Psychopaths and the science of personality
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Anonymous nob...@remailer.privacy.at
Psychopaths and the science of personality:? For many years, psychologists have studied the frightening reality of? psychopathic or sociopathic personalities? -- the serial killers, the child abusers,? the pathologically consistent liars and incorrigible thieves.? The scientific study of these individuals was systemically organized by Hervey Cleckley and his 1941 cl***ic "The Mask of Sanity", and today the specialist? Robert Hare is one of the foremost authorities in the field.? According to Hare, the key emotional and interpersonal? traits defining the psychopathic personality syndrome are: a smooth, glib capability to lie, manipulate and dissemble; a completely callous lack of empathy or concern for others; shallow emotional affect and lack of remorse; and egocentric grandiosity.? ?
While most psychological studies of psychopathy have been based on prison populations, there's an emerging (and controversial) recognition that many individuals with this cluster of personality characteristics, are not in prison.? The traits of these individuals are so distinctive that they may even represent a distinct? taxon, a true sub-species of mankind --
consisting of otherwise normal human beings who are completely lacking in normal human responses to social interactions with others.?
? In his book, "Without Conscience", Hare writes: "To give you some idea of the enormity of the problem that faces us, consider that there are at least 2 million psychopaths in North America; the citizens of New York City have as many as 100,000 psychopaths among them.? And these are conservative estimates.? Far from being an esoteric, isolated problem that affects only a few people, psychopathy touches virtually every one of us.
Consider that the prevalence of psychopathy in our society is about the same as that of schizophrenia, a devastating mental disorder that brings heart-wrenching distress to patient and family alike.? However, the scope of the personal pain and distress ***ociated with schizophrenia is small compared to the extensive personal, social and economic carnage wrought by psychopaths.? They cast a wide net, and nearly everyone is caught in it one way or another.
The most obvious expressions of psychopathy -- but by no means the only ones -- involve fragrant criminal violations of society's rules.? Not surprisingly, many psychopaths are criminals, but many others remain out of prison, using their charm and chameleonlike abilities to cut a wide swath through society and leaving a wake of ruined lives behind them.
Together, these pieces of the puzzle form an image of a self-centered, callous and remorseless person profoundly lacking in empathy and the ability to form warm emotional relationships with others, a person who functions without the restraints of conscience.? If you think about it, you will realize that what is missing in this picture are the very qualities that allow human beings to live in social harmony.
It is not a pretty picture, and some express doubt that such people exist.?
To dispel this doubt you need only consider the more dramatic examples of psychopathy that have been increasing in our society in recent years.?
Dozens of books, movies, and television programs, and hundreds of newspaper articles and headlines, tell the story: Psychopaths make up a significant portion of the people the media describe -- serial killers, rapists, thieves, con men, wife beaters, white-collar criminals, hype-prone stock promoters and "boiler-room" operators, child abusers, gang members, disbarred lawyers, drug barons, professional gamblers, members of organized crime, doctors who've lost their licenses, terrorists, cult leaders, mercenaries, and unscrupulous businesspeople.
What about politicians?? Well, here we have to be careful, <snipped to avoid controversy> There's a lot of controversy over whether psychopathy should be viewed as a disease caused by some sort of organic birth defect or brain damage.
Injuries to the frontal lobes can cause a syndrome that's similar in some respects, but Hare has done a series of studies showing that they're not identical, and that "true" psychopaths basically have highly intact cognitive skills, unlike victims of brain injuries.
Whether it's a "defect" or not, our speculation is that the psychopathic personality is an inherited trait (although this would certainly be controversial among psychologists, many of whom would argue that it can be a result of traumatic childhood experiences or brain injuries.)? From our perspective on the literature,? it seems reasonable to speculate that it may be only a matter of time before scientists? isolate the particular genes that are involved in creating a pre-disposition towards the?
psychopathic syndrome.
