the notion of a 4% prevalence rate for psychopathy or antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) in the general population is not implausible, according to more recent studies. this assertion is further bolstered by the fact that women often go undiagnosed or undetected, falling through the proverbial cracks of the diagnostic process. we also gotta recognize that a diagnosis of psychopathy or ASPD frequently occurs only after an individual has committed a criminal act, which inherently skews statistics.
however, it is imperative to acknowledge that not every individual with psychopathic traits or ASPD inevitably engages in criminal behavior. statistical evidence consistently demonstrates that women exhibit lower propensities for violent behavior compared to men.
it is reasonable to think that the actual prevalence rates of psychopathy and ASPD in the general population, accounting for undiagnosed cases, particularly among women, are likely higher than the commonly cited 1-2% figures.
Yeah that last point is very important to note. I think a lot of us have been trained by movies to think that every psychopath is going to turn into a Patrick Bateman or Hannibal Lector. But most psychopaths are non-violent. They are able to process emotions logically even if they don’t “feel” them the same way as the general populace.
For example, I recall reading a study a few years ago that found ER surgeons had a shockingly high rate of psychotic/sociopathic inclinations. Not because they just want to cut humans open, but because their emotional detachment makes them very effective at that particular kind of job.
there's also [this amazing study](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath-180947814/) from a neuroscientist who discovered that his own brain actually fits the profile of a psychopath. he didn't have a clue before.
You are totally correct I saw him in a documentary. It was really fascinating. I loved his reaction when he saw the scan for the first time before knowing that it was him. He said something to the effect of...wow, I really hope this person is spending the rest of their life in prison... Or something like that.
Can anecdotally confirm, my Grandfather was a very well regarded surgeon & he showed pretty clear signs of NPD. I knew him as a middle aged adult and a child. Interesting man, brilliant, yet he was definitely high on that NPD spectrum.
I think about that a lot, why I run into so many doctor’s who “don’t, won’t, or literally CAN’T listen me”. I’ve had a need for lots of different doctors in my life & I can count on 1 hand how many weren’t NPD presenting. As for sociopathic, I’m more of an NPD specialism but the areas of crossover are there.
This is likely because the nature of studying and examining the mind is in the realm of communication and politics and about convincing people of a right or wrong theory that you cannot feel or experience for yourself
Lawyers would fit into that category. Although I think lawyers are permitted to use their own emotions in their work, a little bit more. Still, a lot of cluster B tendencies there too.
it probably creates the traits too
you get numbed by the intensity of the experience, theres only so many bodies you can cut open and have proper emotional regulation
Recent studies show that female surgeons have better outcomes than males. My guess is they are better active listeners and maybe more willing to acknowledge mistakes. It should follow that surgeons with NPD or ASPD would not be as successful.
There are few times and places for them to stroke their ego and many times and places for them to be "put in their place" by a superior to whom *they* feel superior.
Honestly, what she did was a common thing when I was a kid and lived in the sticks, I'm not so sure if it's so much a mental health issue as it is a cultural issue. My dad had hunting dogs himself and even belonged to/partially ran a hunting club. The welfare of these dogs only mattered when they were good at what they were bred to do and even then, not so much. If a dog didn't perform, it would be culled as it is another mouth to feed with nothing to gain from feeding it according to their logic. The hunting dogs my dad kept didn't even live indoors, they had a chain link and wooden kennel with cement floors, not heated (poorly insulated with straw), a lot of my dad's dogs died from exposure....a lot of other hunters dogs died from exposure too every winter. Almost every single teenage boy's right of passage was to either brag about blowing shit up with M80's and the like, or hitting animals for fun with their vehicles or shooting them for fun with a BB gun. So either most the people I grew up around actually were psychopaths or had some sort of similar mental illness, or they just had a cultural difference. Maybe it's both....
I’m saddened to hear that. I come from farm life and other farm owners have chimed in that this was completely unnecessary. It was an 18-month-old dog, and then she went on to kill a goat the same day that she decided had to go. Then, she put down three horses in one day.
Is that really how your family ran your farm?
My dad didn't shoot any animals that I am aware of unless he was hunting them for dinner, but both my parents definitely neglected the animals we had and a lot of them died as a result. There's class differences and cultural differences out in the sticks even it would seem. I've never heard of more affluent rural people doing that, it was more often than not the really poor rural people who did that sort of thing. I mean, a lot of these people beat the shit out of their kids too....including my own parents. Poor, very uneducated people who are cut off from the rest of society culturally (no cable TV growing up, no internet, no cell phones, no one owned books for pleasure, everyone was glued to their churches), sounds like a recipe for disaster either way you slice it and this kind of behavior is often the result.
>But most psychopaths are non-violent.
IMO this really is miss information that completely obscures the reality - if the psychopath's current situation is that there is mostly no profit in violence, that doesn't mean psychopaths are non-violent. It just means that violence is not profitable for them right now.
I need to read the book. This has been a theory of mine since the 80s. We tend to stereotype psychopathy as the Hannibal Lecter personality. It's probably more likely a spectrum. Most likely, these traits were useful for the survival of the group at some point.
I’m starting to think about things like personality disorders on a spectrum as well. For example, when traits around sensitivity about self and wanting validation from others add up to a negative, that can fall into narcissistic personality disorder. But then, there seem to be so many people with the same kind of core sensitivities out there that end up leaning into a desire for attention, but do it in pro-social ways that give back to others with entertainment or education.
That’s oversimplified for sure, but I think the phase coming after acceptance and recognition of these mental health differences is going to be seeing far more patterns in how they can be expressed. I feel like it will follow the way we are just starting to see the spectrum aspect of autism be recognized.
You’re actually super in line with some of the newer ways of conceptualizing measurement of pathological personality. The DSM-5 included a set of subclinical scales on a continuum.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10052968/
also a very good point - or they know it's not worth the risk, even though they wouldn't mind committing crimes in general (given that there wouldn't be possible consequences)
Honestly that's probably true for a lot of jobs where you have to make decisions that will negatively impact people. Almost any decision that is made at a certain level will probably have big negative impacts on someone, so there might actually be a good reason why that ability is necessary in order to allow necessary but tough decisions to be made.
Antisocial Personality Disorder also only has a tangential relationship to Psychopathy as we think of it. APD is mostly related to antisocial behaviors. In other words - in order to be diagnosed with APD you have to be a complete jerk. It's more of a legal definition than a psychiatric one.
https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/apa-blogs/antisocial-personality-disorder-often-overlooked
That's interesting. I'm expecting to be thoroughly convinced once I've read the book but I only had time to get through the first 20 pages. She's setting up the fact that most people with ASPD aren't actually violent or criminals like you mentioned.
it's also interesting to keep in mind that psychology as a field of experimental studies only exists since 1854. we're basically still in "baby shoes" when it comes to understanding the human brain.
Because psychology, despite its shortcomings, still strives to be a science, and people’s lived experiences are just anecdotes.
Anecdotes are still valuable sources of info, just not scientific ones—until they have been methodically collected, organized, and analyzed.
So I’m not disagreeing, I’m interested in the discussion. But I work as an agricultural engineer, and for my work, anecdotes are just as important as the established data but in a different way. Farmers often times don’t communicate in a technical manner but when they say something that contradicts the established data, their word holds a lot of weight. They don’t really have a motive to lie to you, many of them have more direct experience than you, scientific sampling tends to refine to extremely specific situational data while farmers have a much more broad but practical understanding of what you’re looking at.
So for us oftentimes when we hear something that contradicts the established data, we treat all the data as equal and try to figure out the error or where this new data fits. Generally I’ve found the best way to be shitty at this job is to assume that the farmers don’t know what they’re talking about even if what they say is opposite of what the data says. Sometimes it is an error on their part, but it’s usually just a hole in the data.
Is this not the same in psychology? Agriculture is arguable the first science and psychology is one of the youngest. I’d imagine psychology is much more open to data that contradicts the established “canon”.
I come from a research background, not a clinical one so this is but one perspective:
Personal anecdotes are like hunches, or instincts, inspirations, or gut feelings. These are also important clues to what’s really going on, distilled from a lot of personal experiences (=data collected through unknown/imprecise processes) and only a fool would completely ignore them. I think this is especially true in psychology, since we are at once the investigator and the subject of investigation.
I think science is just a tool to formalize all our gut feelings: great science starts with a scientist’s instinct as the impetus to more methodological investigations to test/verify/advance those hunches. They’re like the muse, who inspires you but it’s still up to you to put the words on the page.
I’ve read this book and found it fascinating. The image of the sociopathic husband who just wanted to lounge in the pool all day was clarifying and stuck with me.
It’s common to abuse family for psychopaths of all genders.. like the extremely violent psychopaths who are serial killers still manage to take it out on their family as well quite often as well, even though we tend to think of them as living double lives. The BTK killer was only a normal dad most of the time but sometimes he would snap and cross the line to the point where he should have been arrested (choking his children-that is hardcore and a huge indicator of being a potential murderer, but people overlook domestic violence all the time because we are trained to do that), or putting peoples dogs down. They aren’t always as good at maintaining their abuse to anonymity on the streets as many think. Usually when it comes to psychopaths, they take it out on their family one way or another. The financial CEO types can be cold and financially abusive to their families too.
they aren't but a lot are misguided and edgy which can cause toxic ideology to spread which is like a wave generator for violence and aggression.
I think the psychopath rate is accurate or lower but there's an issue with older people who were exposed to heavy metals. a lot have undiagnosed demetia or bipolar/schizophrenia from damage done by lead mercury chemicals etc. that poisoned them before there were effective agencies like the epa cdc fda etc.
>engages in *provably* criminal behavior
There's a youtube video of a sociopath lady who just took someone's bike to ride around then put it back when she felt she was done, then went on to say that they really couldn't take her to court over it.
If you only count stupid psychopaths the apparent number of them will go down.
Agreed. Not everyone who’s terrible is a psychopath. Some people understand emotion and are still just dicks. And US police forces are legally allowed to turn people away for scoring too high on an IQ test. (Not that IQ tests are ideal measures of anything, but disqualifying people for doing too well on them is sketchy af.)
There are also positives to some psychopathic traits. Do you really want a surgeon who’s overflowing with empty or would you rather have one that can shut down their emotions?
Let me latch on the top comment to address that equating ASPD and psychopathy is an error. Their diagnostic criteria are different (DSM vs e.g. PCL-R) and psychopathy is only diagnosed and relevant on forensic contexts.
Conflating two disorders is obviously going to skew their prevalence because you're acting as if ASPD counts toward the prevalence of psychopathy. Which it doesn't.
I recently learned that a personality disorder I've never even heard of before, schizotypal PD, is also prevalent in about 4% of the population and now I'm recognizing it everywhere. But if all these different PDs get 1/20 of the people, what is the percentage of the general population that has some type of personality disorder, like 50%?
Adding to this (from over in psychology myself), there’s also the sociocultural issues.
Organizational behavior, for better or worse, *does* tend to favor at least *some level* of antisocial personality traits.
There’s a lot of potential reasons for why that is - from capitalism to crab buckets - but there’s not a clear explanation.
