Typically the attention seekers aren't so much psychopaths as they are malignant narcissists.
Re:Or, perhaps the test is not 100% selective (Score:5, Insightful)
If he were a psychopath, he'd not be disturbed by it. Of course, maybe he's only faking being disturbed by it to promote his career.
Or, he's simply a scientist who discovers that he himself is an interesting test case.
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Hmmm lettsee now. Scientists using themselves as test cases in psych research....Leary & Dass, Lilly, inadvertantly Hoffman, don't think they received proper credit personally, but most don't recognize their credibility BECAUSE of the first person testing. Unfortunately, because of the subject of scrutiny , requirements of detatchment as an observer instead of subject, do not apply , therefore falling outside the stodgy, antiquated procedure of method. Thinking like this, decreases my faith in science i
Re:Or, perhaps the test is not 100% selective (Score:4, Insightful)
Hm, a psychopath that considers himself the most interesting person he knows...
Re:Or, perhaps you just demonstrated a Catch 22 (Score:5, Interesting)
maybe psychopaths are not as one-dimensional as you think.
Re:Or, perhaps you just demonstrated a Catch 22 (Score:5, Interesting)
Spot on.
We ALL have psychopathic tendencies, empathic tendencies, etc ad nauseum. All of us learn, from the cradle, what is "acceptable" behavior, and what is not. We are all born with the potential to become almost anything, good or bad. Some of us have to work hard to learn some things, others of us just follow our natural inclinations.
We actually NEED all of these traits, IMHO. Consider the doctor - if he's psychopathic, then he's probably a cold, analytical, unfeeling kind of guy. Is that necessarily a "bad thing"? Absolutely not - those traits are good things in a scientist. He isn't going to allow stupid feelings, opinions, or emotions stand in the way of his research.
Sure, there is probably some point, or degree, at which being psychopathic makes you totally worthless to society. Where is that point?
Lizzie Borden probably had some value, up until she committed murder. PERHAPS had she been properly evaluated, and received counseling, she might have understood herself, and the people around her better. Being better able to relate with her family and acquaintances, she may have made more intelligent decisions. Or not - each person remains an individual after all. We each make conscious decisions to get along with people, or not to get along.
IMHO, we, as a race, developed all of our traits and tendencies for a reason. Even our worst traits have value under certain conditions and circumstances. Our best traits can actually work against us in other conditions and circumstances.
I wonder how many slashdotters have ever taken a test, only to learn things about themselves that they didn't know. A leadership course in the Navy included a self-evaluation test, that was never turned in to the instructors. The purpose of the test was to reveal to the student which type of leadership he could use most effectively. You may, or may not, imagine my surprise to learn that I was primarily an authoritarian. (note that being 'primarily' authoritarian doesn't preclude other tendencies) Once I understood that somewhat important fact, I was able to improve my leadership ability tremendously.
We could probably all benefit from a little self analysis.
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IMHO, we, as a race, were created by God and anything that doesn't adhere to the most average standard representation of God's image (aka normal) is a pathology that represents an incursion of the forces of hell into our heavenly realm. Therefore, it must be cured and harnessed to prevent the spread of evil.
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That's very interesting. How should I interpret this averaging? Does God have one ball and one tit?
Re:Or, perhaps you just demonstrated a Catch 22 (Score:5, Insightful)
Not everyone who is a psychopath chooses to do evil. It's well known that many people who lack a visceral, emotional "sense of right and wrong" operate instead on logic and rules that substitute for a sense of right and wrong; and like this person, they seek feedback from trusted people about the morality of their actions. For them, being a psychopath is a brain disability which can be dealt with, and not a license to run around killing people and wreaking havoc.
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Arguably true...but then, it depends what you mean by true psychopathy -> if I care for only my family, or my tribe, am I a psychopath? If I am exhausted from caring for people beyond my resources and capacity...am I an evil person?
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That is nicely put and concise. I would add that (my guess) belief systems have a major impact both on psychopaths and non-psychopaths. And I don't know if psychopaths may be more amenable to do very ugly things than non-psychopaths.