A paper by Harris, Rice & Quinsey (1994) argues that psychopathy is a "taxon" -- that is, a discrete subcl***, more or less as distinctive as male vs. female, or cat vs. dog.? This is based on a statistical analysis of a population of subjects with their scores for psychopathy. The distribution of scores is strongly bimodal, indicating a lack of "shades of gray" for the psychopathic personality syndrome.? This is a strikingly unusual result in personality research, which usually finds a continuous range of variability in personality traits.? ? While a five-factor personality model (introversion/extroversion, agreeableness,?
conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness) is often considered sufficient to describe the normal range of personality, the psychopathic personality is very difficult to represent within this space (see Miller et al., 2001),? exhibiting highly differentiated sub-traits within the major personality dimensions (where we would normally expect to find correlated sub-traits.)? The unusual pattern of sub-traits is, in our view, another basis for believing that psychopathy represents a distinct genetic syndrome.
A review article "the sociobiology of sociopathy an integrated evolutionary model"(Mealey, 1995) treats "primary sociopathy" more or less as a synonym for Cleckley/Hare psychopathy, and argues that it's an evolutionary adaptation -- that enables a percentage of the population to fill the ecological niche for cheaters and scam artists.?
Along these lines,? ? Kent Bailey(1995) argues that psychopaths should be called "warrior hawks", and that a healthy contingent of them would be necessary for the survival of any primitive band, faced with the need to survive in violent competition with neighboring tribes.? "Warrior Hawks" is perhaps a kinder, less judgmental euphemism for the phenomenon.? But on the other hand, it might be unfair to those who might favor warfare in some specific set of external circumstances.? ? "All warrior hawks are psychopaths"?? Dramatic, but probably not strictly accurate.? (Some warrior hawks might only appear to be psychopaths.) A related issue is the extent to which "normal" individuals can adopt the behavior patterns of psychopaths.? The ideals of empathy, social cooperation and altruism have been supported by a wide variety of philosophical, ethical and spiritual arguments over the years.? More importantly, they may also be backed by millions of years of evolution, as many species have adopted cooperative modes of behavior for survival.? A revulsion for excessive wanton cruelty may be literally instinctive for most human beings.? Nevertheless, any evolutionary tendency towards kindness, empathy and cooperation can apparently be overcome in certain circumstances -- for example, when the government issues a call to war, and tells the people that the enemy must be killed as a matter of the society's own survival.
The psychopaths have developed an extraordinarily powerful camouflage mechanism.? When it fits their purposes, they are glib,? friendly and easy-
going, devoid of the petty anxieties that trouble most of us and cast a pall over day-to-day interactions.? They are the very embodiment of charisma and chutzpah.? In this way, they stay hidden and undetected by their victims until a trap is sprung.? Precisely because most human beings have an instinctive internalized sense of fair play and altruism, they are incapable of seeing when another human being does not share these attributes.? ? We simply do not believe that such evil could exist -- and when we do undeniably encounter it, we may be tempted to ascribe it to supernatural causes, invoking the Devil himself.? It is particularly stunning and incredible to contemplate that a powerful and reputable person, a company president or a Senator, or the Ruler of our Country, could possibly be a true psychopath, a man devoid of conscience.
Yet we maintain that this is quite frequently the case, from the beginning of history down to the present day.
REFERENCES Bailey, K.G.? The sociopath: cheater or warrior hawk?? Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 18, 542-543.
Harris, G.T., Rice, M.E. & Quinsey, V.? Psychopathy as a Taxon: Evidence that Psychopaths are a Discrete Cl***.? Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62(2), 387-397.
Mealey, L. (1995). The sociobiology of sociopathy an integrated evolutionary model.? Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 18, 523-599.
Miller, J.D., Lynam, D.R., Widiger, T., & Leukefeld, C. (2001). Personality disorders as extreme variants of common personality dimensions: Can the five factor model adequately represent psychopathy? Journal of Personality, 69, 253-276.
John Latter joro...@aol.com
On Sun, 30 Mar 2003 22:22:06 +0200 (CEST), Anonymous I know someone just like that and he is a 'member of the clergy'. Of the above characteristics, however, the one that particularly interests me is 'lack of remorse'? - the chap I know is using his position within a social club to target the psychological vulnerabilities of those he 'hates' . And feels good about it!
(victims range from teenagers to pensioners) It is truly astonishing that he is able to indulge himself in this way but even writing to his bishop, and describing behavioural patterns that "suitably qualified people would recognize", produced no interest whatsoever.
This guy does form relationships but admittededly not emotional ones.
His personal philosophy is that "people need to be controlled otherwise they'll walk all over you" (his exact words).
