I read that already. This is interesting: but psychopathy leans towards the hereditary whereas sociopathy tends towards the environmental. *emphasis mine What i am saying, have been saying, though is this: No person shows complete lack of empathy.
My psychiatric nursing book talks about antisocial personality disorder. It states that sufferers of that disorder "show no remorse." According to my book, the illness has at least a partially genetic basis and sufferers exhibit no anxiety or depression yet its most common comorbidities are depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, substance abuse disorder, and somatization disorders.
Really? And your evidence for this is....? Oh wait. Is it the same sort of "evidence" you had for the Moon not affecting tides? Your own ignorance and disbelief. I mean you obviously didn't actually read the links which stated "Psychopaths also lack empathy towards others" (what does "lack" mean to you?*), "Lacking in conscience and empathy" and "Apparent lack of remorse or empathy for others". * Clue: Definition: 1. [noun] the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable
You know sometimes you get an inkling that a friend or work collegue is a sociopath. Now you may laugh, but my concerns started when I knew someone who would never get their wallet out and buy a round of drinks. It was not that they wouldn't do it, but the way in which they wouldn't do it.
there is the conflict. what i have been saying is that all people have exhibited lack of empathy. Do we not walk past the homeless person onthe street? Perhaps stepping over them as they are sprawled out on the pavement. You sadi, the sociopath never shows empathy but throughout history we see examples of them showing some kind of empathy ay some points in their lives and even when they are psychotic they go home and show empathy towards someone else.
A lack at times. Which does not mean that we do not have empathy. Not exhibiting empathy is not the same as not actually having any. Hence my comment about me not requiring food or drink. No, I said that they lack empathy. Clever socio/ psychopaths can fake it to get themselves into a favourable position. Do you not read and learn anything at all about life and people?
Yeah but I'm talking about the actual thing of wondering if someone is a sociopath in it's own right as a member of the public not knowing anything at all about a highly specialised subject. In other words, just y'all rememer to buy me beer if you see me! LOL
Of course there are psychopaths and good examples are serial killers or even just one instance of psychotic behavior. So a serial killer has a sustained level of psychotic activity otoh a person who "looses it" and commits murder out of anger can also be viewed as psychotic at the time of the murder. In contrast, people "fake" empathy all the time and that does not mean they are socipaths. I think sociopath falls under the umbrella of psychopath
Hence (for the French at least) "crime of passion". Or the verdict "guilty but not responsible due to state of mind" or whatever it's called. Except you have been shown that you are incorrect. Read the two separate links I gave you.
you are not understanding something by over-thinking it thereby confusing the matter. i also did not say every slave-owner or everyone in the society but slave-traders before or even human traffickers today. if you really don't think they are sociopaths, then i can't help you. you can't blame everything on a cultural norm when the sociopathy was started by someone or is actively perpetrating it. also, the psychiatric community tends to like to label anything a disorder when it veers from the ideal when in reality sociopathy is not really like a definite disease such as schizophrenia or a physical disease. we can only go by the symptoms because psychiatry is still not as developed a field as understanding of the physical body. it's not like they can pinpoint a certain gene and say that is the causing the difference between x and y. what is labeled sociopathy could just be a lack of emotional development just as their are people who have different iq's, there are people who are not as evolved in the emotional sphere where there empathy is less developed. this does not mean, they don't feel emotions or are not emotional it's just that it may veer more toward extreme selfishness instead of more balanced. ufortunately, sociopaths may enjoy the pain of others as in a primitive feedback loop, they equate the suffering of others to feel powerful. sociopaths who enjoyed and have thought up excruciating ways to torture people and with all types of devices understood very well cause and effect as well as the type of physical and emotional pain that would be the result. it's not that sociopaths don't understand emotion, they very damn well do and that's what makes them dangerous. it's just that coupled with that understanding, they don't respect ethics. the heart of real ethic is a concern for humanity and alleviating suffering, a sociopaths ethics are about what provides gain and through prejudicial thinking. you can't be a conscious predator without prejudicial reasoning process. if they are not hurting or at least those they feel are like them, that's all that matters. there have been sociopaths that have got together to predate on others. even sociopaths can have a type of understanding between eachother and will not predate on eachother. my stepfather wouldn't see his wife as prey because she is similar to him nor most of his family but i have noticed those he does which he identifies as being very different. i mentioned before that sociopaths are very primitive in a way that they detect minutae differences and that is their cue for friend or prey. if they even 'smell' that you are different, then you deserve zero sense of regard. that's how a sociopath thinks and operates. his wife is a very authoritarian female that is rather very unfeminine but together they liked to predate or torture young girls who were vulnerable. they did that to me, they tried that with one of my nieces and tried to gain access with other organizations like girl scouts. they also have friends that are similar to them maybe not in their tactics but in sentiment or spirit. it's just not true that all sociopaths are like these freaks of society that just stand out like a sore thumb or don't get along at all. that is far from the truth. there was this guy on the news who ordered his wife to lock her daughter in the closet and starve her. why? because he didn't like her. of