A belief system of the type "The world is a jungle and you have to be ruthless and stop at nothing" can have very ugly effects at times. Likewise 'a leader has to have a big picture vision and should do what it takes to achieve it and not be afraid to break a few eggs on the way
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Indeed. I think I've heard about this guy on the radio. When it comes to the 'murdering psychopath' twist, it was identified that you not only needed the genes, they also generally had to be 'activated' by a horribly abusive childhood.
IE you have a reasonably well adjusted member of society if you raised your potential psychopath well, or a person without the genes horribly(sad as that is). It's only when the two mix that you get serial killers.
Just because you're a psychopath doesn't mean you need to be
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No, he was still a brutal mugger who beat his wife and bit a mans ear the fuck off.
Changing his environment just gave him new targets.
Re: Or, perhaps you just demonstrated a Catch 22 (Score:4, Insightful)
What is most interesting about your rant, is that you sound like a psycopath in saying it.
Re:Or, perhaps the test is not 100% selective (Score:5, Insightful)
the definitions we are given are often oversimplified. Psychopaths can have empathy, love and other feelings for others. But it appears they can turn them off at will. Use your favorite search engine and read about the studies, fascinating stuff.
Even normal people can turn empathy off under certain circumstances or through conditioning.
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I think that knowing ourselves empowers us to overcome what we are. Humans feel all sorts of desires and compulsions all the time. To control them is the goal. To be in charge of ourselves makes us human. If we give in to animal instincts then we are not human but simply an animal.
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No, it makes us disciplined. A useful skill, at least in moderation, but hardly the defining factor of humanity.
That you survived long enough to learn to write means you've given in to your animalistic need to eat and live quite a lot of times. In other words, your philosophy might need some further thought.
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That I have survived doesn't indicate "giving in" to animalistic needs. The need to eat also has to be controlled else we become huge and heavy. Discipline is a human thing. Animals simply react to instinctive triggers.
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that's only a symptom of the conditioning done on the populace
Re:Or, perhaps the test is not 100% selective (Score:4, Insightful)
Even normal people can turn empathy off under certain circumstances or through conditioning.
Like modern military training. [/sad-fact]
Yeah, that modern military training works really well, doesn't it ?
Except for the part which involves a high suicide rate among soldiers
who have returned home.
You see, people who are not sick know very well when they have committed
terrible wrongs, and many of those people will bring punishment on
themselves even after society has given them permission to murder.
Re:Or, perhaps the test is not 100% selective (Score:5, Interesting)
Even normal people can turn empathy off under certain circumstances or through conditioning.
Like modern military training. [/sad-fact]
Nonsense. Military training, modern and traditional, doesn't teach empathy disconnection except in one narrow way, which is that combat training teaches soldiers to view their targets as "targets", not as people. It's always been done that way, because it's necessary to get soldiers to overcome the natural antipathy most of them have for killing. What military training is mostly about, besides building strength and stamina and teaching particular skills, is building esprit de corps, a sense of solidarity with fellow soldiers as well, of course, as a habit of obedience to orders (though post WWII most militaries leaven that with classes on the distinction between lawful and unlawful orders).
Actually, the most modern trend for US military training, as in the last 5-10 years, is exactly the opposite; it's training to increase empathy. The Marine Corps in particular has established a very interesting program training Marines that they should be "Ethical Marine Warriors". The catchphrase of this program is "The Ethical Warrior is a protector of life. Whose life? Self and others. Which others? All others." It's taught with the aid of stories like this one.
In one particular country in Asia Minor, the unrest was beginning to have strategic implications during that delicate time of détente. The trouble centered on the presence of an American missile base there. The local people said that they wanted the base closed and the Americans to go home. Humphrey’s job was to find a solution to the conflict.
The basic problem was plain old culture shock. The Americans working in that poor ally country thought that the local people were ‘dumb, dirty, dishonest, lazy, unsanitary, immoral, violent, cruel, crazy, and downright subhuman,’ and what’s more, they let them know it. No matter what he did, Humphrey couldn’t stop the negative talk—partially because some of it seemed true!
One day, as a diversion, Humphrey decided to go hunting for wild boar with some people from the American embassy. They took a truck from the motor pool and headed out to the boondocks, stopping at a village to hire some local men to beat the brush and act as guides.
