"The Psychopath Test" by Jon Ronson

Travel is good

Just wondering if anyone here has read his book? It's interesting the way that Jon Ronson was able to identify that there are psychopaths in all walks of life, and not just in the prison population.

I also have these books:

The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout PhD

Without Conscience by Robert D. Hare PhD

I have a very amateur interest in psychology. I've never studied it but have loads of books now on sociopathy and psychopathy. Thank you all for the extremely interesting thread on sociopathy which I only found yesterday, some very thought-provoking posts. I am amazed by your level of knowledge.

Treora

I haven't read it, but will put it on the reading list.

I have always wondered if these criteria were subjective and who name those under their criteria as psychopaths. Kind of a case of - we don't like they way you look therefore we are going to call you rude names. Edging towards the N word.

I guess it wouldn't matter under freedom of expression, Ireland doesn't have that really, if it was not turned into a medical diagnosis for court cases and institutionalisation.

Psychopaths and sociopaths were once separate and are now technically all just sociopaths = manipulative people that can lie without remorse or feeling guilt,are out for their own power enhancement, have had a troubled youth and desire sexual satisfaction. That sounds like an advert for anyone in sales, finance, law, executive management, espionage, media and half of medicine. Isn't it 1% of the normal population and 4% of CEOs and politicians. I'm sure it was a pre-requisite for advancement in news of the world.

It is interesting were medical diagnosis, legal liability, democratic freedoms and evolutionary actors collide.

Travel is good

Yes, I was always wondering what the difference was. It sounded like psychopaths was the more serious one, and I thought sociopaths were just manipulative people. There is probably more case history now, especially with all the goings on in the banking/corporate/communications world.

I came across someone a few years ago who displayed a lot of these tendencies, definitely the lack of empathy. I forgot to say that I am also investigating the Baron-Cohen books on this subject. Give me a few years and I might catch up with all my reading!

Travel is good

I'm just back from the film "the Guard". I just had to tell you about one of the scenes:

Criminal 1- "I'm not a psychopath, I'm a sociopath. They told me that in Mountjoy."

Criminal 2 - "What's the difference?"

Criminal 1 - "I don't know!"

Faith

According to Hare in his book "Snakes in Suits", the difference between psychopaths and sociopaths is that psychopaths are born, and sociopaths are created as a result of environment.

Hare, Snakes in Suits (2006, p. 19) wrote:

Psychopathy is a personality disorder described by the personality traits and behaviours that form the basis of this book. Psychopaths are without conscience and are incapable of empathy, guilt, or loyalty to anyone but themselves.

Sociopathy is not a formal psychiatric condition. It refers to patterns of attitudes and behaviours that are considered antisocial and criminal by society at large, but are seen as normal or necessary by the subculture or social environment in which they developed. Sociopaths may have a well-developed conscience and a normal capacity for empathy, guilt, and loyalty, but their sense of right and wrong is based on the norms and expectations of their subculture of group. Many criminals might be described as sociopaths.

Antisocial personality disorder is often used interchangably with psychopathy too, but Hare considers them to be separate, albeit overlapping, pathologies.

Travel is good

That's really interesting, thank you for that. So the main difference seems to be empathy, among other qualities.

If a potential sociopath was raised say, in an environment where they had plenty of interaction with other people with sociopathic tendencies, then they might later become sociopaths themselves?

I know it doesn't happen in every case, as you often hear of the good person who overcomes adversity while they are growing up. However, I'm just thinking about what happens those young children who grow up in an environment where sociopathic tendencies are considered normal by their peer group? The classic case of getting in with the "wrong crowd". Criminal behaviour might be considered normal by some young people growing up because they have no good role models.

Can you reverse sociopathic behaviour?

I presume then, that there is little that you can do with a pyschopath, as they are like that at birth.

Semele

Faith wrote: »

Antisocial personality disorder is often used interchangably with psychopathy too, but Hare considers them to be separate, albeit overlapping, pathologies.

My MSc dissertation was based on this. The hypothesis was that psychopathy (PCL-R score of <25) stemmed from abnormal brain development that precluded normal social learning and thus empathy. It would also explain the fact that psychopaths themselves experience very attenuated negative emotions such as fear or sadness. They don't feel them strongly themselves and they have difficulty recognising them in others, therefore the distress of others does not act as a negative reinforcer as in normally socialised people.

Antisocial personality disorder on the other hand (PCL-R score of >25) is an environmentally caused hyper-reactivity to perceived threat. Basically living in a stressful environment throughout early life causes a person to become overly vigilant to percieved threats and thus lowers the flashpoint for violence.