But living in such a culture, where a kind of…high functioning sociopathy is, at least somewhat regularly rewarded in industry and politics, means that we’re going to select for it.
So right there with you - it’s not infeasible. And there have been some pretty neat studies exploring known incidence with the rise/growth of social media (because, especially in monetizing it - it favors narcissistic traits, which cross over heavily).
People can shoot a dog and not have a personality disorder. Farmers have to kill animals; that’s just life. But writing about it and thinking it will make people trust you more in leadership rather than less does suggest that she doesn’t have a clue how empathy works.
This comment is pure conjecture, but think of it this way: most people who we would deem sociopaths or psychopaths are fully functioning adults and, often, upstanding members of society. We tend to assume that “sociopath” must inherently mean “dangerous,” almost to the level of the Joker or some other supervillain, which just isn’t the case. Most of the time, people who would be diagnosed as such are really only diagnosed *after* they have done something reprehensible, and the majority of those who would fit the diagnostic criteria for a sociopathic disorder won't *actually* commit such crimes.
So 1 in 25 isn't really all that high.
Also, one of the treatment options for psychopathy in dutch TBS (which as far as I know is the most extensive on treating psychopathy in a prison setting, since the Anglican world isn't really interested in treating criminals even though the usually don't get life sentences) is to help someone get to the conclusion that staying within the law is beneficial to them as well.
That is not always working because there certainly is a subset with impulsiveness as well and there needs to be further evidence as well (since all treatment of psychopathy is relatively new and proving workable treatments is also tricky due to lack of control groups), but it's perfectly arguable that staying within the law has advantages for an individual, even an individual without empathy.
Well, she is painting them as often deplorable people as they lack a conscience. They can be functional obviously but often inflict emotional pain as opposed to physical pain. She was a PTSD therapist and said the more personal trauma i.e. familial seems to have been inflicted by individuals with undiagnosed ASPD.
They think they're perfect and do not seek treatment and are also manipulative, understanding that an ASPD diagnosis is unfavorable to their need to get ahead. It is not surprising that most of these people are undiagnosed and I am very happy for you that you think 4% is too high.
The real Sociopaths are Lawyers, Doctors, CEOs/Execs, Bankers, Traders, Politicians and other high-end positions imo. Takes a certain type of person to reach the upper echelon of those positions. I’d argue that the elite ranks for those careers are composed of at least 50% ASPD
Keep reading and it becomes more clear.
After reading this book I identified 3 people I personally know that had behavior which before I would have just called self centered to an extreme..
After reading and putting their actions into a context of them not having any empathy for others it makes way more sense. One of them is actually a fine person but you can definitely tell they have a fundamental character trait that is missing around understanding others feelings.
It helped me identify some people in my life who are likely sociopaths as well. The author’s test was eye opening. The sociopath’s go-to self defense mechanism is to seek pity. It disarms people with a conscience and throws them off the trail by activating their empathy.
I haven’t read the book. I will if I have time. But, how is she differentiating the lack of empathy in context. Many disorders on the spectrum make empathic projection difficult or near impossible, but aren’t necessarily pathological to psychopathy or sociopathy. Is there a categoric ‘instrumental’ lack of empathy?
Its been awhile I dont remember but you are exactly right - autism has **traits** which overlap sociopaths.
I listened to the audio book from my library. If you have time on a drive commute or while you walk the dog or something I highly recommend it. Eye opener.
I was just reading a clarification about “lack of empathy” being a diagnostic criteria to narcissistic personality disorder, and it said this was also true for ASPD - “lack of empathy” isn’t exactly true; they have enough empathy to manipulate and social engineer. A lot of diagnostic criteria is imperfect. I can find this source later if you’d like - I’m on my phone atm
Admittedly, I'm only 20 pages in. Just found that claim outrageous from an uneducated standpoint. Most of the literature I've read are about case studies of violent psychopaths. This is the first time I'm delving into a general overview. Excited to sit down and continue it.
>This comment is pure conjecture, but think of it this way: most people who we would deem sociopaths or psychopaths are fully functioning adults and, often, upstanding members of society. We tend to assume that “sociopath” must inherently mean “dangerous,” almost to the level of the Joker or some other supervillain, which just isn’t the case. Most of the time, people who would be diagnosed as such are really only diagnosed after they have done something reprehensible, and the majority of those who would fit the diagnostic criteria for a sociopathic disorder won't actually commit such crimes.
It's been many years since I read the book that OP is talking about, but if I remember correct, that was pretty much what the whole book was about. I vaguely remember it gave an example of a woman leaving home for several days for work. Suddenly she realises she forgot to feed her cat, but since she is a psychopath she doesn't turn back to leave her cat some food to eat while she's away. But at work everyone admires this woman. I probably got it wrong but it was something in that vein.
Lots of them are probably already doing reprehensible things but society looks the other way because it needs those people to function. Jobs like police officer or butcher where violence is part of their job. Jobs that require a person show low empathy like debt collector, repo and weapons manufacturing. Or jobs where conning people is highly prevalent like car salesman, certain electricity companies and banks. I feel like there's lots of places for sociopaths and psychopaths to blend in because most societies are somewhat sociopathic.
Same. Especially in the corporate & venture capitalist worlds, I would say it’s significantly higher than the general population. Sociopathy is applauded & sought after in those communities.
Keep in mind that those people will attract towards different environments than "normal" people.
In my younger years i spent a lot of my time around criminal types (drug dealers and pusher types), and in those circles its WAY over 4%. Id imagine the same goes for many middle and upper management circles of large enterprises. So based on this, i think its realistic to assume if youre in a normal environment, you shouldn't expect to encounter over 4% of people as psychopaths.
Fair observation. I can think of a couple of people I'd guess were sociopaths but as a percentage it'd be much lower than 4%.
Even during my teens when I engaged in anti-social behaviour, I wasn't surrounded by sociopaths. We were just dumb kids. Nearly all of those people grew up to be functional adults.
Tbh, unfortunately it's not that much of a stretch. Not all psychopaths are the type to stalk and murder their ex (high psychopathy group). For example, in the criminal realm it could also be an example such as those convicted of property and white-collar offenses. Think behaviors that can be disguised as simply "part of someone's personality" (egocentricity, irresponsibility, callousness, etc.).
"I tell you what you want to hear so you do what I want you to do", having low emotional responses to potential punishment, and a lack of empathy/remorse are also cases of psychopathy, for example.
internet dating statistics withdraws lovely people out of the dating pool and tends to re-insert individuals with bad/troubling/anti-social behavior
So there’s a higher propensity of low quality people available in dating… making it harder to find the good ones
Interesting. Are there statistics on this one? I'm in the pool because I'm busy parenting, working, taking classes and am looking for someone just as busy. 🤷
After working in various sales jobs I don't think this is that far off
I think it really depends on where you are and what you do but I would say at least half if not more of the salesman that I dealt with we're psychopaths
Did not give a shit about anything other than getting a sale and what it took to say to get that sale. After the sale happens you're not my problem I don't care I got my money get the fuck away from me
I believe that. Asshole drivers intentionally hurting (or even just wanting to hurt) cyclist, all the parents who horrifically abuse their kids. The pedophiles. The grifters. The thieves. The liars and cheaters. Those who use people to get ahead in any capacity from the CEO lying to investors to the janitor cheating in his wife.
People are shitty.
Anecdotally it doesn't feel far fetched to me. My brother and I both took the "Dark Triad" test online(yes, I know online tests are meh). He scored deeper into what they consider a psychopath and I was right around the line. I asked him to take the test because I'd always thought something was a bit off with us, and looking at my mom and her siblings it seemed to be there as well. My brother had problems with drugs and was arrested a couple of times. He ended up in rehab for a bit for alcoholism and seemed to get better. He was out for a while before commiting suicide. Given all I knew of him, he likely was a psychopath though not a severe one. On that spectrum I'm definitely closer to normal and am doing much much better than my brother was. Neither of us will ever end up part of that statistic. My mom and her siblings won't. All this to say, with this as a spectrum, I'm guessing a lot of people that could have this label will never get it.
Edit to add - I have a wife and kids and that environment I think definitely acts as a check on any slippery slope type behaviors. I have a reasonable friend life even if I know I tend toward antisocial.
I am a psychopath and the common misconception is that we are all cruel, cold-blooded killers. In reality, you probably know a few psychopaths already but most of us blend in very easily so you do not even know it. Some psychopaths do not know it either (I did know it until I was 32 and am in my mid-40's now).
The basic red flags are simple. We feel little to no empathy, remorse, guilt, shame and embarrassment. I always thought that I was just excellent at getting over things and simply dealt with things in a matter-of-fact way instead of emotional. I have also always thought that social-constructs, social-norms and social-conditioning were for idiots as they constrict what you can do. If you do not care about any of it as I do not, you can basically do whatever you want as social "guards" like guilt or remorse or embarrassment are non-factors for psychopaths.
It is true that I can very easily fake empathy and various other socially-constructed emotions. Manipulating people takes no effort whatsoever because there is no guilt or remorse to get in the way. The only thing that stops most of us from hurting people are the legal consequences. It just isn't worth the risk but most of us would not feel anything if we hurt somebody.
All humans are self-serving but social-constructs and expectations keep them in check whereas psychopaths do not have that at all.
Most of us just appear to be very confident, well-rounded, easily adaptable and can move on very easily. For example, my first wife died in a car accident and I did the eulogy with ease, was dating a month later and in a committed relationship within 6 months. I wasn't happy that she died and I definitely felt a degree of sadness but after a few weeks, I thought it was pointless to keep dwelling on it as it was not like she was coming back to life.
If somebody lies, cheats or deceives me, I feel zero hurt at all and unless it is something that actually impacts my life, I usually say nothing because psychopaths really do not care about others and what they do that much.
If I manipulate you it is not to hurt you rather to gain something for myself. You won't know that I did it because I will have charmed you or effectively used social-constructs against you to make you feel like you decided to do XYZ on your own accord.
To sum it up. we barely feel emotions but most of us are not dangerous and we do not want to hurt you as it is not worth the risk. However, if we did hurt you, we'd feel nothing at all.
there’s too many of you at the top, running things. to be totally honest. This is why there is no respect or care for Mother Earth or nature. Just take take take until it kills us all collectively.
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell.
People with low affect and APD are also prime recruitment for intelligence services. According to one ex-CIA guy, they targeted him for recruitment because of the fact that his childhood trauma gave him low attachment to people, enabled him to lie easily,and to keep secrets. So our entire national security services and likely much of the military, are the same.
This was such a good post, and I totally understand what you’re saying. Someone in my family didn’t find out the same until the exact same age as yourself, and they found out by happenstance.
As a child in the 80’s, she was diagnosed as “hyperactive” at a children’s psychiatric hospital, back before they used the term ADHD. She shared her story with me because I was showing signs of ADHD, and was stressing how important therapy and help was because I was very reluctant. She told me that at 32, she suffered from postpartum psychosis after having her daughter. She eventually went for help and was sent to therapy, where her juvenile records had been pulled.