This village was very poor. The huts were made of mud and there was no electricity or running water. The streets were unpaved dirt and the whole village smelled. Flies abounded. The men looked surly and wore dirty clothes. The women covered their faces, and the children had runny noses and were dressed in rags.
It wasn’t long before one American in the truck said, ‘This place stinks.’ Another said, ‘These people live just like animals.’ Finally, a young air force man said, ‘Yeah, they got nothin’ to live for; they may as well be dead.’
What could you say? It seemed true enough.
But just then, an old sergeant in the truck spoke up. He was the quiet type who never said much. In fact, except for his uniform, he kind of reminded you of one of the tough men in the village. He looked at the young airman and said, ‘You think they got nothin’ to live for, do you? Well, if you are so sure, why don’t you just take my knife, jump down off the back of this truck, and go try to kill one of them?’
There was dead silence in the truck.
Humphrey was amazed. It was the first time that anyone had said anything that had actually silenced the negative talk about the local people. The sergeant went on to say, ‘I don’t know either why they value their lives so much. Maybe it’s those snotty nosed kids, or the women in the pantaloons. But whatever it is, they care about their lives and the lives of their loved ones, same as we Americans do. And if we don’t stop talking bad about
Marshall made it up (Score:2)
The claim was 30%, not 10% [historynet.com].
Subsequent investigation revealed that the actual rate was closer to 80% for engaging the enemy, and the remaining 20% were more often engaged in tasks more important than them, personally, shooting at the enemy - including things like calling in airstrikes/artillery, delivering ammo, and treating the wounded.
The only way you could get it down to anywhere near 10% is if you include support troops that never saw a battlefield.
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Med school selects for people with these tendencies. The "feely. friendly" crowd that actually CARE for the patient are driven from the profession, early on.
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Med school selects for people with these tendencies. The "feely. friendly" crowd that actually CARE for the patient are driven from the profession, early on.
Is there a source for this idea?
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AC asks for your source. I'll echo that question.
In my own experience, some doctors are very empathic, while others are not. Nurses seem to have an even higher percentage of empathic people, while the heartless nurses seem to be even worse than a cold, unfeeling doctor.
If there is screening in the medical profession for psychopaths, it seems that the screening is only about 40% effective.
Re:Or, perhaps the test is not 100% selective (Score:5, Informative)
"...Doctors were low on psychopathy, but surgeons were actually in the top ten..."
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Pros-to-Being-a-Psychopath-176019901.html [smithsonianmag.com]
Re:Or, perhaps the test is not 100% selective (Score:4, Insightful)
My anecdotal experiences contradict your statement.
Consider doctors must slog their way through 4 years med school, 4 years residency, 2 years or so of fellowship, ~200K of student debt, and the threat of lowering wages due to healthcare reforms. All that, and they don't start their career in earnest until around age 32.
Most likely, doctors don't put up with that unless they want to help others to some degree. If they are driven purely by greed, there are other lucrative careers with more immediate earning potential- banking, law.
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I think he is more disturbed by the stigma of the label. These criteria for psychopathy are not much different than basic animal survival traits. By acknowledging his reasoning of right and wrong and making an effort for change only completes him as a human. A human with a brain scaped for survival. Big deal, probably a fun guy to have a beer with.
If I recall correctly , NIMH and others are rethinking indications of mental illness,yes?
Perhaps we just need to wait for the book....
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So...there's no real agreement on what a psychopath is...save something that some people are not terribly fond of?
Re: Or, perhaps the test is not 100% selective (Score:2)
Gad Czudner, small criminals among us.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0882821806/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?qid=1385329133&sr=8-3&pi=SY200 [amazon.com]
It helped somewhat.
Lizzy Bordon (Score:5, Funny)
And gave her Mother forty wacks
And when the job was nicely done
She gave her Father forty-one
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Lizzy Bordon was acquitted.
Too cute a story (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, that scan didn't come from nowhere.