Both people with ASPD and psychopathy express a higher level of reactive violence, which is hypothesised to be a result of poor executive functioning. In ASPD the poor executive functioning is essentially a result of social learning/comditioning. In psychopathy though there is also a theorised deficit in amygdalar development that precludes normal negative reinforcement and social learning, and it is this that lack of feedback from the anygdala that prevents normal executive functioning from developing. This is evident in the fact that as well as reactive violence, people with psychopathy also present with high levels of instrumental violence, which is "cold" and goal-directed.

The study that I was working on took the viewpoint that the 2 disorders tend to be lumped together because of the superficial functional similarities, but that if you proceed from the reactive/instrumental offending distinction then it becomes clear that they are different disorders with different eitiologies. Many conditions give rise to higher levels of reactive violence, but psychopathy is the only known disorder that results in an increased level of instrumental violence also.

The reason there is so much confusion is that most literature on ASPD or psychopathy lumps them all together, which results in a lot of inconsistency.

Faith

Semele wrote: »

The reason there is so much confusion is that most literature on ASPD or psychopathy lumps them all together, which results in a lot of inconsistency.

I did a module in forensic psychology which included psychopathy as a topic. When I was studying for my exam, I was horrified by how many papers papers used the terms interchangeably. I repeatedly saw Facebook comments between classmates making the same mistake too.

Your thesis sounds very interesting! Was it in forensic psychology?

Semele

Travel is good wrote: »

That's really interesting, thank you for that. So the main difference seems to be empathy, among other qualities.

If a potential sociopath was raised say, in an environment where they had plenty of interaction with other people with sociopathic tendencies, then they might later become sociopaths themselves?

I know it doesn't happen in every case, as you often hear of the good person who overcomes adversity while they are growing up. However, I'm just thinking about what happens those young children who grow up in an environment where sociopathic tendencies are considered normal by their peer group? The classic case of getting in with the "wrong crowd". Criminal behaviour might be considered normal by some young people growing up because they have no good role models.

Can you reverse sociopathic behaviour?

I presume then, that there is little that you can do with a pyschopath, as they are like that at birth.

With this you are looking at children and adolescents with Conduct Disorder (CD), as psychopathy and ASPD are only diagnosable in adulthood. This group is further divisible by the presence or absence of Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits. I forget the exact proportions but basically of a group of children with CD, roughly 1/4 will display CU traits- basically they are showing psychopathic characteristics. Of the 3/4 without CU traits, something like half will go on to be diagnosable with ASPD in adulthood. Almost all of the 1/4 with CU traits will be diagnosable with psychopathy. This is further evidence of how the development of ASPD is environmentally mediated and these children are very responsive to interventions such as parenting programmes and social skills training. The development of psychopathy is more definite- if the deficits are there at the start they are consistently so throughout the lifespan and the same interventions have little effect on these children.

There is a third group, known as Adolescent-onset CD. These children (obviously) start offending in adolescence, do not display CU traits and usually stop offending in later adolescence/early adulthood. This type of CD is seen to be a form of peer-group modelling, where antisocial behaviour seems "cool" and antisocial peers are more successful than those who are not. This is basically your "getting in with the wrong crowd" thing but does not usually persist unless there are "hooks" such as drug dependency, imprisonment etc that preclude getting back to a more prosocial lifestyle as you grow up a bit.

metrovelvet

This is going to sound like a weird question. Can someone explain to me how the lack of empathy in aspergers operates differently from the lack of empathy in NPD or sociopathy? and how it differs in its effects. Thanks.

bbrhuft

metrovelvet wrote: »

This is going to sound like a weird question. Can someone explain to me how the lack of empathy in aspergers operates differently from the lack of empathy in NPD or sociopathy? and how it differs in its effects. Thanks.

You should read the paper - Autism, Empathy and Moral Agency. Jeanette Kennett The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 208. (Jul., 2002), pp. 340-357.

There's a free pdf on-line. I contrasts the strict & obsessive morality of people with Aspergers with the amoralism of psychopaths.

People with Asperger have a very logical black / white view of the world and accordingly they follow rules to the letter i.e. the Kantian Categorical Imperative, they are bound by logic & rules not emotional sentiment (Humean sentimentalism).

Thus, while there maybe an empathy deficit they don't break the law because they apply rules so strictly.