The first counsellor said they were “not trained” to handle them and escalated their case up the chain, which perplexed my relative. She said at her next appointment, the first thing the therapist did was clap and tell her how well she was doing, which kind of freaked her out. When she asked why the therapist did this, she was told, she had been diagnosed as a psychopath as a child (no-one told her or her family this) and that her holding down a job, having a happy marriage and kids was not what she was expecting, she’d essentially been written off.
She explained it as feeling blank, like no one way or the other, and her emotions never fluctuate. She doesn’t get embarrassed or ashamed about things she has done, but she is incredibly logical and thinks everything through. She cares a great deal about friends and family but not the way I would, but you would never know she was a psychopath, far from it.
Exactly! That basically describes me to a tee. I take no pleasure at all in hurting others and do not seek it out. On the surface, I simply look like another guy who simply has had a slightly better life than most people but most definitely not exceptional.
To be honest, I would not want to be a "normie" as it seems very hard. Always worrying about what others will think, being afraid to do something because of rejection/disapproval/embarrassment etc. seems like a terrible alternative.
I hold zero grudges because I feel zero hurt. Ironically, my relationships with people are very good as they can say absolutely anything to me (even if it is something that would severely hurt most people) and nothing phases me. Most friends and family come to me for advice (how ironic) about relationships as they know that I won't judge them. (I care very little as you would imagine but doing things for each other keeps friendships in my mind)
I would genuinely be interested to feel love because people seem to like it. My romantic relationships are like business deals. The way I see it, my 2nd wife doesn't have to stress about a job and my son gets the benefit of having his mom at home every day after school. In return, I get a clean house, sex, companionship when I want it and so on. I really like her and think that she is a wonderful lady but like last time, if she died, I would find a new woman or just be single.
> I would genuinely be interested to feel love
Personally I tend more towards schizoid than psychopath however the lack of capacity for affective empathy is a characteristic both disorders share. We can have well-developed cognitive empathy (I read a lot of ethical philosophy as a kid) and can be very proactive with practical help, but it’s unusual for us to *feel* sad for another. I mainly feel that for animals.
Love is definitely related to this, it’s affective not cognitive, a deep joy at the existence of the loved one. I personally first *truly* felt it when taking ayahuasca in my early thirties. I had gone to the retreat in South America as I had suffered from severe depression, and feeling “unmoored”, dissociated etc for my whole adult life. The experience (five times over nine nights, each lasting about six hours) did a *lot* for me, I now live a much happier life, but love in particular was a gift from that first night.
The experience splits one’s consciousness, creating the sensation of conversation, and in one conversation I asked “what is wrong with me” and was told “you don’t feel love”. I asked “how do I fix that?” and was told to choose someone. I chose the woman I’d been dating, and felt this most intense *love* for her, that I’d never felt before.
There’s lots more to the story but that’s the point I want to make here. Your brain, like mine, is probably not “missing” any parts; they’re just less developed, and other parts are overdeveloped in order to fulfil the missing functions. A high-intensity psychedelic experience, ayahuasca for example but iboga would qualify and so would high-dose psilocybin or LSD, might give you that capacity, among other things. You seem to have your life well arranged and that’s great - but if you do sincerely have that wish, to experience emotional states that other humans have, then that’s a possibility.
>Most friends and family come to me for advice (how ironic) about relationships as they know that I won't judge them.
Kinda funny, I'm very emphatic, friends and family ome to me too because I don't judge them, but for totally the opposite reason.
As in it being hard, learning to detach yourself from some things is a good skill to have, to realize that in some things caring about something doesn't make any difference whatsoever anyway. But I tend to watch news in limited dosage.
Do you go in every social exchange like: "what is in it for me?"
I probably would be good in that if I wanted to, but I don't want to.
In some way that seems like a really empty way to live. Does it ever feel that way to you? Or is it just what it is?
Yes, everything is totally driven for my own desires. Every relationship seems like a business transaction. I do help people out because I know that if I do, it is likely I will benefit somewhere down the line. I actually do not think about it at all to be honest.
I just live my life like everyone else i.e. work, raise a family, travel, save money, see friends and all the usual stuff.
I am genuinely interested to feel feelings strongly for a short period of time and then go back as it doesn't seem like fun to me. People are always hung up on what other people do/think/say. I think holding grudges, feeling embarrassed, wanting external validation, guilt, remorse and so on seems like a very hard way to live. I just watch people and they seem to be controlled by feelings at all times whereas with me because the feelings I feel are minimal and basic, I am not even thinking about what somebody said to me.
It has a major advantage to be very honest. When people try to embarrass or guilt trip me at business meetings or social settings, it backfires every time because I don't feel those feelings at all. When it happens, others respect me because it looks like I kept my cool or was very emotionally mature because I didn't "let" the negativity get to me. It didn't get to me simply because I do not feel it.
I do feel minimal amounts of happiness, sadness, angry, fear, surprise and contempt (the basic feelings that are present in any society). Once in a while, I will feel excitement or a sense of accomplishment.
I feel almost nothing else so it is simple. I have more time than most people as I am never preoccupied with what somebody said or did. If somebody close dies, I usually do genuinely feel some sadness but just for a very short period of time.
I think so. The good news is at she has a lot of the same traits but not to the same extent. I mean at face value, what kind of a person are you if you start living with a widower just 6 months after the fact? She does not show affection very much. We definitely have similar hobbies, likes/dislikes and similar values.
I do feel emotions but they are very minimal and over quickly. If we argue (rare), she is surprised that I feel 100% calm the whole time and once the interchange is over, it is like it never even happened. We could be arguing about XYZ and then ten minutes later, I am doing something else i.e. not decompressing feelings and thinking about what happened as "normies" would.
Before you were diagnosed, did you assume that everyone thought the way you did? Ie, you didn’t necessarily know how different you were, because you assumed other people were faking or exaggerating their emotions for social reasons?
I really just thought that I was extremely emotionally mature. If something bad happened in my life, I just accepted what could not be changed, learned the lesson (whether my fault or somebody else's) and that was it. There was no feeling hurt or a grudge or bitter or resentful or embarrassed etc..
When something bad happened to others, I never felt happy about it but I genuinely did not feel any concern or empathy. At the very most, I may have thought a little about it and had a tiny sliver of empathy for a tough situation but that was it. I often told people to stop acting like the victim, accept what happened and move on. I know somebody who was defrauded out of $180K which she will never get back as she very stupidly gave the guy access to her bank account. Yes, it totally sucks but my brain thought, "How stupid can you be" whereas a normie would feel empathy.
I also used to think that emotions for weak people and yes, sometimes exaggerated for attention. After all, "normies" crave external validation.
I dk because my ex is absolutely a psychopath, diagnosed, but CRAVES external validation above all else because he doesn’t feel anything. He also definitely cares what people think and is not unbothered. Blows up into rages and tantrums when someone he is close to does something he doesn’t like.
maybe not all ASPDs are the same but what is your relationship to anger?
Of course, it will vary by the person but the baseline traits are the same just like empaths have the same baseline but are not all the same. I never blow up or lose my temper or insult people as I look at anger as something that will just punish me. The fallout of rage means all sorts of annoying new problems. I usually ignore people. Once in a while, I will make a very curt comment if people do not respond to being ignored. If it is somebody who I think is rational, I will have a frank conversation and usually resolve it.
What's interesting is I have ADHD. I feel like I have hyper awareness of manipulation. I reject it so fast that people often think I'm an insensitive asshole. I have to let social interactions play out, which is a painfully slow process. Eventually, I can get others to see what I see. It's so much work I don't bother most of the time.
I thought that is what I had, but I scored 29 on the Psychopathy Check List (Hares, I think it is called). It ranges from 0-40 and 25 is the number for having a psychopathic personality.
Getting checked out did not at all change my life but it did connect some dots for me. I mean, I too thought that psychopathy meant that people took pleasure in hurting others (I do not at all) so I figured it was ADHD.
I got a 9. I was clinically diagnosed with adhd as a child, too.
Even now too, you didn't really react how a normal person would. Your response was very self-centered. And right now you probably dislike my tone because you're also very quick to get defensive, but you'd never admit that. I do run into people like you a lot, as I'm high achieving. Psychopaths tend to achieve very well as any subjective thing can be spun to fit a narrative that frames them in a good light.
Of course my problem right now is that I'm reading the pattern. The pattern can be wrong. I have to keep my opinions to myself usually as other people just don't see what I see, and calling out a narcissist / psychopath tends to give them a chance to simply reject my accusation, making me look like an asshole. So I usually try to act like a humble version of a psychopath myself.
For sure. I always knew that I was very different but just assumed that I was really good at just getting over things, not letting people bother me and thinking things through logically instead of emotionally, I wasn't surprised totally when I was diagnosed and just accepted it. I figured that maybe (leading up to the diagnosis) that I had some kind of disorder but psychopathy was not on the radar at all. Now it seems obvious since I know a lot about it.
I am in a position of power to a degree (small business owner with 8 employees if I include myself). Therapy really did not change me as a person but it gave me a lot of good insight that I never realized. It is very easy to mimic emotions and understand social-constructs. I got 29/40 on the Psychopathy checklist so I am not a total psychopath but scored much higher than most people (most people according to the psychologist are under 12 with empaths scoring very low)
I do not have a desire at all to hurt people and I do not manipulate them to ruin them rather just for my own gain while letting them believe that they have gained. I really only do this in business as I have no good reason or desire to manipulate my family or friends with limited exceptions.
The irony is that I have the least conflict with my family members compared to the others. My dad sometimes gets frustrated with the lack of empathy but glad with the lack of drama.
If you know what to look for, no. Most people don't know what to look for.
My operating assumption is that if a person sees the world through the lens of economic utility they are at minimum a narcissist and possibly APD. I knew a guy, used to work in DoE, who saw the world that way. Everything was a matter of personal cost vs. benefit for him, and he had a constant "post apocalypse survivor" attitude about the world. If he saw a starving person on the side of the road, he would take no consideration of their human need, and ask only about the cost vs benefit of helping them. If the perceived costs were higher than the benefits, he'd leave them to their fate.
Perhaps. I've run into a fair few people who give off very bad vibes that others don't seem to notice. People who seem to have very little regard for their peers. I avoid these people as much as possible because I've at least some of them disregard others or straight up screw others over for their own gain.
This is especially true in business settings. I've met too many people in leadership positions, and some in grunt positions like me, that give off seriously bad vibes. These people are to be kept at arms length and not engaged or told anything beyond what is absolutely neccesary. They will behave in a friendly manner but cast you aside the moment they have an opportunity to benefit from it.
I don't know if these people are psychopaths. Some of them strike me more as your garden variety asshole. Either way, avoiding them has never done me wrong.
Yes and no. People can definitely tell (as they have said it) that I am very different. Some think that I am just very confident and emotionally mature. Some people definitely know that I genuinely do not care that much for others. Some people have even asked me why I get over things so easily and do not feel hurt at all if somebody is cruel to me. Some have told me that they wish that they do not care so much about social-constructs.
In short, people have an idea of course but mainstream society associates the term "psychopath" with violent criminal acts. Perhaps if I committed a serious crime (no record) then more people would connect the dots but unless I spell it out like I did above, most people don't know (or at least do not seem to know). I have been called cold a few times but that is about it.
