The Mind of a Sociopath

Perhaps (although i doubt it) you will see the irony of you addressing me in that manner.

Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind can hardly be seen as a conclusive and authoritative description of how the mind works. The most frequent and cogent criticism was that Jaynes had confused the emergence of human consciousness with the emergence of the self-awareness of consciousness. That is to say, humans were conscious, they simply were not aware of any significance in being conscious and did not discuss consciousness.

I am reminded of an anecdote of Carl Sagan. He was always impressed with Velikovsky's "knowledge" of ancient middle eastern literature, but knew his astronomy was utter crap. He was discussing Velikovsky at a faculty party once, and a scholar of ancient literature told Sagan that he was always impressed by Velikovsky's "knowledge" of astronomy, but knew that his references to ancient literature were crap.

I had a similar experience. I had just read Jaynes, and was discussing him with a Professor of philosophy at the university at which i was then employed. I told him that i was in no position to judge Jaynes' philosophical position, but that his references to history and ancient literature were crap. The professor told me that he found that ironic, because he had been impressed by Jaynes' knowledge of history and ancient literature, but found his philosophy to be crap.

Since that time, Jaynes' work has been revisited and reviewed in a much more sympathetic light. Some researchers claim that his "predictions" (all of which were inferential) have been vindicated by recent research. However, all of the vindication of Jaynes comes in the area of hallucination and mental illness. I can see no good reason, therefore, to consider him a necessarily giant in the narrow realm of the understanding of sociopaths and psychopaths.

Now you're just being pedantic. You want me to say "I don't suffer foolish behavior gladly"? So be it.

You speak of irony, but at the same time make my point regarding ebrown, and science. Do you see how?

I have acknowledged that i don't agree with E_Brown's assessment that Hare is a crackpot. At the same time, as i have pointed out, the number of years of his career, and the number of his publications do not serve to establish him as an unchallengeable authority. I'm not going to play games with you on this subject, DD. Your response to E_Brown is completely unjustified and nasty, and nothing you are saying alters or excuses that.

Could've fooled me.

I understand that's relatively easy . . .

I've been doing a bit of side reading on the spectrum of psychopathy/sociopathy/narcissism and found something that agrees with my belief that the narcissist is potentially more dangerous than the sociopath (defined here separately than the psychopath). I readily admit that it's easy for one to find support for one's own beliefs if one looks hard enough, but for purposes of continuing the discussion I think the anecdotes in this article are interesting.

Thoughts?

Thanks for fresh material, JPB . . . i'll have to look at it later, though . . .

me too, actually...

Again, "psychotic" and "psychopathic" are entirely different animals.

Please go back and read what Dlowan had to say on the subject.

Setanta,

Thank you for your kind words in my defense.

DrewDad,

I retract the "crackpot" remark I made about Dr. Hare. I used this word out of annoyance at what I was reading on his website. On reflection, this word is not appropriate to describe his career.

That being said, my objections that Dr. Hare is making sensational claims with no backing in research are appropriate.

There are two things that annoy me about Dr. Hare's work (I have already stated that I have no problems with the scientically-supported claims about recidivism).

1. Many of the claims he is making are clearly non-scientific.

There is no scientific backing I have seen yet to the sensational claims of the danger of people who would score high on his PCL-R in general (non-prison) population.

Statements like people who would score high on his PCL-R "have no conscience" are unsubstantiated (at least as far as everything I have seen so far) as is the inference that people who score high can't be decent people (i.e. good bosses or buddies).

2. I find that slapping labels on individual human beings is a very troubling practice. It is more troubling that these labels (for people outside of the prison population are not backed by science-- even though they are being presented as scientific.

The term "psychopath" is clearly prejudicial.

Let's consider the possibility that psychopaths are human beings. (Where psychopath is defined as someone who would score high on the PCL-R instrument).

If this were true...

Psychopaths would be able to choose between right and wrong, just as you do. They would be responsible for their actions, just as you are.

They would choose their path just as you do. As a boss, they may choose to treat their employees well. In relationships, they would balance personal interest and how much they value the relationship (which is after all personal interest).

It seems that people here are unable to accept psychopaths as human beings... the post that admitted we might accept them living with us used the term "collateral damage". What if a psychopath who made good decisions had no more "collateral damage" than you.

Why can't we just accept psychopaths as human beings?

There is no reason I have seen to believe that you or I are superior to psychopaths. There is no research I have seen outside of prison populations to suggest that they can't be decent respectable people.

Taking away someones basic humanity based on a psychometric instrument is very troubling indeed.

I guess my question would be then, "are you sure you're looking in the right place?"

Dr. Hare's website may not be targeted at those in search scholarly work. I assumed it was maintained by his publisher.

Articles for the consumption of laypeople generally don't have a list of footnotes and references. They have quotes and they have sensationalism.