For example, I was just talking to a woman with Aspergers a few days ago, and I told her about a case where a man with Aspergers (Cornelius Arie Smith-Voorkamp) in New Zealand stole a light switch that cost less then a Euro from a condemned building, that was damaged in an Earthquake months earlier. Light bulbs and electrical fittings are his obession, he couldn't resist. The police charged him with looting and theft, but the vast majority of people want him let off with an official warning, it's such a trivial case and it cost so much money to pursue.

Anyway, I had absolutely no success explaining to her that his crime was trivial, he should be let off with a warning. She thought - he stole something, that's a crime, he should be punished and that's that. Not very empathic towards the light bulb thief, but it's with in the law.

p.s. The reason why the light bulb case dragged on, Arie admitted his guilt and wanted to be punished, he didn't fight his case.

krd

Travel is good wrote: »

Just wondering if anyone here has read his book? It's interesting the way that Jon Ronson was able to identify that there are psychopaths in all walks of life, and not just in the prison population.

It's entertaining. It's entertainment. It's not all about psychopaths or O'Hare.

Jon Ronson is comedian. So, he's playing it for laughs. It does ask an interesting question. O'Hare may be seeing psychopaths every where he looks.

krd

Treora wrote: »

Psychopaths and sociopaths were once separate and are now technically all just sociopaths = manipulative people that can lie without remorse or feeling guilt,are out for their own power enhancement, have had a troubled youth and desire sexual satisfaction. That sounds like an advert for anyone in sales, finance, law, executive management, espionage, media and half of medicine. Isn't it 1% of the normal population and 4% of CEOs and politicians.

I have met only two corporate psychopaths. Both ended up destroying companies I worked for. They eerily had all the classic psychopath traits; glibness, superficial charm, even collecting predatory animals.

They're very different from the average manipulative bullsh1tter you meet in any medium to large sized company. There's an extremeness to what they do. And a relentlessness to what they do. They're different in ways that are very hard to define.

I think they're very rare. If 5% of the population were psychopaths life would be an non-stop living nightmare.

They can rise very quickly in the corporate world because people are stupid and are easily taken in by superficial charm. People like glibness and shallowness. Most people who are glib and shallow are not psychopaths. - I'm not saying they're not bad people - because they are. They're just not psychopaths.

I'm sure it was a pre-requisite for advancement in news of the world.

We don't know yet. But there's so many tell tale signs with Rebekah Brooks. Superficial charm, lack of conscience, the glibness (she credits herself with "Sarah's law"), poor judgement - disregard for consequences. Her management style, sounds by some accounts, to have been chaotic and involving a lot of bullying.

It is interesting were medical diagnosis, legal liability, democratic freedoms and evolutionary actors collide.

Psychopathy is brain malfunction. It's not evolution. I'm very suspicious of anyone who tries to justify psychopathic behaviour in evolutionary terms.

There could also be many people with the same brain malfunction who don't go on to become evil psychopaths.

Robert O'Hare believes there may be a way to stop them. Or that eventually the pharmaceutical industry will come up with a treatment for it.

Travel is good

krd wrote: »

It's entertaining. It's entertainment. It's not all about psychopaths or O'Hare.

Jon Ronson is comedian. So, he's playing it for laughs. It does ask an interesting question. O'Hare may be seeing psychopaths every where he looks.

True, I know that Jon Ronson is not taking it too seriously. I have other more serious books on the subject so I'll try to read up on those.

I suppose there is one good thing about the Jon Ronson book, at least it might encourage people like me to find out more about psychopathy. It is an interesting subject....

krd

Travel is good wrote: »

True, I know that Jon Ronson is not taking it too seriously. I have other more serious books on the subject so I'll try to read up on those.

I suppose there is one good thing about the Jon Ronson book, at least it might encourage people like me to find out more about psychopathy. It is an interesting subject....

It's actually worth reading. It's an easy read too.

I think O'Hare, himself, is not a great writer.

Psychopaths in Suits is not really a great book. Or I'm not 100% sure what he was trying to do with. His corporate psychopath doesn't really get up to that much in the book - not much more than a non-psychopath corporate sneak might get up to. People, who are not psychopaths, who are not even really that bad as people, get up to all kinds of things at work, sometimes because they believe everyone else is at it - sometimes because they're being put up to it.

Who is really interesting is Sam Vaknin. And really chillingly he will answer questions if you in contact with him. I've asked him a few questions and got some very interesting answers. Vaknin has been the real corporate psychopath - even spent time in jail. If you look at his history, and the kind of things he got up to, it's much more extreme than the character in Snakes and Suits.

Though if you contact him, probably better not to let him have your real name and address, or he might one day eat your liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.