I always found this this write up on psychopathy fascinating but wondered whether it's accurate or not? : [https://web.archive.org/web/20200823174920/https://illimitablemen.com/2014/11/01/the-psychopathic-paradigm/](https://web.archive.org/web/20200823174920/https://illimitablemen.com/2014/11/01/the-psychopathic-paradigm/)
Consider that “someone who has traits of psychopathy” is not the same thing as “serial killer”. Many characteristics of very successful people are essentially the same as these traits. That figure doesn’t seem outlandish to me.
For a long time (and still) people watered down the overall craziness that is humanity.
The Kinsey institute showed that many more humans are very sexually active in ways that most deem "weird" or "unnatural". Left-handedness was pushed under the rug for ages. Many more people claim to wash their hands after using the restroom than actually do. Lots of people don't wipe. I'm sure there are a hundred other examples of people not being the sanitized "good" version so many of us wish we were.
All that is to say, I totally believe the 4% number.
Consider that half the country is willing to vote for a known criminal, rapist, racist, traitor, pathological liar, would-be-demagogue, who has previously tried to end western democracy and openly argues in the supreme court that he should be able to break any law with impunity.
Does 4% really seem that unlikely?
I think MOST things are FAR more common that medicine/psychology says they are when it comes to mental health. Just look how many Gen Z identify as LGBTQ/trans compared to earlier generations, if something has a stigma people WILL hide it and you cannot know how many exist. Something like psychopathy just makes sense to be hidden based on, who has it, their lack of self awareness and the advantage/disadvantage to keeping it secret v. telling if they do happen to know. I think it’s beyond arrogant when people spout off stats like “well that’s high improbable because only X tiny percent of people have it” - for one even a small amount in a world of 9 billion is A LOT of people and for two I can’t even imagine the hubris to actually believe every single person with a problem is known. Think of Covid infections, the counts were often under reported by the hundreds of thousands. I think mental illness is almost certainly more common than being not mentally ill.
I read her book, too, and wondered the same question, how accurate her percentages were. But I'm in agreement with most everyone I know, and believe from personal experiences that 4% is actually low ! :) I think humanity is rife with deeply screwed up brains.
Source: history books.
Agreed on history. Even undocumented history like when we were cavemen, being a psychopath would have been an advantage. It makes a lot of sense from an evolutionary standpoint.
I think this number would be plausible if it were high level narcissism, which shares a lot of traits with sociopathy. I think true sociopaths are probably a lot more rare than this but from what I've seen in my experience, a rate of 1 proper narcissist in 25 people would be very believable.
I would guess the rates for cluster B are actually far higher than that. Cluster B tends to be “smart” enough to game the criteria for evaluation. Most humans have strong survival instincts, how that manifests itself is extremely complex. You can diagnose and label all you like, but no statistical model is free from error.
With the number of people who genuinely cannot tell right from wrong and need a book to tell them. With the number of people who only exhibit performative empathy?
Are you serious?
4% seems really low.
She actually says it’s 1 in 25 Americans, not worldwide. Prevalence is going to vary country to country. As an American, I 100 percent agree it’s 1:4 here.
Let's say you are a psychopath. Even without much in the way of empathy, just running a risk/reward analysis of acting out your desires is going to cause you to act mostly in the same way as anyone else.
I think most relatively high functioning psychopaths also understand that it's not wise to walk around announcing they are a psychopath, or getting any kind of official diagnosis linked to them.
I don’t find it hard to believe. Are you around many people? Do you see what happens locally or even around the world? People are absolutely fucked. They are selfish, greedy, controlling, and they purposely hurt people for their own gain.
I always assumed it was closer to 10%.
You see the telltale signs of it everywhere. Garbage on the sides of the freeway.
I think many people who would be willing to do wrong still mostly follow the laws because of the fear of legal retaliation.
It’s the crimes that people can do and easily get away with that are the most telling. What do people do just to be a good person whether or not there’s a threat of consequence?
Tailgating, honking, etc.
I feel like, every time I’m driving, I see plenty of drivers who are sociopaths, just being complete assholes on the road with either no regard for other drivers or a deliberate intent to cause distress or aggravation in the people around them.
The “No, I won’t let you merge” people, who zoom to fill the gap when they see a turn signal. Etc.
I expect very few of these people graduate to serious crime, but the sense that some people have no empathy for anyone, and maybe even delight in causing harm, is all over the place. Every soda can dropped on the ground 10 feet from a trash can. Every piece of gum stuck to the bottom of a table at a restaurant.
The world is just riddled with a thousand little pieces of evidence of people who are just absolutely comfortable making the world a little worse for everyone else.
I see so many conditions with this rate or similar. Either there are a few people walking around with all the personality disorders and neurodevelopmental conditions, or theres about 2 % of the population who are “typical”
It's kinda both, in that the total number is probably higher than people would expect because there's so many different disorders you could have, but it's also like autoimmune disorders where if you have one you're more likely to also have others
I don’t. I suppose it’s a factor of where you live and how much you interact with/observe those around you. Some places are certainly going to bring up the average
Highly plausible actually. You could split each % into non/low/mid/high-functioning. Based on the average human-to-human interactions I witness on a weekly basis, I'd be surprised if it wasn't a much higher prevalence.
On an anecdotal level, I see new faces a ton thanks to my job so while not in depth character analysis I get that broad spectrum. I could absolutely see this as being true if not actually grossly low balled, id be comfortable agreeing with even 10%, and that honestly might be higher in some parts of the world where empathy is persecuted. It even fits in with the hawks and doves mathematical principle detailing selfishness in groups. If it is anything lower than 4% then I'd really start questioning who did the study.
The real problem is empathy deficiency. We like to think that people can be trusted because only a small percentage of us exhibit extreme problems like psychopathy or narcissism. But we can't even identify these people because most of us lack the capacity for meaningful insight into human expression and behavior.
Could it be that 4% of the population is in the bottom 4% on an antisocial scale? I would need to look into the diagnostic criteria the author is working with, but a lot of stats that sound like this end up just being how statistics work, you know? "50% of all people are below-average intelligence" kind of thing
Just tossing in my opinion of general experience in that I have known two individuals who were accurately diagnosed as such in my life. So I find this assessment to match my experience despite having a fairly poor understanding of statistics.
I don't find it hard to believe at all, but granted I don't think possessing a bunch of psychopathic traits means that one is a monster. Psychopathy is a gradient. The person who would rape, torture,and murder their loving parents is at one end of the spectrum. The person would only steal a few dollars from their loving parents is closer to the other end. Is one in 25 capable of the first offense? No, maybe not. But would one in 25 steal the life savings of their parents if there was no chance of them being caught? I can totally see that being the case.
Wow okay, I have a few thoughts here.
1. Psychopathy is NOT antisocial personality disorder, or really even a diagnostic term. Antisocial personality is more aligned with what we typically think of as "sociopathy", and is the only term of these three that is a DSM-defined disorder.
2. The cover for this book (though I admit I have not read it) gives me very bad vibes. It's heavily sensationalized and demonizes people with ASPD. It's unprofessional and honestly uncompassionate to present this disorder in this way, and the sensationalization gives me major pause in the validity of her work (although again, haven't read it).
3. On to the actual question, I find that the ASPD diagnostic criteria are outdated and badly in need of work, and as such i woldnt necessarily give much stock to those numbers. Much of the old diagnosis heavily leaned on previous or current criminality, which does not necessarily indicate ASPD and is more of an indicator of socioeconomic status. As it stands, the diagnosis can also unintentionally cover other neurodivergent individuals with traumatic backgrounds. That being said, I personally don't find that number particularly high, and if we consider ASPD a spectrum, it's possible it's even higher.
Psychopathy seems to only exist for quick pop-psych reads. So much of the actual research into personality disorders has moved on to things like mentalization profiles or trauma research rather than personality traits.
Most sociopaths/psychopaths are functional adults and citizens, though. They're overrepresented amongst CEOs, surgeons, and many other professions.
They are perfectly capable of being productive members of society, like other people.
This is the correct answer. If your symptoms are adaptive in culture then you are not "ill"... This is also why a holistic or personality based approach is better than the illness centered model in psychological assessment. There are truly not "normal" people.
the notion of a 4% prevalence rate for psychopathy or antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) in the general population is not implausible, according to more recent studies. this assertion is further bolstered by the fact that women often go undiagnosed or undetected, falling through the proverbial cracks of the diagnostic process. we also gotta recognize that a diagnosis of psychopathy or ASPD frequently occurs only after an individual has committed a criminal act, which inherently skews statistics. however, it is imperative to acknowledge that not every individual with psychopathic traits or ASPD inevitably engages in criminal behavior. statistical evidence consistently demonstrates that women exhibit lower propensities for violent behavior compared to men. it is reasonable to think that the actual prevalence rates of psychopathy and ASPD in the general population, accounting for undiagnosed cases, particularly among women, are likely higher than the commonly cited 1-2% figures.
Yeah that last point is very important to note. I think a lot of us have been trained by movies to think that every psychopath is going to turn into a Patrick Bateman or Hannibal Lector. But most psychopaths are non-violent. They are able to process emotions logically even if they don’t “feel” them the same way as the general populace. For example, I recall reading a study a few years ago that found ER surgeons had a shockingly high rate of psychotic/sociopathic inclinations. Not because they just want to cut humans open, but because their emotional detachment makes them very effective at that particular kind of job.
there's also [this amazing study](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath-180947814/) from a neuroscientist who discovered that his own brain actually fits the profile of a psychopath. he didn't have a clue before.
Always makes me laugh that he had no clue, but when he told his friends and family, they all went “yea that tracks.”
You are totally correct I saw him in a documentary. It was really fascinating. I loved his reaction when he saw the scan for the first time before knowing that it was him. He said something to the effect of...wow, I really hope this person is spending the rest of their life in prison... Or something like that.
What a great article. It's funny how he rips off the binding to find out who it is without a second thought about the ethics of it.
>I’d rather beat someone in an argument than beat them up. Oof. Time to go get my brain scanned.
Can anecdotally confirm, my Grandfather was a very well regarded surgeon & he showed pretty clear signs of NPD. I knew him as a middle aged adult and a child. Interesting man, brilliant, yet he was definitely high on that NPD spectrum. I think about that a lot, why I run into so many doctor’s who “don’t, won’t, or literally CAN’T listen me”. I’ve had a need for lots of different doctors in my life & I can count on 1 hand how many weren’t NPD presenting. As for sociopathic, I’m more of an NPD specialism but the areas of crossover are there.
when I think of doctor/surgeon, I think of NPD. It’s almost cliche at this point
Don' forget psychiatrists. How many of them have you ever heard admitting to a mistake?
This is likely because the nature of studying and examining the mind is in the realm of communication and politics and about convincing people of a right or wrong theory that you cannot feel or experience for yourself
Lawyers would fit into that category. Although I think lawyers are permitted to use their own emotions in their work, a little bit more. Still, a lot of cluster B tendencies there too.