The tragedy for his victims is that the control he is interested in is psychological and in this he has been helped by the conditioned deference that people show to someone in his position.
Unfortunately they do exist. In fact I shall be paying a social visit to one of this 'member of the clergy' 's victims early on monday morning.
--
John Latter Psychology and the Roman Catholic Church (Research) http://members.aol.com/jorolat/roman.html "Psychology and The Roman Catholic Church" Egroup http://groups.yahoo.com/group/catholicpsychology/
"Gene Douglas" gened...@prodigy.net
One can reasonably ask whether protection and promotion of the group is necessarily best for species survival, or protection and promotion of the individual.
Cats and gorillas kill the young sired by other males, which has the effect of speeding the time the female will resume mating, and favoring procreation of his own genes. That could be compared to a psychopathic trait, in which survival of the fittest is preferred over cooperation.
Much is achieved with cooperation, but sometimes at the expense of the individual. Though the individual benefits from the collective effort, he benefits even more if he takes more than his share.
In this light, is he defective if he advances himself at the expense of others, or does he promote survival of his genetic line and of a strain of the race similar to himself?
Vikings used to value such traits, and there is a story of a Viking leader who killed a playmate as a child, and made his parents proud. Is it possible that considering such people defective is just a cultural decision?
...
Iceman pvtsi...@yippeeia.com.au
On Wed, 2 Apr 2003 09:51:55 +0200 (CEST), Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer <nob...@cypherpunks.to> wrote: And all this time I thought that the Vikings were a football team. :)
dsutherla ...@hotmail.com (neepy)
I think you have a point there... you could argue that the fact that many "psychopaths" turn out to be successful politicians or businessmen, without necessarily breaking any laws, shows that those identified as "psychopaths" are not "destined" to be problems for society... given the right opportunities they can be a huge ***et to a society. In that sense they are no different to anyone else.
"Gene Douglas" gened...@prodigy.net
We can also see that psychopaths only fare well if they are in the minority.
Like the question, "what if everybody did that," and like the answer, "yes, but everybody doesn't do that. That makes more opportunity for those who do," the psychopath can feed off of the productive majority, so long as the others engage in enough cooperation to be productive.
"Anonymous via the Cypherpunks Tonga Remailer" <nob...@cypherpunks.to> wrote in message ...
"Carrie" starchild1...@earthlink.net
I am so glad to see a real discussion based on the topic of this ng!
This one seems to be "are psychopaths born or made"?
This personality disorder has fascinated me for a long time. I'm not a professional (with any degrees) but have ...
"Carrie" starchild1...@earthlink.net
Seems like the key is, even if the pschopathic personality does exist, what, if anything can be done about it?
At least the ones who aren't as drastic as serial killers, etc. (and I think this is only a small percent?) The ones we might meet and deal with in our everyday lives.
Maybe just accept them the way they are, and not depend on them, try and make them into anything different.
~ Carrie
HoofPrints equsphotogr...@hotmail.com
Well just look at all the good Julius (sp) Caesar accomplished for the Romans, and Hitler too and maybe even Stalin.
I sure there are other politicians who could conceivably be considered *psychopaths*.
Hoof Who is being sarcastic in this post.
Kali K...@nope.not
Hi Lurker, According to the literature, developmental and family factors play important roles in whether someone with these traits will eventually choose positive, high risk careers (such as becoming an army pilot) or will seek criminal activity. It is likely that some successful sales people, for instance, who are otherwise law-abiding citizens, have psychopathic traits.
A lack of fear or lack of empathy with one's war opponent/customer could come in handy. I believe some of the world's leaders and CEOs of large companies would be discovered to have these traits.
In one paper, I remember reading about the kind of upbringing many fearless killers-for-hire had. Their parents were either neglectful, cold, or abusive, and the child never learned to channel his/her tendencies positively. Maybe Dr. Dan or Peter or someone else has a cite, I don't have it handy.
Also, on HBO (February?) there was a documentary called "The Iceman and the Psychiatrist," which is probably partially archived on their web site. There was a lot of info presented in that film.
Kali
--
Troika Woman!
HoofPrints equsphotogr...@hotmail.com
Lets not forget E. Gordon Liddy.
His book is fascinating.