course he knew it was illegal and of course he knew he was wrong but they don't care. he had no sense of humanity toward her at all, just primitive and prejudicial hatred. this doesn't mean that he didn't have regard for those who he liked. he was out playing tennis with his buddies. there was also a very sad case of a man who beat up his girlfriend's little boy to the point he had not a spot on his body that wasn't bruised. did he do that to everyone or did he want to? not necessarily. do they know it's wrong, of course they do. why did he do that to the kid? because he didn't like him for some reason. again, non-sociopaths exercise some degree of caring or ethics in regards to others. that's the difference between a sociopath and non-sociopath, sociopaths don't and only if they have to which is why laws exist. let's not kid ourselves, when it comes to sociopathy there are gradients. there is a level of sociopathy in just about all people. after all, we predate on animals for food or use them for our benefit. but still, even with this knowledge we try to make it less miserable because we are aware of the pain. sociopaths may enjoy inflicting pain, even on innocents. when people tend to call it a disorder is when it becomes more extreme but there is just a gradient level of how much a person is an asshole more or less. there are people who care less for or exercise ethics than others. there is a lot of people like this and they aren't labeled sociopaths usually until they do something flagrantly obvious such as murder or rape but there are lots of sociopaths that are passive-aggressive, not everything has to be done in an overt manner. this statement clearly indicates you either don't live in the real world or are getting so lost in the abstract you are forgetting reality. many or most people "are" self-serving and about their needs/wants with less consideration for others. to not realize that, is almost ludicrous for an adult. the difference is with a sociopath they really could care less or have no sense of humanity toward others (that means they would literally do anything with no remorse or guilt) that they don't care for whereas non-sociopaths have general ethical values or sense of humanity. from what i've observed, this seems more of a choice than an 'ailment' which gets them off the hook. it's just the easier way to be a sociopath and only do the right thing so to speak when you are being watched.
Hey , I am sorry if I rub you the wrong way. I suffer from A. P. D. I always have and maybe always will. I have also tried to overcome the affliction and have worked very hard to understand this part of my life. I am just a friggen troll I know and you may not see any value in trolls . You are missing a chance to understand this affliction at a greater depth as I stand naked ready to be scrutinized, Alright then you did a good job of making me feel like my life has no value . Maybe it don't seeing how carpenters are for the most part not needed so much these days . What does a dyslexic craftsman to do? I don't know? O.K. playing with my self again later dude , don't hate me
Have you been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder by a professional? If not, then can't say you have it. People with antisocial personality disorder are largely unimportant. They go through life accomplishing nothing, abusing substances, and being very unhappy. Is this something you want to identify with?
There are a lot of people who go on the internet and because they don't feel well, search for a mental illness that they think describes them at a certain point in time. Diagnosis of the disease is a lot more nuanced than thinking you match the criteria in a list. In fact, most of the criteria are normal parts of human nature that everyone experiences at one time or another. It's when those criteria come together and cause distress in your life that you need to be evaluated for having a mental illness. You might just be an unusually selfish person and nothing more.
@Birch Birch: i also did not say every slave-owner or everyone in the society but slave-traders before or even human traffickers today. if you really don't think they are sociopaths, then i can't help you. You do realize that all people who engage in criminal activity are not necessarily sociopathic/psychopathic. If you look at the numbers the majority of serious crime convicts do not belong to that category. So no you cannot diagnose someone based on their involvement in say trafficking. Birch: you can't blame everything on a cultural norm when the sociopathy was started by someone or is actively perpetrating it. You didn't understand my post. Slave ownership was a cultural social norm, the context of this forces people in a variety of ways to conform to certain modes of thinking or behavior. This is distinct from the disposition of psychopathy which is why I say you cannot diagnose a nation for example of being psychopathic in terms of the behavior of all its citizens. There were reasons why people conformed to the Khmer Rouge regime as brutal as it was. This is distinct from someone behaving counter to the norm without any provocation. Would a psychopath thrive under the Khmer Rouge? Sure. Same as they would have thrived in Nazi Germany. Birch: also, the psychiatric community tends to like to label anything a disorder when it veers from the ideal when in reality sociopathy is not really like a definite disease such as schizophrenia or a physical disease. I already pointed that out in post# 16 but its the psychiatric studies that point to this fact. Birch: what is labeled sociopathy could just be a lack of emotional development just as their are people who have different iq's, there are people who are not as evolved in the emotional sphere where there empathy is less developed. this does not mean, they don't feel emotions or are not emotional it's just that it may veer more toward extreme selfishness instead of more balanced. The study of psychopathy falls into neuroscience. So there are very real differences in the brain of a sociopath/psychopath and these are differences they are born with not something produced by the environment which is why you cannot claim all deviant behaviour sociopathic, the social and cultural context of slaver or Nazi Germany are relevant to environment and that is very distinct to what you find in the behaviour of the sociopath/psychopath. There is now strong evidence that their neural systems do not function properly. 