His peers seem to take what he says seriously.


You are entitled to your opinion, I suppose, but pronouncing that it is "not backed by science" after a casual, non-academic, amateurish review of the data is pretty grandiose.

I am looking to you, bud. You are defending claims for which I haven't seen scientific evidence. They are the claims you are defending, the burden of proof is yours.

I am not only giving you the opportunity to provide specific research to back up Dr. Hare's claims and answer my specific objections....

I am begging you.

Please, I would enjoy being proven wrong with valid scientific research.

Show me the science... not vague references, but specific science research that support the claims that I find dubious.

That's all I am asking for.

But the test was designed for men in the prison population. Non-criminal psychopaths, if there even is such a thing, have not been studied. The way some folks seem to bandy the word around is the problem from where I'm sitting.

Why you casually dismiss the recidivism data as valid but unimportant mystifies me. It's what it's all about!

I don't mean to dismiss the recidivism data as unimportant. It seems it would be quite important for parole officials and criminologists. Scientific results say what they say and if used correctly are often quite important.

The point is that the valid research is about recidivism rates a certain class of people after being in prison. This says absolutely nothing about how the same class of people (who have never been incarcerated) will perform in the boardroom or in relationships. But I think we are making the same point.

I'll say again, I'm neither an expert nor an educator, nor do I pretend to be one, so you are looking in the wrong place.

I know the extent, and limits, of my knowledge. I'm not qualified to teach you. I have presented information; I have not defended any position. You are the one making statements of fact (e.g., it is "not backed by science") which you cannot defend.

Dialectal variation, typo, or ..., Setanta?

I'm not sure what specific claims you are talking about (I haven't read much of this thread), but one thing that struck me is that you might just be running into one of the fundamental problems with the sciences of psychology and psychiatry and why they've struggled to define themselves as a hard sciences.

The mind, being intangible, is very difficult to study and some of the data just can't be reliably recorded or measured.



Well one of the tough things with mental health is that diagnosis often is contingent on their inability to do so. It might seem like circular logic, but if you accept that we are talking about "disorder" when there is a pretty wide spectrum of "healthy" variation it makes sense that diagnosis is often a matter of degree. Many people have these traits to some degree but a competent mental health worker would consider them mentally healthy if it is not having an adverse impact on their interpersonal relationships.

For example, if someone tells me that they exhibit all those traits but is a demonstrably-loving father I would suspect that the self-assessment was inaccurate or exaggerated. For this and many other reasons the degree that the mental disorder affects the individual in their interpersonal relationships is one of the primary factors in diagnosis of mental disorders.

So if they can be good people and their interpersonal relationships do not suffer, the degree of their disorder would just not be considered unhealthy and they, ideally, reserve diagnosis for individuals to whom the disorder is manifest to a pathological degree.



So do the good folk who work in these fields. They fight to make the terminology more useful and less harmful and stigmatizing. One such example is that these days we (I mean everyone, I'm no expert) use terms like "mental disorder" instead of "mental illness" or "insane" in medical contexts.

It has it's weaknesses as a science but still represents a lot of progress.

We've gone from "possessed" to "crazy" to more nuanced and specific terms and while there are always going to be inherent complexities with the use of such labels they do, in fact, represent a more scientific understanding of the mind.

Until scientists can read minds and measure their data accurately it will have deficiencies as a science, but a science it is (at least in the right hands).



That's one of the necessary evils when studying mental health. But those with great understanding of it often use it in far less prejudicial ways than laypersons. It's the layperson who has a superficial, and thusly generalized, understanding of these concepts.

You should blame movies, news and books more than the mental health professionals for this.

Symptoms of antisocial personality disorder--Wikipedia. Using this definition could George W. Bush be diagnosed with this disorder? The first three and others fit him well.

Symptoms
Characteristics of people with antisocial personality disorder may include:[citation needed]

Persistent lying or stealing
Superficial charm
Apparent lack of remorse or empathy; inability to understand having hurt others
Inability to keep jobs or stay in school
Impulsivity and/or recklessness[4][5]
Lack of realistic, long-term goals -- an inability or persistent failure to develop and execute long-term plans and goals
Inability to make or keep friends, or maintain relationships such as marriage
Poor behavioural controls -- expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression, and verbal abuse; inadequate control of anger and temper
Narcissism, elevated self-appraisal or a sense of extreme entitlement
A persistent agitated or depressed feeling (dysphoria)
A history of childhood conduct disorders
Recurring difficulties with the law
Tendency to violate the rights and boundaries of others
Substance abuse
Aggressive, often violent behavior; prone to getting involved in fights
Inability to tolerate boredom
Disregard for the safety of self or others
People with a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder often experience difficulties with authority figures.[