Hoof
"D.L.Rogers" dlrog...@frontiernet.net
Actually, it is correct that most psychopaths do not break laws. One wonderful study in Boston, for example, solicited psychopaths through advertisements in a newspaper, and a huge number came out of the woodwork.
They met all the criteria for psychopathy in personality, but had never had legal problems and probably never would.
Timothy Leary (before he fried his brain) had found the same sort of thing in his study using thousands of enrollees in the Kaiser-Permanente Health Plan. One eighth of the normal population fit the criteria.
However, as he noted, we don't have 'nice' words for that sort of personality. Similarly, we don't have bad words for the "overcooperative" personality, even thought an eighth of abnormal people really fit that description.
Your response of "You're kidding" was probably based on a reaction to a different, but related term: sociopath. There is some overlap with psychopath, but there used to be more of a distinction between the two.
Sociopaths are bad. Period. Psychopaths might be, but are not usually.
And that makes sense: it is not in self interest for most psychopaths to behave in a criminal fashion.
Dan R.
Master of Card XII
HoofPrints equsphotogr...@hotmail.com
Dan would you please explain the difference between Psychopath and Sociopath.
The Dictionary of Behavioral Science defined psychopath as a term used to describe antisocial behavior.
Sociopathic Personality defines it as a Personality disorder characterized by poor social relationships and the inability to conform to cultural, ethical, and social norms.
This is a broad category and may include antisocial, asocial, or dyssocial attitudes and behavior and often sexual anomalies.
DSM IV 301.7 seems to show that the antisocial personality develops in childhood with all the well known signs marked by the sociopathathic behaviors of repeat offenders, lying or conning, impulsivity or failure to plan ahead, irritability and aggressiveness as demonstrated by repeated physical fights and ***aults, reckless disregard for others, consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations, and lack of remorse as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated or stolen from another.
The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia or Manic Episode.
There is no term for psychopathic personality in the Behavioral Science Dictionary and in the DSM IV personality is broken down into many different types of personality.
Which one would be closest to what the mainstream would consider as the psychopathic personality?
Or, Is psychopath a term they created to describe antisocial and then broke that down into a more systematic cl***ification as it was noted that not all psychopaths are have X, but some have XY and some have XYZ?
Why did the the powers that be, return to the use of the word antisocial in the DSM IV and leave psychopathic out?
Hoof PS: Hollywood did not do anyone any favors by cl***ifying characters in their movies under the lump heading of 'psychopath'.
HoofPrints equsphotogr...@hotmail.com
ONe other question: Do sociopaths necessarily have to meet all the criteria of DSM IV namely Repeat offenses, or could breaking the law and getting caught come later in life?
Hoof Forgive my spelling I think I have been in flame wars too long and am spelling sociopath with pathetic in mind.
HoofPrints equsphotogr...@hotmail.com
One other question: If we give medication to 'MASK' the antisocial behaviors, how can one really say that a client is now ready to be mainstreamed into society?
Is it fair to the public and their families?
Is it fair to the client to release them into a society where they must depend on Masking of their symptoms with medication?
Can their personality be reshaped w/o Masking, to function in society?
Hoof
"D.L.Rogers" dlrog...@frontiernet.net
Antisocial personality is diagnosed if, as you said, the individual was diagnosable as having conduct disorder by the age of 15, and continues to show the signs noted above.
That is correct. If the behavior is better explained by a psychotic condition, organic condition, or intellectual limits, or by environmental conditions, then it is not to be diagnosed as antisocial personality.
DSM does not talk about personality, but only personality disorders. Those are different uses of the term personality. The Behavioral Science Dictionary is not complete, as you discovered.
DSM IV was not written by psychologists and is only a compendium of diagnostic categories with two main purposes: 1) making it easier to bill third party payers, and 2) to gain some consensus on what is meant by diagnoses. It is often thought of as a manual for making diagnoses, but it is not. The diagnostic criteria are not based upon any objective standards in most cases, and thus genetic differences or other objective evidence is not addressed. But, then, objective data is in short supply.
The word psychopathic was left out becuase it is a term used in personalty research, psychological ***essment, and by psychologists and social workers and sociologists. These are not concepts used much by psychiatrists.