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He explains in his TED talk that a relative informed him of his family's history of psychopathy after he developed an interest in the topic - this prompted him to perform neural scans of himself and family members. Whether he became interested in psychopathy because he had some suspicions about himself (as a neuroscientist, he would've had a course or two in psychopathology in grad school, and would have had a reasonable understanding of how antisocial personality disorder is formally defined; this isn't to
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No excuse anymore? (Score:2)
Maybe this guy proves that despite your genes you still have a choice. No excuse like "I'm sorry your honor, I couldn't help killing him, it's because of my bad genes".
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So your wheel falls off, turns out the mechanics over-tightened the bolts last tire change/rotation, and the stresses made it fall off as you were on the highway ay 70 mph. You swerve, killing a family of 4. As there exist somebody somewhere that managed to stop their car safely after a wheel came off, you are 100% at fault, because a single exception disproves the rule.
Now that I've turned it into a car analogy, how would you treat the car
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The car analogy largely fails. If you want to force it, then I would respond that you should have taken responsibility to change your own damned tire, and seen to it that the job was done right, with a torque wrench instead of an over powered impact wrench. Yes, you're still responsible for your vehicle.
But, no, being psychotic is no excuse for murdering. That psychotic has a functioning brain, with which he makes decisions. He can decide to kill you, or he can decide to just beat the crap out of you, o
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Anecdote: I met a psychotic person who actually USED that diagnosis to his advantage. I overheard him tell a guard, "I'm psychotic, if you fuck with me to much, I'll just kill you, and the court won't do shit to me because I'm psychotic!" That threat was enough to cause the guard to back down. Being psychotic didn't force the inmate to attack the guard, instead the inmate just used his condition to communicate a credible threat, thereby manipulating the guard's conduct.
When you tell people what they are, they become it. If you tell people that they are psychotic, and that means they can't control themselves, then it will be true, even if they aren't psychotic, and psychotics can control themselves. That's a different issue than having some "flaw" that leads to or encourages some outcome.
The car analogy largely fails. If you want to force it, then I would respond that you should have taken responsibility to change your own damned tire, and seen to it that the job was done right, with a torque wrench instead of an over powered impact wrench. Yes, you're still responsible for your vehicle.
Yes, you should build your own house with your own hands, and raise all your own food yourself as well. At some point, specilization comes in, and you have to hire someone for jobs. It
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You might ask what the law actually says, in regards to your automobile. Most states spell out very specifically that YOU are responsible for the safe operation of your vehicle. If you run someone over because of mechanical failure, you will be held responsible. You MIGHT be able to file suit against the garage that did the work on your vehicle, and you MIGHT actually win the suit, but you are still responsible for the accident.
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Being psychotic is a different, unrelated mental state [wikipedia.org] where the person loses touch with reality in some manner:hallucinating, bizarre/illogical thinking, delusions, abnormal violence, or similar things.
Wrong, please read how he describes himself (Score:5, Insightful)
1.) he was someone especially motivated by power and manipulating others
2.) MAO-A gene that has been linked with aggressive behavior
3.) is family line included seven alleged murderers
It's not all bad genes, but his genes affect his behaviour pretty strong, and the genes(family line) increase the chance of turning into a murderer.
The question is when will the trigger level be reached where he cannot suppress the violent tendencies and go postal. Yes he might have learned to emphasize
or simply learned to emulate it pretty convincing. And there is another question perhaps some folks at slashdot don't have the mild form of asperger but are just psychopaths, and get into a rage like "Hans Reiser".
So psychological conditioning is very important in these cases too, do you get a bonus for treating people in a human way or in an inhuman way.
- Is your peer group awarding you for helping someone or for calling someone a sissy, faggot or else ?
- Do you get a bonus if you treat your fellow workers with respect or you just use their burned out corpses as a ladder for your own success
And well taking these additional thoughts into consideration - soldiers are trained not to emphasize with the enemy, soldiers being awarded for brave behaviour (brave=where mostly the basis is a good rage like killing spree) - amok runs like the one in washington are a consequence of this trained behaviour and genetic disposition.
And the major question is how would a psycho-scan of the GOP and the Democrats turn out, because if you recall the term "liberal sissy" it carries a very distinct aggressive undertone and aims at casting someone out of a social group, and these are sociopahs (read: "manipulating others").
It's genes it's the environment it's the education the question is is there any free will or just a trigger level a source and a drain ?