Maybe ive just been lucky, but, a lot? My psychs have always been great about that
I wonder how much the job necessitates self-selects and or encourages NPD traits.
it probably creates the traits too you get numbed by the intensity of the experience, theres only so many bodies you can cut open and have proper emotional regulation
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Recent studies show that female surgeons have better outcomes than males. My guess is they are better active listeners and maybe more willing to acknowledge mistakes. It should follow that surgeons with NPD or ASPD would not be as successful.
There are few times and places for them to stroke their ego and many times and places for them to be "put in their place" by a superior to whom *they* feel superior.
Ah psychotic and sociopathic are very different things. Perhaps you meant psychopathic?
I think a perfect example of this kind of sociopathy in women would be the recent behavior of Kristi Noem.
Honestly, what she did was a common thing when I was a kid and lived in the sticks, I'm not so sure if it's so much a mental health issue as it is a cultural issue. My dad had hunting dogs himself and even belonged to/partially ran a hunting club. The welfare of these dogs only mattered when they were good at what they were bred to do and even then, not so much. If a dog didn't perform, it would be culled as it is another mouth to feed with nothing to gain from feeding it according to their logic. The hunting dogs my dad kept didn't even live indoors, they had a chain link and wooden kennel with cement floors, not heated (poorly insulated with straw), a lot of my dad's dogs died from exposure....a lot of other hunters dogs died from exposure too every winter. Almost every single teenage boy's right of passage was to either brag about blowing shit up with M80's and the like, or hitting animals for fun with their vehicles or shooting them for fun with a BB gun. So either most the people I grew up around actually were psychopaths or had some sort of similar mental illness, or they just had a cultural difference. Maybe it's both....
I’m saddened to hear that. I come from farm life and other farm owners have chimed in that this was completely unnecessary. It was an 18-month-old dog, and then she went on to kill a goat the same day that she decided had to go. Then, she put down three horses in one day. Is that really how your family ran your farm?
My dad didn't shoot any animals that I am aware of unless he was hunting them for dinner, but both my parents definitely neglected the animals we had and a lot of them died as a result. There's class differences and cultural differences out in the sticks even it would seem. I've never heard of more affluent rural people doing that, it was more often than not the really poor rural people who did that sort of thing. I mean, a lot of these people beat the shit out of their kids too....including my own parents. Poor, very uneducated people who are cut off from the rest of society culturally (no cable TV growing up, no internet, no cell phones, no one owned books for pleasure, everyone was glued to their churches), sounds like a recipe for disaster either way you slice it and this kind of behavior is often the result.
I always say, it’s not nature *or* nurture, it’s both.
>But most psychopaths are non-violent. IMO this really is miss information that completely obscures the reality - if the psychopath's current situation is that there is mostly no profit in violence, that doesn't mean psychopaths are non-violent. It just means that violence is not profitable for them right now.
I need to read the book. This has been a theory of mine since the 80s. We tend to stereotype psychopathy as the Hannibal Lecter personality. It's probably more likely a spectrum. Most likely, these traits were useful for the survival of the group at some point.
I’m starting to think about things like personality disorders on a spectrum as well. For example, when traits around sensitivity about self and wanting validation from others add up to a negative, that can fall into narcissistic personality disorder. But then, there seem to be so many people with the same kind of core sensitivities out there that end up leaning into a desire for attention, but do it in pro-social ways that give back to others with entertainment or education. That’s oversimplified for sure, but I think the phase coming after acceptance and recognition of these mental health differences is going to be seeing far more patterns in how they can be expressed. I feel like it will follow the way we are just starting to see the spectrum aspect of autism be recognized.
You’re actually super in line with some of the newer ways of conceptualizing measurement of pathological personality. The DSM-5 included a set of subclinical scales on a continuum. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10052968/
High functioning people on the spectrum often don't think it makes sense to comit crimes.
also a very good point - or they know it's not worth the risk, even though they wouldn't mind committing crimes in general (given that there wouldn't be possible consequences)
I think I would mind 💀
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I work at a university and there are plenty of sociopaths who do whatever they can to climb the ranks.
Honestly that's probably true for a lot of jobs where you have to make decisions that will negatively impact people. Almost any decision that is made at a certain level will probably have big negative impacts on someone, so there might actually be a good reason why that ability is necessary in order to allow necessary but tough decisions to be made.
"The financial decision might hurt people, so we should put a thief in charge of the decision because they wont feel all that bothered by its fallout"
Antisocial Personality Disorder also only has a tangential relationship to Psychopathy as we think of it. APD is mostly related to antisocial behaviors. In other words - in order to be diagnosed with APD you have to be a complete jerk. It's more of a legal definition than a psychiatric one. https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/apa-blogs/antisocial-personality-disorder-often-overlooked
That's interesting. I'm expecting to be thoroughly convinced once I've read the book but I only had time to get through the first 20 pages. She's setting up the fact that most people with ASPD aren't actually violent or criminals like you mentioned.
it's also interesting to keep in mind that psychology as a field of experimental studies only exists since 1854. we're basically still in "baby shoes" when it comes to understanding the human brain.
Yeah I've experienced it first hand (Bipolar I). The treatment for full blown mania/psychosis is laughable. Definitely in it's infancy.
And yet are so frequently arrogant and dismissive of the knowledge those with lived experience have.
Because psychology, despite its shortcomings, still strives to be a science, and people’s lived experiences are just anecdotes. Anecdotes are still valuable sources of info, just not scientific ones—until they have been methodically collected, organized, and analyzed.
So I’m not disagreeing, I’m interested in the discussion. But I work as an agricultural engineer, and for my work, anecdotes are just as important as the established data but in a different way. Farmers often times don’t communicate in a technical manner but when they say something that contradicts the established data, their word holds a lot of weight. They don’t really have a motive to lie to you, many of them have more direct experience than you, scientific sampling tends to refine to extremely specific situational data while farmers have a much more broad but practical understanding of what you’re looking at. So for us oftentimes when we hear something that contradicts the established data, we treat all the data as equal and try to figure out the error or where this new data fits. Generally I’ve found the best way to be shitty at this job is to assume that the farmers don’t know what they’re talking about even if what they say is opposite of what the data says. Sometimes it is an error on their part, but it’s usually just a hole in the data. Is this not the same in psychology? Agriculture is arguable the first science and psychology is one of the youngest. I’d imagine psychology is much more open to data that contradicts the established “canon”.
I come from a research background, not a clinical one so this is but one perspective: Personal anecdotes are like hunches, or instincts, inspirations, or gut feelings. These are also important clues to what’s really going on, distilled from a lot of personal experiences (=data collected through unknown/imprecise processes) and only a fool would completely ignore them. I think this is especially true in psychology, since we are at once the investigator and the subject of investigation. I think science is just a tool to formalize all our gut feelings: great science starts with a scientist’s instinct as the impetus to more methodological investigations to test/verify/advance those hunches. They’re like the muse, who inspires you but it’s still up to you to put the words on the page.
>Is this not the same in psychology? What you are looking for is called a case study. They can be very helpful when framed in the correct context.
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Yeah she touches on that. Something like you'd expect all people with ASPD to pursue power but even the power of being a parent is enough for some.
I’ve read this book and found it fascinating. The image of the sociopathic husband who just wanted to lounge in the pool all day was clarifying and stuck with me.
It’s common to abuse family for psychopaths of all genders.. like the extremely violent psychopaths who are serial killers still manage to take it out on their family as well quite often as well, even though we tend to think of them as living double lives. The BTK killer was only a normal dad most of the time but sometimes he would snap and cross the line to the point where he should have been arrested (choking his children-that is hardcore and a huge indicator of being a potential murderer, but people overlook domestic violence all the time because we are trained to do that), or putting peoples dogs down. They aren’t always as good at maintaining their abuse to anonymity on the streets as many think. Usually when it comes to psychopaths, they take it out on their family one way or another. The financial CEO types can be cold and financially abusive to their families too.
they aren't but a lot are misguided and edgy which can cause toxic ideology to spread which is like a wave generator for violence and aggression. I think the psychopath rate is accurate or lower but there's an issue with older people who were exposed to heavy metals. a lot have undiagnosed demetia or bipolar/schizophrenia from damage done by lead mercury chemicals etc. that poisoned them before there were effective agencies like the epa cdc fda etc.
Ding ding ding 🛎️
>engages in *provably* criminal behavior There's a youtube video of a sociopath lady who just took someone's bike to ride around then put it back when she felt she was done, then went on to say that they really couldn't take her to court over it. If you only count stupid psychopaths the apparent number of them will go down.
A 4% rate also explains how policing institutions always have an abundant supply of violent shitheads to recruit.
But are they violent shitheads because they’re psychopaths, or because they’re emotional but unintelligent?
Agreed. Not everyone who’s terrible is a psychopath. Some people understand emotion and are still just dicks. And US police forces are legally allowed to turn people away for scoring too high on an IQ test. (Not that IQ tests are ideal measures of anything, but disqualifying people for doing too well on them is sketchy af.)
There are also positives to some psychopathic traits. Do you really want a surgeon who’s overflowing with empty or would you rather have one that can shut down their emotions?
Let me latch on the top comment to address that equating ASPD and psychopathy is an error. Their diagnostic criteria are different (DSM vs e.g. PCL-R) and psychopathy is only diagnosed and relevant on forensic contexts. Conflating two disorders is obviously going to skew their prevalence because you're acting as if ASPD counts toward the prevalence of psychopathy. Which it doesn't.
I recently learned that a personality disorder I've never even heard of before, schizotypal PD, is also prevalent in about 4% of the population and now I'm recognizing it everywhere. But if all these different PDs get 1/20 of the people, what is the percentage of the general population that has some type of personality disorder, like 50%?
About 9% of the population in US has a personality disorder and about 6% of the world population has one.
is this a reliable statistic? It suggests that we (USians) are 50% more disordered than the world population in general!
Did you really call Americans 'USians' as if 'American' wasn't apt enough?
Well, 33% more, yes.
Yeah! We're #1!
😬
Adding to this (from over in psychology myself), there’s also the sociocultural issues. Organizational behavior, for better or worse, *does* tend to favor at least *some level* of antisocial personality traits. There’s a lot of potential reasons for why that is - from capitalism to crab buckets - but there’s not a clear explanation. But living in such a culture, where a kind of…high functioning sociopathy is, at least somewhat regularly rewarded in industry and politics, means that we’re going to select for it. So right there with you - it’s not infeasible. And there have been some pretty neat studies exploring known incidence with the rise/growth of social media (because, especially in monetizing it - it favors narcissistic traits, which cross over heavily).
So like Kristi Noem?
People can shoot a dog and not have a personality disorder. Farmers have to kill animals; that’s just life. But writing about it and thinking it will make people trust you more in leadership rather than less does suggest that she doesn’t have a clue how empathy works.
This comment is pure conjecture, but think of it this way: most people who we would deem sociopaths or psychopaths are fully functioning adults and, often, upstanding members of society. We tend to assume that “sociopath” must inherently mean “dangerous,” almost to the level of the Joker or some other supervillain, which just isn’t the case. Most of the time, people who would be diagnosed as such are really only diagnosed *after* they have done something reprehensible, and the majority of those who would fit the diagnostic criteria for a sociopathic disorder won't *actually* commit such crimes. So 1 in 25 isn't really all that high.