It is very, very diffucult to undrestand the different terms, or to grasp their development and use, without looking deeply into the history of psychology and of personality research. Even then, it remains difficult.
However, much of the important research uses the term "psychopathy," such as the work by Hare, or other experimental personalty research. Similarly, the MMPI andMMPI-2 research, Rorschach data, and other ***essment research uses that term, and thus many psychologists reserve the term "antisocial" to mean, basically, criminal or almost criminal.
Dan R.
Master of Card XII
"D.L.Rogers" dlrog...@frontiernet.net
Sociopath is more of a temperament, in the technical sense, than an attitude or a learned tendency. Thus, the term indicates an attitude of more than rebelliousness, but rather a lack of regard for social mores and expectations.
In a way, it can be seen by looking at 'impulsivity.' Some people are impulsive because they cannot control their own responsiveness. Some are impulsive because they like to be impulsive. The latter could be sociopaths, whereas the others are more likely neurologically different or something of that sort.
Dan R.
Master of Card XII
"D.L.Rogers" dlrog...@frontiernet.net
No medication is known to change or even 'mask' antisocial behaviors if the behaviors result from an antisocial personality. Nor does behvavior modification show any major effectiveness. However, many people who exhibit antisocial behaviors are not antisocial in personality, and they can be changed with different therapies or, sometimes, appropriate medication for undrelying disorders.
I think that true antisocial perosnalities can learn to judge their effects on others, though not true empathy, and can control their behavior better if need be, but cannot change their personality style in most cases. I might be wrong, though.
Dan R.
Master of Card XII
HoofPrints equsphotogr...@hotmail.com
Ok, then psychotropics will 'mask' the* behaviors ***ociated* with antisocial behavior.
( or at least they are supposed too until a drug tolerance is built up and the client requires a 'drug holiday' or an increase in medications) You are *masking* the behaviors of ***ault & compulsiveness, none of the other behaviors which are ***ociated with antisocial personality are touched by using medications.
I can see plans and objectives being set by the client to work on remorse for their actions, but to get to that point it requires that the client recognize that their actions caused someone harm.
Ok, I will agree with you on this point, however, it is *masking* especially when Thorazine, Melleril and Haldol were the drug of choice by physcians for those types of clients.
Hoof
HoofPrints equsphotogr...@hotmail.com
Some are impulsive because they are forgetful or pedantic and need to correct their posts?
Do you agree?
Before computers there were manual typewriters and errors could not be whited out in all cases, so that meant that one must impulsively and compulsively correct their errors before turning them into editors, teachers, or others.
Hoof
HoofPrints equsphotogr...@hotmail.com
What about Dual DX?
MIne is very old so there may have been some changes.
So would it be fair to say that psychopathic personality is used prior to refinement of the individuals final diagnosis through testing?.
The general public does not seem to understand that concept regarding persons who they view as mentally disordered from a position of their social mores and traditions.
Thanks for answering.
Lynne
"D.L.Rogers" dlrog...@frontiernet.net
No, Mellaril and Haldol have never been used much with such patients. Those are drugs used for psychoses. Thorazine has been used in the past only it has been necessary to sedate a psychopath, usually when they were out of control because of alcohol intoxication.
Dan R.
Master of Card XII
HoofPrints equsphotogr...@hotmail.com
Ok, so I used to work with borderline psychotics and we used Thorazine, Mellaril, and Haldol as well as Stelazine and it did mask their ***aultive behavior. Due to the medications and the fact that they were borderline, it was extremely hard to deal with them when they went into a crisis phase.
I found that the use of Thorazine in these patients on a *daily basis* was like trying to deal with an alcoholic. They became extremely hard to reason with just as someone who is drunk would be hard to reason with. It was almost useless to try.
I guess Thorazine would be useful for someone who is not on the medication daily, as it would knock them out depending on the amount given and whether they had any other drug tolerance built up with other drugs.
So in the days of old which medications were given to antisocial personalities?
What about today?
There is a medication which was given from an ampule but the mainstay used to be the phenothiazines, the drugs to counteract the sides of phenothiazines and of course Lithium.
Hoof
"D.L.Rogers" dlrog...@frontiernet.net
No medications have been used regularly to treat antisocial personality, so far as I know.
Dan R.
Master of Card XII
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