Behaviour change due to social pressure? (Score:5, Interesting)
The most troubling aspect of this story is that the person felt that he needed to change his behaviour when he learned society would diagnose him as abnormal, despite having been a functional member of society and a respected scientist for several decades with his behaviour as-is.
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If you don't know any doctors who are assholes, you don't know many doctors.
Re:Behaviour change due to social pressure? (Score:5, Insightful)
Subjectively he was a functional member of society and a respected scientist and he was subjectively aware that he was motivated by power and a tendency to manipulate other.
So he felt that he needed to be more introspective about his behaviour when he found out something about himself that threatened to make the vaguely subjective awareness into something objective. Why is that troubling? Intelligent people often don't like being a subject to the fates. To me it would be more troubling if as a functioning member of society and a respected scientist he was simply fatalistic about it and say went on a killing rampage because he discovered this fact about himself.
Correlation does not make causation...
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It's *maybe* a useful short-term skill *from the point of view of the psychopath* but not for the rest of the rest of society which sustains the psychopath and the people the psychopath is parasitical upon...
Rgds
Damon
PS. When an honest-to-goodness co-worker psychopath tried his smarm on me one particularly egregious time, the traits were so obvious that I actually found it entirely repulsive and made it my business to actively undermine him whenever I caught him behaving badly. So not a useful skill in fac
Re:Behaviour change due to social pressure? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a disease, it's simply the trait of a predator. It means that he can manipulate people more easily, which is a useful skill. Rejecting it because it's badly seen by society is a mistake.
When people in a society prey on other people in that society, we usually identify their behavior a a disease, and rightly so.
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Stepping in to save a stranger's life is pretty much the opposite of predation. If you're using this as an example of psychopathy, you're defining the word so broadly as to have no meaning.
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Hey there, Internet Tough Guy. It's been a while. How ya been?
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The most troubling aspect of this story is that the person felt that he needed to change his behaviour when he learned society would diagnose him as abnormal, despite having been a functional member of society and a respected scientist for several decades with his behaviour as-is.
In the article, you'd see that much of his desire to change was motivated by deep questioning of those close to him and analysis of how he'd treated them over the years. It was the diagnosis that prompted him to look deeper, at which point he decided to change based on what he found. It wasn't simply that he decided to change immediately due to the diagnosis.
It is, after all, quite possible to be both functional and a respected scientist as well as a jerk.
Selection bias (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with psychopathy is that the very definition came from selection bias.
We took a bunch of people who exhibited aberrant behaviour (socially unacceptable behaviour) and looked for common attributes. Then we invented a name for these attributes ("psychopathic") and the name became associated with the behaviour, but not the attributes.
There is abundant evidence that psychopathic tendencies are a spectrum. It's not a binary label, there's levels and shades of grey.
There is also abundant evidence that psychopathic tendencies are common [forbes.com].
There is also the evolutionary model, which proposes that leadership requires vision that isn't swayed by other people. The tribe will occasionally need leaders, so it's an advantage to have some psychopaths in the population. They are the ones who can step back and analyze a situation rationally, who aren't helpless against the flow of public opinion, and are immune to groupthink and mob psychology.
It should come as no surprise that lots of people are closet psychopaths, to any specific degree. The problem isn't that they are psychopaths, it's that they somehow feel that that they are damaged, dangerous, or somehow unacceptable. (Viz: gay people [wikipedia.org]).
Relax, it's all right. We've identified a set of genes, you have a subset, and life is what you make of it.
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Full-on psychopaths do not normally make good leaders and I know of no evidence that it's an advantage to have psychopaths in the population. People who have empathy and consideration for others can make dispassionate decisions when necessary, or at least many of them can. It may be an advantage to have most of the characteristics of psychopaths in the population, or all of the characteristics except in the most lethal combination.
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Full-on psychopaths do not normally make good leaders and I know of no evidence that it's an advantage to have psychopaths in the population.
That's a bold statement. Is it an opinion? (ie - can you back it up with references?)
Lots of references for my point of view here [google.com].
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It's an opinion, which I thought was about sufficient to express disagreement with the opinion I was replying to.
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He actually contradicted himself in the last sentence.