'The amygdala is involved in aversive conditioning and instrumental learning (LeDoux, 1998). It is also involved in the response to fearful and sad facial expressions (Blair et al, 1999). The amygdala is thus involved in all the processes that, when impaired, give rise to the functional impairments shown by individuals with psychopathy. It is therefore suggested that amygdala dysfunction is one of the core neural systems implicated in the pathology of psychopathy (Patrick, 1994; Blair et al, 1999). Interestingly, two recent neuroimaging studies have confirmed that amygdala dysfunction is associated with psychopathy (Tiihonen et al, 2000; Kiehl et al, 2001). Thus, Tiihonen et al (2000) used volumetric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to explore the relationship between amygdaloid volume and degree of psychopathy in violent offenders as measured by the PCL-R. They found that high levels of psychopathy were associated with reduced amygdaloid volume. Kiehl et al (2001) used functional MRI to examine neural responses in individuals with high (>28/40) and low (<23/40) scores on the PCL-R during an emotional memory task where the participant processed words of neutral and negative valence. Kiehl et al found a reduced amygdala response in the high-scoring group, relative to the low-scoring group, during the processing of words of negative valence. There have been suggestions that other neural systems are dysfunctional in individuals with psychopathy. Thus, on the basis of neuropsychological and neuroimaging findings for violent offenders, it has been argued that the frontal cortex could be dysfunctional (Morgan & Lilienfield, 2000; Soderstrom et al, 2000). However, all of these studies, with the exception of one by (Raine et al, 2000), have been with violent offenders rather than individuals with psychopathy. This is noteworthy as there are crucial differences between the general population of violent offenders and these individuals. Indeed, neuropsychological work with individuals with psychopathy, unlike work with individuals who are violent, has repeatedly found frontal functioning to be intact (Kandel & Freed, 1989). http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/182/1/5 Birch: ufortunately, sociopaths may enjoy the pain of others as in a primitive feedback loop, they equate the suffering of others to feel powerful. sociopaths who enjoyed and have thought up excruciating ways to torture people and with all types of devices understood very well cause and effect as well as the type of physical and emotional pain that would be the result. it's not that sociopaths don't understand emotion, they very damn well do and that's what makes them dangerous. No one anywhere, far less myself, claimed that they don't understand emotion or that they cannot read emotion. The ability to read emotion is not the same as being able to EMPATHIZE, feel the depth of emotion. That is something else entirely. Birch: the difference is with a sociopath they really could care less or have no sense of humanity toward others (that means they would literally do anything with no remorse or guilt) that they don't care for whereas non-sociopaths have general ethical values or sense of humanity. from what i've observed, this seems more of a choice than an 'ailment' which gets them off the hook. it's just the easier way to be a sociopath and only do the right thing so to speak when you are being watched. Again which is a lack of empathy. All you are saying is that they lack empathy that is why they could care less. But this lack of empathy is not a choice, they literally lack the brain functioning that allows them to feel empathy. I am not here to convince you of anything. If you choose to assess this subject by your own experience alone and not seek out new research, read the new studies, watch the documentary that highlights what they now know about this subject then fine. You are free to remain within a closed parameter of information but there is a growing expertise on this subject and the information is out there if you care to take a look at it.
you are preaching to the choir. get clear as you are making excuses. you don't think that human traffickers even today are sociopaths, then that is YOU. that is clearly sociopathic when one chooses to engage in such abject disregard for humanity and other's suffering or even causing it. we are not talking about brainwashing or the brainwashing of segments of society. using nazi germany as an example doesn't fly and yes, they were sociopaths. you seem to think that those examples i used of real people predating on other with no regard to their suffering are not sociopaths unless they are diagnosed as such, that's your belief however way you want to define it. sociopaths can empathize with other's feelings if they choose to but i pointed out the major difference between a sociopath and non-sociopath is that the former does not have a general sense of ethics or they don't exercise it. your points are impractical. the issue is not classifying people for it's own sake but how and why as well as how to deal with those who engage in sociopathic behavior. a person who can empathize with their family and friends but will still go and rape someone is still a sociopath! the man who starved his stepdaughter is still a sociopath! the man who beat the little boy day after day is a sociopath even if he has friends and family that he empathizes with! they don't all fit a narrow profile nor do all sociopaths live in ways where they dont empathize at all with others or with absolutely no one. otherwise, they would have zero support or connections. most sociopaths do have people they can connect with and even empathize with just like anyone else. hitler empathized with germans, hitler liked and cared for dogs but he murdered and experiemented on jews! the japanese head of unit 731 was a sociopath, even if he cared for his own family which he did. you keep on with this belief that sociopaths cannot empathize at all or with no one and that is not true. it's not necessarily that they can't empathize, it's their sense of humanity is unethical because their sense of humanity is not as developed. that is what causes them to act in unethical ways more than others. again, it's just that sociopaths will willingly commit barbaric acts or use people with no regard if they can get away with it. why? because it's narcissism, meaning they can empathize with those they identify with but they have no regard for those who they don't identify with even knowing they can feel and hurt. that's why the overriding attribute of sociopaths is narcissism.