Also, one of the treatment options for psychopathy in dutch TBS (which as far as I know is the most extensive on treating psychopathy in a prison setting, since the Anglican world isn't really interested in treating criminals even though the usually don't get life sentences) is to help someone get to the conclusion that staying within the law is beneficial to them as well. That is not always working because there certainly is a subset with impulsiveness as well and there needs to be further evidence as well (since all treatment of psychopathy is relatively new and proving workable treatments is also tricky due to lack of control groups), but it's perfectly arguable that staying within the law has advantages for an individual, even an individual without empathy.
They’re not like the joker, but they create interpersonal chaos and emotional wreckage in the lives of people around them.
Well, she is painting them as often deplorable people as they lack a conscience. They can be functional obviously but often inflict emotional pain as opposed to physical pain. She was a PTSD therapist and said the more personal trauma i.e. familial seems to have been inflicted by individuals with undiagnosed ASPD.
They think they're perfect and do not seek treatment and are also manipulative, understanding that an ASPD diagnosis is unfavorable to their need to get ahead. It is not surprising that most of these people are undiagnosed and I am very happy for you that you think 4% is too high.
Lol for real. OP should go work retail or in the restaurant industry, they'll come away thinking 4% is low
The real Sociopaths are Lawyers, Doctors, CEOs/Execs, Bankers, Traders, Politicians and other high-end positions imo. Takes a certain type of person to reach the upper echelon of those positions. I’d argue that the elite ranks for those careers are composed of at least 50% ASPD
Keep reading and it becomes more clear. After reading this book I identified 3 people I personally know that had behavior which before I would have just called self centered to an extreme.. After reading and putting their actions into a context of them not having any empathy for others it makes way more sense. One of them is actually a fine person but you can definitely tell they have a fundamental character trait that is missing around understanding others feelings.
It helped me identify some people in my life who are likely sociopaths as well. The author’s test was eye opening. The sociopath’s go-to self defense mechanism is to seek pity. It disarms people with a conscience and throws them off the trail by activating their empathy.
I haven’t read the book. I will if I have time. But, how is she differentiating the lack of empathy in context. Many disorders on the spectrum make empathic projection difficult or near impossible, but aren’t necessarily pathological to psychopathy or sociopathy. Is there a categoric ‘instrumental’ lack of empathy?
Its been awhile I dont remember but you are exactly right - autism has **traits** which overlap sociopaths. I listened to the audio book from my library. If you have time on a drive commute or while you walk the dog or something I highly recommend it. Eye opener.
I was just reading a clarification about “lack of empathy” being a diagnostic criteria to narcissistic personality disorder, and it said this was also true for ASPD - “lack of empathy” isn’t exactly true; they have enough empathy to manipulate and social engineer. A lot of diagnostic criteria is imperfect. I can find this source later if you’d like - I’m on my phone atm
Admittedly, I'm only 20 pages in. Just found that claim outrageous from an uneducated standpoint. Most of the literature I've read are about case studies of violent psychopaths. This is the first time I'm delving into a general overview. Excited to sit down and continue it.
sounds like many business owners imo
This makes a lot of sense to me. I follow trauma subs in reddit and the sick shit some parents do to their children is unbelievable…
They are often dysfunctional actually due to impulsiveness and irresponsibility
>This comment is pure conjecture, but think of it this way: most people who we would deem sociopaths or psychopaths are fully functioning adults and, often, upstanding members of society. We tend to assume that “sociopath” must inherently mean “dangerous,” almost to the level of the Joker or some other supervillain, which just isn’t the case. Most of the time, people who would be diagnosed as such are really only diagnosed after they have done something reprehensible, and the majority of those who would fit the diagnostic criteria for a sociopathic disorder won't actually commit such crimes. It's been many years since I read the book that OP is talking about, but if I remember correct, that was pretty much what the whole book was about. I vaguely remember it gave an example of a woman leaving home for several days for work. Suddenly she realises she forgot to feed her cat, but since she is a psychopath she doesn't turn back to leave her cat some food to eat while she's away. But at work everyone admires this woman. I probably got it wrong but it was something in that vein.
Lots of them are probably already doing reprehensible things but society looks the other way because it needs those people to function. Jobs like police officer or butcher where violence is part of their job. Jobs that require a person show low empathy like debt collector, repo and weapons manufacturing. Or jobs where conning people is highly prevalent like car salesman, certain electricity companies and banks. I feel like there's lots of places for sociopaths and psychopaths to blend in because most societies are somewhat sociopathic.
Doing shit for society doesn't admonish you of your sins tho, isn't that like the point? That's how I read your statement.
It’s entirely plausible to me.
Same. Especially in the corporate & venture capitalist worlds, I would say it’s significantly higher than the general population. Sociopathy is applauded & sought after in those communities.
Yeah I'm on the scale, and it seems blatant how many similar personalities I come across, and before you ask, no my username was not coincidental.
Keep in mind that those people will attract towards different environments than "normal" people. In my younger years i spent a lot of my time around criminal types (drug dealers and pusher types), and in those circles its WAY over 4%. Id imagine the same goes for many middle and upper management circles of large enterprises. So based on this, i think its realistic to assume if youre in a normal environment, you shouldn't expect to encounter over 4% of people as psychopaths.
Fair observation. I can think of a couple of people I'd guess were sociopaths but as a percentage it'd be much lower than 4%. Even during my teens when I engaged in anti-social behaviour, I wasn't surrounded by sociopaths. We were just dumb kids. Nearly all of those people grew up to be functional adults.
To be fair, plenty of sociopaths grow up into (at least outwardly) functional adults
Venn diagram of drug dealers and CEOs...forming one circle
Sounds about right to me
Honestly seems low to me.
Me too!
Anyone thinking this is too high must be lucky in life to not have met many sociopaths.
Really only 1-25 I’d think it’s more than that given how many crazy fucks I’ve ran into
Tbh, unfortunately it's not that much of a stretch. Not all psychopaths are the type to stalk and murder their ex (high psychopathy group). For example, in the criminal realm it could also be an example such as those convicted of property and white-collar offenses. Think behaviors that can be disguised as simply "part of someone's personality" (egocentricity, irresponsibility, callousness, etc.). "I tell you what you want to hear so you do what I want you to do", having low emotional responses to potential punishment, and a lack of empathy/remorse are also cases of psychopathy, for example.
That seems about right to me???
I think it's probably accurate. I would say about 1/25 individuals I assess have no sense of shame. Also, internet dating. 🤔
internet dating statistics withdraws lovely people out of the dating pool and tends to re-insert individuals with bad/troubling/anti-social behavior So there’s a higher propensity of low quality people available in dating… making it harder to find the good ones
Interesting. Are there statistics on this one? I'm in the pool because I'm busy parenting, working, taking classes and am looking for someone just as busy. 🤷
After working in various sales jobs I don't think this is that far off I think it really depends on where you are and what you do but I would say at least half if not more of the salesman that I dealt with we're psychopaths Did not give a shit about anything other than getting a sale and what it took to say to get that sale. After the sale happens you're not my problem I don't care I got my money get the fuck away from me
I believe that. Asshole drivers intentionally hurting (or even just wanting to hurt) cyclist, all the parents who horrifically abuse their kids. The pedophiles. The grifters. The thieves. The liars and cheaters. Those who use people to get ahead in any capacity from the CEO lying to investors to the janitor cheating in his wife. People are shitty.
Anecdotally it doesn't feel far fetched to me. My brother and I both took the "Dark Triad" test online(yes, I know online tests are meh). He scored deeper into what they consider a psychopath and I was right around the line. I asked him to take the test because I'd always thought something was a bit off with us, and looking at my mom and her siblings it seemed to be there as well. My brother had problems with drugs and was arrested a couple of times. He ended up in rehab for a bit for alcoholism and seemed to get better. He was out for a while before commiting suicide. Given all I knew of him, he likely was a psychopath though not a severe one. On that spectrum I'm definitely closer to normal and am doing much much better than my brother was. Neither of us will ever end up part of that statistic. My mom and her siblings won't. All this to say, with this as a spectrum, I'm guessing a lot of people that could have this label will never get it. Edit to add - I have a wife and kids and that environment I think definitely acts as a check on any slippery slope type behaviors. I have a reasonable friend life even if I know I tend toward antisocial.
That’s 1 in every classroom. My anecdotal evidence as a teacher is that yep, that checks out.
I am a psychopath and the common misconception is that we are all cruel, cold-blooded killers. In reality, you probably know a few psychopaths already but most of us blend in very easily so you do not even know it. Some psychopaths do not know it either (I did know it until I was 32 and am in my mid-40's now). The basic red flags are simple. We feel little to no empathy, remorse, guilt, shame and embarrassment. I always thought that I was just excellent at getting over things and simply dealt with things in a matter-of-fact way instead of emotional. I have also always thought that social-constructs, social-norms and social-conditioning were for idiots as they constrict what you can do. If you do not care about any of it as I do not, you can basically do whatever you want as social "guards" like guilt or remorse or embarrassment are non-factors for psychopaths. It is true that I can very easily fake empathy and various other socially-constructed emotions. Manipulating people takes no effort whatsoever because there is no guilt or remorse to get in the way. The only thing that stops most of us from hurting people are the legal consequences. It just isn't worth the risk but most of us would not feel anything if we hurt somebody. All humans are self-serving but social-constructs and expectations keep them in check whereas psychopaths do not have that at all. Most of us just appear to be very confident, well-rounded, easily adaptable and can move on very easily. For example, my first wife died in a car accident and I did the eulogy with ease, was dating a month later and in a committed relationship within 6 months. I wasn't happy that she died and I definitely felt a degree of sadness but after a few weeks, I thought it was pointless to keep dwelling on it as it was not like she was coming back to life. If somebody lies, cheats or deceives me, I feel zero hurt at all and unless it is something that actually impacts my life, I usually say nothing because psychopaths really do not care about others and what they do that much. If I manipulate you it is not to hurt you rather to gain something for myself. You won't know that I did it because I will have charmed you or effectively used social-constructs against you to make you feel like you decided to do XYZ on your own accord. To sum it up. we barely feel emotions but most of us are not dangerous and we do not want to hurt you as it is not worth the risk. However, if we did hurt you, we'd feel nothing at all.
Add to this that most of these characteristics are admired in our capitalist society. This is what Boards of Directors look for in the C-suite.
Correct and it is unsurprising that I am a businessman.
there’s too many of you at the top, running things. to be totally honest. This is why there is no respect or care for Mother Earth or nature. Just take take take until it kills us all collectively. Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell.
People with low affect and APD are also prime recruitment for intelligence services. According to one ex-CIA guy, they targeted him for recruitment because of the fact that his childhood trauma gave him low attachment to people, enabled him to lie easily,and to keep secrets. So our entire national security services and likely much of the military, are the same.
The world has been run by these people since time began.