I think he's making a distinction between "full on" psychopaths and "the rest of the spectrum".
This (if I'm reading his post correctly) is problematic in a bunch of ways; for instance, where is the cutoff between "full on" and "OK to have in the population"? For his distinction, behaviour might be a better metric; ie - illegal actions rather than suggestive tendencies.
References would better clarify his position.
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My reading was that his claim is that there are a number of characteristics that may be considered "psychopathic" and it may be beneficial to have each of them in the population, but that it is not advantageous to have members in the population exhibiting all of those characteristics.
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That and not exhibiting psychopathic-like tendancies in the maximum degree.
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That and not exhibiting psychopathic-like tendancies in the maximum degree.
From the article: “I’m obnoxiously competitive. I won’t let my grandchildren win games. I’m kind of an asshole, and I do jerky things that piss people off,” he says. “But while I’m aggressive, but my aggression is sublimated. I’d rather beat someone in an argument than beat them up.”
Oh my god... you're right! I'm a complete psychopath!
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Socrates vs. Aristotle is I believe a good example to use to explain the dilemma. Both were "Philosophical" leaders not Government leaders but I believe they show the concern very well.
Socrates was empathetic and would die for the group benefit, in fact he did just that. Aristotle believed that he was better than anyone else in society and was entitled to keeping humans as slaves because of him being 'better'.
We can use this example with other political leaders to show that not all leaders are self center
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"OK to have in the population" meaning not causing a lot of harm. I think it's acknowledged generally that there is a spectrum and therefore no bright lines except those described by highly destructive behavior. A lot of people on the spectrum would exhibit some destructive behavior but overall be productive members of the community; there might be a lot of people who are in a transition zone between "mostly useful" and "too destructive to be useful."
IMO, we should reserve the word "psychopath" for people
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People who have empathy and consideration for others can make dispassionate decisions when necessary, or at least many of them can.
Psychopaths have empathy, they can just turn it off.
Good point that people with empathy can make dispassionate decissions when needed. I would say intelligent people can do that normally.
Makes me wonder what is so special about psychopaths, maybe that they turn their empathy off more regularly, and more easily?
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My understanding is that the most extreme individuals really don't have empathy. They can create an illusion of empathy because they understand on an intellectual level what it is and that most people have it and expect them to show it.
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Since gays have never had a natural way to produce biological descendants, I would say the fact that they appear now and again is a side effect of some other, useful trait, not a useful trait in itself.
Consider evolution from the point of view of the genes, not the organism.
In the case of gays, the occasional uncle that doesn't start a family works for the success of the bloodline without sharing that success with other clans. It's effectively "drone labor" for the genes involved. The adage "rich uncle left me his fortune" has its roots in evolutionary survival.
With this adaptation the genes are more likely to propagate, but not the particular combination that makes up the individual.
(Viz: The Selfish Gen [wikipedia.org]
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It's rather disturbing that a rational person that makes up there own mind is considered a psychological issue. None of those are bad traits, it's the moral code that person lives by that matters as those traits just tend to make them successful.
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"They are the ones who can step back and analyze a situation rationally,"
Is there some evidence that psychopaths are more or less rational than other people?
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Is there some evidence that psychopaths are more or less rational than other people?
Fair point. I was using the term "rational" as a counterpoint to "emotional".
Psychopaths are well known for making choices which are coldly beneficial, without consideration for feelings which would arise from the affect their choices have on others - their choices have little or no emotional bias. Psychopathy tests score emotional aspects such as "Lack of Remorse or Guilt" and "Callousness and Lack of Empathy" as suggestive for psychopathy.
Both emotional and un-emotional choices are rational in the sense o
Re:Selection bias (Score:5, Insightful)
The bigger problem in my opinion is the author starts with the false premise that psychopathic behavior is determined by genetics. While genetics could (and most likely does) play a factor, it's not the major factor or only factor involved. The false premise should be obvious because the person performing the experiments was not a displaying characteristics of being a psychopath.
This study is not unique in using this false premise. In the last few years several 'studies' with this same false premise have made headlines. I won't backtrack on those articles except to mention them as "using genetics to determine if you are depressed", "using genetics to determine if a person is a psychopath or sociopath", and "using genetics to determine if you will be a criminal in the future".
As you wisely state, being a psychopath is not a binary thing. We all have tendencies toward at least some of the generalizations used to describe a psychopath. The same could be said for a diagnosis of a sociopath. The article does not address the main factors in what actually creates a psychopath or sociopath. Such as living in an abusive environment, education, lack of discipline for wrong doing, etc... All of those factors are sociological, not genetic.
In your example of leadership, I don't believe it's fair to characterize their traits as psychopathic. Psychopathic would be more self interested than the welfare of a group, so a leader being truly psychopathic would be contrary to many leaders. We see leadership in two forms, those that are concerned for themselves (many US politicians today, Aristotle) and those that are concerned for the majority more than themselves (Washington, Jefferson, Socrates).
When it comes to many of these alleged genetic studies, I have become very cynical. There seems to be a lot of biased studies trying to place all of the blame on genetics and ignore every other factor involved in creating mental disorders. Whether it is to remove blame for actions or possibly (and more frighteningly) eugenics purposes makes no difference. Either way, the studies seemingly are trying to set a labeling standard.
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I did read, but you have a logic problem. He diagnosed himself based on two sets false criteria, both the brain scan and genetics. If the person was truly psychopathic they would have never diagnosed themselves as such, among other things.
Claiming that the physical characteristics of how the brain operates/is operating indicates 100% of a persons mental capacity and disorders is simply wrong and not based on scientific evidence. People have lost portions of their brains and have been capable of things th
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Then how should I vote? (Score:2)
If we were to take it as given that psychopathy is a good thing for a leader to have -- not just good for him but good for those led -- then how ought a person to vote informed by that knowledge?
Should I uniformly vote for the most ruthless person in every race? Or should I identify the most ruthless person at the highest level and then vote for him and the people he will most readily use to accomplish his purposes?
Or can I take into account what his apparent goals are? If he's truly psychopathic, it shou
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If we were to take it as given that psychopathy is a good thing for a leader to have -- not just good for him but good for those led -- then how ought a person to vote informed by that knowledge?
Should I uniformly vote for the most ruthless person in every race? Or should I identify the most ruthless person at the highest level and then vote for him and the people he will most readily use to accomplish his purposes?
That's an insightful question, this discussion has taken an interesting twist.
Distinguish the attributes of leadership from the goals of leadership. We can rate everyone in the political arena on a scale of ruthlessness (where would Dick Cheney be?), but by itself that's not a useful guide for our decisions. First choose the leaders whose goals are the same as yours, or whose goals will benefit you the most. Once you have winnowed down the candidates, the one that's the most ruthless will likely be the most
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By that definition, all behavioral disorders are selection biases.
There are a set of concrete neurological and genetic characteristics that constitute psychopathy.
Buying Into the Whole Scheme (Score:2)
Well, if you're going to buy into the whole scheme of quantitative analysis, that we are reducible to a set of statistics, it makes sense to surrender to the scheme.
Particularly the part about his 'genetic history' contributing to his pathology is telling. Shake that rattle witch doctors. Use numbers the way a numerologist would.
Seven Alleged Murderers? (Score:2)
Out of how many? That seems like a whole lot of murderers.
If neurosceince is this far advanced (Score:2)
Lets start on people in positions of power... politicians..CEOs. Surely the numbers would be off the charts. I don't think anyone can rise to the top of the political or capitalist systems and be a really really nice person.
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It depends on whether there's a balancing point beyond which the psychopathic tendancies are no longer helpful in achieving power. If you're seen as too dangerous by your superiors you might be fired instead of promoted.
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But if ambition and psychopathy are a scale, you want the ambitious people working for you who aren't constantly looking for a way to stab you in the back and climb over you.
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If ambition and psychopathy are independent factors ...
The ambitious psychopath will work for you and then stab you in the back to get ahead. The ambitious, well adjusted person will compete for your job on their merits and push you aside. Or they'll quit and go to work for themselves, figuring that energy expended working one's way up through an organization is wasted.
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But if ambition and psychopathy are a scale, you want the ambitious people working for you who aren't constantly looking for a way to stab you in the back and climb over you.