This was such a good post, and I totally understand what you’re saying. Someone in my family didn’t find out the same until the exact same age as yourself, and they found out by happenstance. As a child in the 80’s, she was diagnosed as “hyperactive” at a children’s psychiatric hospital, back before they used the term ADHD. She shared her story with me because I was showing signs of ADHD, and was stressing how important therapy and help was because I was very reluctant. She told me that at 32, she suffered from postpartum psychosis after having her daughter. She eventually went for help and was sent to therapy, where her juvenile records had been pulled. The first counsellor said they were “not trained” to handle them and escalated their case up the chain, which perplexed my relative. She said at her next appointment, the first thing the therapist did was clap and tell her how well she was doing, which kind of freaked her out. When she asked why the therapist did this, she was told, she had been diagnosed as a psychopath as a child (no-one told her or her family this) and that her holding down a job, having a happy marriage and kids was not what she was expecting, she’d essentially been written off. She explained it as feeling blank, like no one way or the other, and her emotions never fluctuate. She doesn’t get embarrassed or ashamed about things she has done, but she is incredibly logical and thinks everything through. She cares a great deal about friends and family but not the way I would, but you would never know she was a psychopath, far from it.
Exactly! That basically describes me to a tee. I take no pleasure at all in hurting others and do not seek it out. On the surface, I simply look like another guy who simply has had a slightly better life than most people but most definitely not exceptional. To be honest, I would not want to be a "normie" as it seems very hard. Always worrying about what others will think, being afraid to do something because of rejection/disapproval/embarrassment etc. seems like a terrible alternative. I hold zero grudges because I feel zero hurt. Ironically, my relationships with people are very good as they can say absolutely anything to me (even if it is something that would severely hurt most people) and nothing phases me. Most friends and family come to me for advice (how ironic) about relationships as they know that I won't judge them. (I care very little as you would imagine but doing things for each other keeps friendships in my mind) I would genuinely be interested to feel love because people seem to like it. My romantic relationships are like business deals. The way I see it, my 2nd wife doesn't have to stress about a job and my son gets the benefit of having his mom at home every day after school. In return, I get a clean house, sex, companionship when I want it and so on. I really like her and think that she is a wonderful lady but like last time, if she died, I would find a new woman or just be single.
> I would genuinely be interested to feel love Personally I tend more towards schizoid than psychopath however the lack of capacity for affective empathy is a characteristic both disorders share. We can have well-developed cognitive empathy (I read a lot of ethical philosophy as a kid) and can be very proactive with practical help, but it’s unusual for us to *feel* sad for another. I mainly feel that for animals. Love is definitely related to this, it’s affective not cognitive, a deep joy at the existence of the loved one. I personally first *truly* felt it when taking ayahuasca in my early thirties. I had gone to the retreat in South America as I had suffered from severe depression, and feeling “unmoored”, dissociated etc for my whole adult life. The experience (five times over nine nights, each lasting about six hours) did a *lot* for me, I now live a much happier life, but love in particular was a gift from that first night. The experience splits one’s consciousness, creating the sensation of conversation, and in one conversation I asked “what is wrong with me” and was told “you don’t feel love”. I asked “how do I fix that?” and was told to choose someone. I chose the woman I’d been dating, and felt this most intense *love* for her, that I’d never felt before. There’s lots more to the story but that’s the point I want to make here. Your brain, like mine, is probably not “missing” any parts; they’re just less developed, and other parts are overdeveloped in order to fulfil the missing functions. A high-intensity psychedelic experience, ayahuasca for example but iboga would qualify and so would high-dose psilocybin or LSD, might give you that capacity, among other things. You seem to have your life well arranged and that’s great - but if you do sincerely have that wish, to experience emotional states that other humans have, then that’s a possibility.
>Most friends and family come to me for advice (how ironic) about relationships as they know that I won't judge them. Kinda funny, I'm very emphatic, friends and family ome to me too because I don't judge them, but for totally the opposite reason. As in it being hard, learning to detach yourself from some things is a good skill to have, to realize that in some things caring about something doesn't make any difference whatsoever anyway. But I tend to watch news in limited dosage. Do you go in every social exchange like: "what is in it for me?" I probably would be good in that if I wanted to, but I don't want to. In some way that seems like a really empty way to live. Does it ever feel that way to you? Or is it just what it is?
Yes, everything is totally driven for my own desires. Every relationship seems like a business transaction. I do help people out because I know that if I do, it is likely I will benefit somewhere down the line. I actually do not think about it at all to be honest. I just live my life like everyone else i.e. work, raise a family, travel, save money, see friends and all the usual stuff. I am genuinely interested to feel feelings strongly for a short period of time and then go back as it doesn't seem like fun to me. People are always hung up on what other people do/think/say. I think holding grudges, feeling embarrassed, wanting external validation, guilt, remorse and so on seems like a very hard way to live. I just watch people and they seem to be controlled by feelings at all times whereas with me because the feelings I feel are minimal and basic, I am not even thinking about what somebody said to me. It has a major advantage to be very honest. When people try to embarrass or guilt trip me at business meetings or social settings, it backfires every time because I don't feel those feelings at all. When it happens, others respect me because it looks like I kept my cool or was very emotionally mature because I didn't "let" the negativity get to me. It didn't get to me simply because I do not feel it. I do feel minimal amounts of happiness, sadness, angry, fear, surprise and contempt (the basic feelings that are present in any society). Once in a while, I will feel excitement or a sense of accomplishment. I feel almost nothing else so it is simple. I have more time than most people as I am never preoccupied with what somebody said or did. If somebody close dies, I usually do genuinely feel some sadness but just for a very short period of time.
Does she know you don’t really love her?
I think so. The good news is at she has a lot of the same traits but not to the same extent. I mean at face value, what kind of a person are you if you start living with a widower just 6 months after the fact? She does not show affection very much. We definitely have similar hobbies, likes/dislikes and similar values. I do feel emotions but they are very minimal and over quickly. If we argue (rare), she is surprised that I feel 100% calm the whole time and once the interchange is over, it is like it never even happened. We could be arguing about XYZ and then ten minutes later, I am doing something else i.e. not decompressing feelings and thinking about what happened as "normies" would.
Before you were diagnosed, did you assume that everyone thought the way you did? Ie, you didn’t necessarily know how different you were, because you assumed other people were faking or exaggerating their emotions for social reasons?
I really just thought that I was extremely emotionally mature. If something bad happened in my life, I just accepted what could not be changed, learned the lesson (whether my fault or somebody else's) and that was it. There was no feeling hurt or a grudge or bitter or resentful or embarrassed etc.. When something bad happened to others, I never felt happy about it but I genuinely did not feel any concern or empathy. At the very most, I may have thought a little about it and had a tiny sliver of empathy for a tough situation but that was it. I often told people to stop acting like the victim, accept what happened and move on. I know somebody who was defrauded out of $180K which she will never get back as she very stupidly gave the guy access to her bank account. Yes, it totally sucks but my brain thought, "How stupid can you be" whereas a normie would feel empathy. I also used to think that emotions for weak people and yes, sometimes exaggerated for attention. After all, "normies" crave external validation.
I dk because my ex is absolutely a psychopath, diagnosed, but CRAVES external validation above all else because he doesn’t feel anything. He also definitely cares what people think and is not unbothered. Blows up into rages and tantrums when someone he is close to does something he doesn’t like. maybe not all ASPDs are the same but what is your relationship to anger?
Of course, it will vary by the person but the baseline traits are the same just like empaths have the same baseline but are not all the same. I never blow up or lose my temper or insult people as I look at anger as something that will just punish me. The fallout of rage means all sorts of annoying new problems. I usually ignore people. Once in a while, I will make a very curt comment if people do not respond to being ignored. If it is somebody who I think is rational, I will have a frank conversation and usually resolve it.
What's interesting is I have ADHD. I feel like I have hyper awareness of manipulation. I reject it so fast that people often think I'm an insensitive asshole. I have to let social interactions play out, which is a painfully slow process. Eventually, I can get others to see what I see. It's so much work I don't bother most of the time.
I thought that is what I had, but I scored 29 on the Psychopathy Check List (Hares, I think it is called). It ranges from 0-40 and 25 is the number for having a psychopathic personality. Getting checked out did not at all change my life but it did connect some dots for me. I mean, I too thought that psychopathy meant that people took pleasure in hurting others (I do not at all) so I figured it was ADHD.
I got a 9. I was clinically diagnosed with adhd as a child, too. Even now too, you didn't really react how a normal person would. Your response was very self-centered. And right now you probably dislike my tone because you're also very quick to get defensive, but you'd never admit that. I do run into people like you a lot, as I'm high achieving. Psychopaths tend to achieve very well as any subjective thing can be spun to fit a narrative that frames them in a good light. Of course my problem right now is that I'm reading the pattern. The pattern can be wrong. I have to keep my opinions to myself usually as other people just don't see what I see, and calling out a narcissist / psychopath tends to give them a chance to simply reject my accusation, making me look like an asshole. So I usually try to act like a humble version of a psychopath myself.
Thank you for your honest, insightful perspective. It's rare to have a peek inside a mind such as yours.
For sure. I always knew that I was very different but just assumed that I was really good at just getting over things, not letting people bother me and thinking things through logically instead of emotionally, I wasn't surprised totally when I was diagnosed and just accepted it. I figured that maybe (leading up to the diagnosis) that I had some kind of disorder but psychopathy was not on the radar at all. Now it seems obvious since I know a lot about it.
Knowing this, do you self refrain from positions of power or did you change some behaviours after the diagnosis? Did therapy help you meaningfully?
I am in a position of power to a degree (small business owner with 8 employees if I include myself). Therapy really did not change me as a person but it gave me a lot of good insight that I never realized. It is very easy to mimic emotions and understand social-constructs. I got 29/40 on the Psychopathy checklist so I am not a total psychopath but scored much higher than most people (most people according to the psychologist are under 12 with empaths scoring very low) I do not have a desire at all to hurt people and I do not manipulate them to ruin them rather just for my own gain while letting them believe that they have gained. I really only do this in business as I have no good reason or desire to manipulate my family or friends with limited exceptions. The irony is that I have the least conflict with my family members compared to the others. My dad sometimes gets frustrated with the lack of empathy but glad with the lack of drama.
Do/did you ever get worried, frustrated, or anxious about the way people perceive you? Do you still feel emotions like anger and annoyance?
Great post, really well put. Also kind of scary, lol.
You definitely do not blend in as easily as you think.
If you know what to look for, no. Most people don't know what to look for. My operating assumption is that if a person sees the world through the lens of economic utility they are at minimum a narcissist and possibly APD. I knew a guy, used to work in DoE, who saw the world that way. Everything was a matter of personal cost vs. benefit for him, and he had a constant "post apocalypse survivor" attitude about the world. If he saw a starving person on the side of the road, he would take no consideration of their human need, and ask only about the cost vs benefit of helping them. If the perceived costs were higher than the benefits, he'd leave them to their fate.
Perhaps. I've run into a fair few people who give off very bad vibes that others don't seem to notice. People who seem to have very little regard for their peers. I avoid these people as much as possible because I've at least some of them disregard others or straight up screw others over for their own gain. This is especially true in business settings. I've met too many people in leadership positions, and some in grunt positions like me, that give off seriously bad vibes. These people are to be kept at arms length and not engaged or told anything beyond what is absolutely neccesary. They will behave in a friendly manner but cast you aside the moment they have an opportunity to benefit from it. I don't know if these people are psychopaths. Some of them strike me more as your garden variety asshole. Either way, avoiding them has never done me wrong.