You do if you are confident that you can win. You work with people who might stab you in the back and you watch your back. But these people bring in more of what you look for.
I suggest we conduct an experiment. (Score:5, Funny)
Let's take somebody from a privileged background with good breeding and then transpose his life with that of a common man. More specifically a petty thief with inferior parental lineage. We'll get the privileged individual brought up on charges, remove his access to money and his home and create false situations where he's accused of theft! At the same time we'll take the petty thief and give him all of the privileges, money and responsibilities in life. I assert that the man of good breeding will always conduct himself with dignity and honor regardless of the circumstance while the petty thief will always act like a common thug. That's because one's parents genetics determine what we become in life, forget education and opportunity if you're born from an oak tree you're strong, from a willow, soft.
I'll bet you a standard gentleman's wager, $1....
More Information (Score:2)
"You know that Voight-Kampf test of yours?" (Score:5, Insightful)
"Did you ever take that test yourself? Deckard?"
Summary (Score:2)
with all this talk about empathy lately (Score:2)
Jimmy Fallon (Score:2)
So, you are saying that Jimmy Fallon is a psychopath.? He seems like such a nice guy on TV. But, that may explain how he got the Tonight Show gig. Isn't that how Leno got it?
interesting (Score:2)
I'll have to watch the TED talk. I find I have both mild psychopathic thought tendencies and also issues with depression. In my case they generally balance each other out rather than feeding each other. Perhaps the one issue is due to continued suppression of the other. Related to an earlier story, I also hear "voices" in my head -- basically I have a more or less continuous internal discussion going on in the background. I have had to sit down and have a "conversation with myself" on a couple of occa
Excellent example of (Score:3)
Nature v. Nurture
Types, not degrees, of Psychopathy (Score:4, Interesting)
Granted, my knowledge of psychopathy is based in psychology and not neurology, but rather than degrees of psychopathy it's better to think of types of psychopaths. While there is a scale or spectrum of psychopathy, measured by the Revised Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R, or PCL-YV for the Youth Variation), subjects are generally extremely psychopathic or not at all. To be deemed a psychopath a subject need a score >= 30, 40 is the maximum. For a simple comparison, the typical 'career criminal' scores, on average, a 20 on the PCL-R. For the true psychopaths, it is the type of psychopathy that is of primary importance. Of the ten basic subtypes of psychopaths, only two --malevolent psychopaths and tyrannical psychopaths-- are characterized by overt anti-social behavior and violence, the two rarest but the two most commonly associated with the term 'psychopath' in popular culture. The rest are more driven by material gains (this isn't necessarily 'better', but it is much more common and probably, given my extremely limited knowledge of the subject, what drives Dr. Fallon if he is a true psychopath). The two violent subtypes are predominantly characterized by sadism and extreme self-aggrandizement, respectively (murderous variants of these two types rarely kill only one victim, as the violence amuses them). For example, sexually sadistic serial killers such as Ted Bundy are malevolent psychopaths; a serial killer like the Zodiac Killer who taunts authorities and views his (not a sexist pronouns, 80% of psychopaths are men) victims as inferior i.e.: the Zodiac 'hunting people' and his belief that after his death "ALL THEI [sic] HAVE KILLED WILL BECOME MY SLAVES."
But, again, this understanding is psychological not neurological. However, there is most likely a genetic component, as psychopathy appears equally across social classes and family environments. Further, psychopaths cannot be successfully treated psychologically. In fact, treatment generally exacerbates their qualities and makes them better psychopaths be teaching them to recognize, and thus better mask, their distinctive psychopathic traits.
"Many of us would hide this discovery" (Score:2)
out of fear or embarrassment of being labeled a psychopath. Perhaps because boldness and disinhibition are noted psychopathic tendencies, Fallon has gone in the opposite direction, telling the world about his finding in a TED Talk, an NPR interview and now a new book published last month, The Psychopath Inside
I'd infer that his "boldness and inhibition" suggest that he's tenured.
Critical thinking. (Score:5, Interesting)
Most doctors in the US are psychopaths.
It would be worth studying why assertions like this get an instant mod-up from the geek without a single citation to support them.
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Anyone who hates the Irish doesn't get to drink with us.