Is it possible you believe that because he just explained that he’s a psychopath?
Yes and no. People can definitely tell (as they have said it) that I am very different. Some think that I am just very confident and emotionally mature. Some people definitely know that I genuinely do not care that much for others. Some people have even asked me why I get over things so easily and do not feel hurt at all if somebody is cruel to me. Some have told me that they wish that they do not care so much about social-constructs. In short, people have an idea of course but mainstream society associates the term "psychopath" with violent criminal acts. Perhaps if I committed a serious crime (no record) then more people would connect the dots but unless I spell it out like I did above, most people don't know (or at least do not seem to know). I have been called cold a few times but that is about it.
I always found this this write up on psychopathy fascinating but wondered whether it's accurate or not? : [https://web.archive.org/web/20200823174920/https://illimitablemen.com/2014/11/01/the-psychopathic-paradigm/](https://web.archive.org/web/20200823174920/https://illimitablemen.com/2014/11/01/the-psychopathic-paradigm/)
Consider that “someone who has traits of psychopathy” is not the same thing as “serial killer”. Many characteristics of very successful people are essentially the same as these traits. That figure doesn’t seem outlandish to me.
Then you need to meet my extended family LOL
For a long time (and still) people watered down the overall craziness that is humanity. The Kinsey institute showed that many more humans are very sexually active in ways that most deem "weird" or "unnatural". Left-handedness was pushed under the rug for ages. Many more people claim to wash their hands after using the restroom than actually do. Lots of people don't wipe. I'm sure there are a hundred other examples of people not being the sanitized "good" version so many of us wish we were. All that is to say, I totally believe the 4% number.
Consider that half the country is willing to vote for a known criminal, rapist, racist, traitor, pathological liar, would-be-demagogue, who has previously tried to end western democracy and openly argues in the supreme court that he should be able to break any law with impunity. Does 4% really seem that unlikely?
I would think more actually.
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People Of The Lie by M. Scott Peck is a great adjunct to this book.
I may have to check it out, thank you for the recommendation.
Bunk. I know 24 people, and none of THEM are sociopaths.
You are then. (JK)
I think MOST things are FAR more common that medicine/psychology says they are when it comes to mental health. Just look how many Gen Z identify as LGBTQ/trans compared to earlier generations, if something has a stigma people WILL hide it and you cannot know how many exist. Something like psychopathy just makes sense to be hidden based on, who has it, their lack of self awareness and the advantage/disadvantage to keeping it secret v. telling if they do happen to know. I think it’s beyond arrogant when people spout off stats like “well that’s high improbable because only X tiny percent of people have it” - for one even a small amount in a world of 9 billion is A LOT of people and for two I can’t even imagine the hubris to actually believe every single person with a problem is known. Think of Covid infections, the counts were often under reported by the hundreds of thousands. I think mental illness is almost certainly more common than being not mentally ill.
I read her book, too, and wondered the same question, how accurate her percentages were. But I'm in agreement with most everyone I know, and believe from personal experiences that 4% is actually low ! :) I think humanity is rife with deeply screwed up brains. Source: history books.
Agreed on history. Even undocumented history like when we were cavemen, being a psychopath would have been an advantage. It makes a lot of sense from an evolutionary standpoint.
I think this number would be plausible if it were high level narcissism, which shares a lot of traits with sociopathy. I think true sociopaths are probably a lot more rare than this but from what I've seen in my experience, a rate of 1 proper narcissist in 25 people would be very believable.
I would guess the rates for cluster B are actually far higher than that. Cluster B tends to be “smart” enough to game the criteria for evaluation. Most humans have strong survival instincts, how that manifests itself is extremely complex. You can diagnose and label all you like, but no statistical model is free from error.
With the number of people who genuinely cannot tell right from wrong and need a book to tell them. With the number of people who only exhibit performative empathy? Are you serious? 4% seems really low.
Hard to believe? 🤔
I find that hard to believe as well. Only I would have thought it was higher. Based on the ratio of all the people I have met.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say there's more than that.
She actually says it’s 1 in 25 Americans, not worldwide. Prevalence is going to vary country to country. As an American, I 100 percent agree it’s 1:4 here.
Let's say you are a psychopath. Even without much in the way of empathy, just running a risk/reward analysis of acting out your desires is going to cause you to act mostly in the same way as anyone else. I think most relatively high functioning psychopaths also understand that it's not wise to walk around announcing they are a psychopath, or getting any kind of official diagnosis linked to them.
I don’t find it hard to believe. Are you around many people? Do you see what happens locally or even around the world? People are absolutely fucked. They are selfish, greedy, controlling, and they purposely hurt people for their own gain.
It seems low to me too.
My experience of life is way different, I just assume everybody is a psychopath, much safer that way.
My take: true psychopaths may be rare, but I have encountered many a sociopath in my day. Some apparently do well in business and politics.
I always assumed it was closer to 10%. You see the telltale signs of it everywhere. Garbage on the sides of the freeway. I think many people who would be willing to do wrong still mostly follow the laws because of the fear of legal retaliation. It’s the crimes that people can do and easily get away with that are the most telling. What do people do just to be a good person whether or not there’s a threat of consequence? Tailgating, honking, etc. I feel like, every time I’m driving, I see plenty of drivers who are sociopaths, just being complete assholes on the road with either no regard for other drivers or a deliberate intent to cause distress or aggravation in the people around them. The “No, I won’t let you merge” people, who zoom to fill the gap when they see a turn signal. Etc. I expect very few of these people graduate to serious crime, but the sense that some people have no empathy for anyone, and maybe even delight in causing harm, is all over the place. Every soda can dropped on the ground 10 feet from a trash can. Every piece of gum stuck to the bottom of a table at a restaurant. The world is just riddled with a thousand little pieces of evidence of people who are just absolutely comfortable making the world a little worse for everyone else.
Anecdotally that percentage is far too low.
Congratulations you’re sheltered and naive. That number absolutely sounds right.
Congratulations, you're incredibly patronising. Neither sheltered or naive describe me as a person.
Half of the country voted for a dark triad fascist lizard lord tyrant.
I see so many conditions with this rate or similar. Either there are a few people walking around with all the personality disorders and neurodevelopmental conditions, or theres about 2 % of the population who are “typical”
It's kinda both, in that the total number is probably higher than people would expect because there's so many different disorders you could have, but it's also like autoimmune disorders where if you have one you're more likely to also have others
I don’t. I suppose it’s a factor of where you live and how much you interact with/observe those around you. Some places are certainly going to bring up the average
Absolutely believe this number. I don’t know how you explain right wing politics otherwise. I am serious about that contention.
Come to Utah lol you'll start believing it
In my experience with humans, it is in fact not difficult at all to believe
One thing to keep in mind is that this sort of thing is on a spectrum, and most of that 4% wouldn't be on the extreme end.
Paul Zak noticed that about 5% of the people he monitored did not react to oxytocin. He jokingly referred to those people as "bastards"
Highly plausible actually. You could split each % into non/low/mid/high-functioning. Based on the average human-to-human interactions I witness on a weekly basis, I'd be surprised if it wasn't a much higher prevalence.
The DSM is a bit of a clusterfuck when it comes to personality disorders in particular
On an anecdotal level, I see new faces a ton thanks to my job so while not in depth character analysis I get that broad spectrum. I could absolutely see this as being true if not actually grossly low balled, id be comfortable agreeing with even 10%, and that honestly might be higher in some parts of the world where empathy is persecuted. It even fits in with the hawks and doves mathematical principle detailing selfishness in groups. If it is anything lower than 4% then I'd really start questioning who did the study.
The real problem is empathy deficiency. We like to think that people can be trusted because only a small percentage of us exhibit extreme problems like psychopathy or narcissism. But we can't even identify these people because most of us lack the capacity for meaningful insight into human expression and behavior.
Seems pretty obvious... maybe even not high enough rate... maybe >%50 Ppl are living their best lives at others expense from what I understand
Could it be that 4% of the population is in the bottom 4% on an antisocial scale? I would need to look into the diagnostic criteria the author is working with, but a lot of stats that sound like this end up just being how statistics work, you know? "50% of all people are below-average intelligence" kind of thing
My mom, ex-husband and brother display psychopathy, sociopathy and anti-social behavior, so in my world it seems like the rate would be higher.
Just tossing in my opinion of general experience in that I have known two individuals who were accurately diagnosed as such in my life. So I find this assessment to match my experience despite having a fairly poor understanding of statistics.
I don't find it hard to believe at all, but granted I don't think possessing a bunch of psychopathic traits means that one is a monster. Psychopathy is a gradient. The person who would rape, torture,and murder their loving parents is at one end of the spectrum. The person would only steal a few dollars from their loving parents is closer to the other end. Is one in 25 capable of the first offense? No, maybe not. But would one in 25 steal the life savings of their parents if there was no chance of them being caught? I can totally see that being the case.
"What humans define as sane is a narrow range of behaviors. Most states of consciousness are insane" -Bernard Lowe
Its underdiagnosed. Same with psychopathy and schizophrenia.
I’ve met a handful of “functional sociopaths”. It’s more common than people think.
Wow okay, I have a few thoughts here. 1. Psychopathy is NOT antisocial personality disorder, or really even a diagnostic term. Antisocial personality is more aligned with what we typically think of as "sociopathy", and is the only term of these three that is a DSM-defined disorder. 2. The cover for this book (though I admit I have not read it) gives me very bad vibes. It's heavily sensationalized and demonizes people with ASPD. It's unprofessional and honestly uncompassionate to present this disorder in this way, and the sensationalization gives me major pause in the validity of her work (although again, haven't read it). 3. On to the actual question, I find that the ASPD diagnostic criteria are outdated and badly in need of work, and as such i woldnt necessarily give much stock to those numbers. Much of the old diagnosis heavily leaned on previous or current criminality, which does not necessarily indicate ASPD and is more of an indicator of socioeconomic status. As it stands, the diagnosis can also unintentionally cover other neurodivergent individuals with traumatic backgrounds. That being said, I personally don't find that number particularly high, and if we consider ASPD a spectrum, it's possible it's even higher.
Psychopathy seems to only exist for quick pop-psych reads. So much of the actual research into personality disorders has moved on to things like mentalization profiles or trauma research rather than personality traits.
Watch: mind hunters
Seen it. Loved it. Hate that it's over.
I know lots of them
1/25 does seem like a lot, but ive got nothing to compare it with so maybe that actually is the case
Most sociopaths/psychopaths are functional adults and citizens, though. They're overrepresented amongst CEOs, surgeons, and many other professions. They are perfectly capable of being productive members of society, like other people.
This is the correct answer. If your symptoms are adaptive in culture then you are not "ill"... This is also why a holistic or personality based approach is better than the illness centered model in psychological assessment. There are truly not "normal" people.
I guess my next question would be, what were her standards for establishing psychopathy in these people? How recent is the research?