If there is one thing that gets me argumentative it is statements like this one that appeared in a recent research paper: “non-incarcerated psychopaths have an arguably equal potential to illuminate our understanding of the emotional difficulties, such as lack of empathy and lack of conscience, which underlie psychopathy and which lead to offending behaviour.” (emphasis mine)
Now I agree that we can learn from non-incarcerated psychopaths, I wrote recently about a well designed study where sociologists conducted interviews of some. But I cannot believe that statements like the one above make it through editorial review for another reason. Researchers in psychology have spent the last 50 years and untold millions of dollars uncovering the cause of behavior. There is no mystery, we know what causes behavior!
Behavior is caused by rewards and stopped by punishment. Actually rewards cause behavior a lot better than punishment stops it in most people. That is because the brain reward system is functionally stronger than the brain punishment system for most, and especially for sociopaths/psychopaths. The rewards that cause behavior do so because they increase dopamine activity in the mesolimbic dopamine system.
Offending behavior exists and persists because it is rewarding and that reward affects the activity of the mesolimbic dopamine system. To put it bluntly, nothing but desiring/liking to offend leads to offending behavior. To say otherwise is to negate all the work that has been done in this area. The evidence is so strong that genes involved in dopamine metabolism and that system have been identified as candidate genes in the familial transmission of “offending behavior”.
I will repeat, a lack of empathy does not cause offending behavior, neither does a lack of conscience. These two may cause a person to show restraint if he is tempted to aggress against another, but it is the aggressive impulse that causes aggression. So a person with empathy and conscience can still offend if he has the inclination to do so. Furthermore, there is evidence that repeated offending erodes away empathy and conscience.
There is another source of evidence that calls into question the hypothesis that lack of empathy causes the sociopath’s behavior. That source of evidence is people with autism and autism spectrum disorders.
I recently found two very impressive discussions comparing moral agency in autism and psychopathy. The first is, Autism, Empathy and Moral Agency, a paper published in The Philosophical Quarterly (52:340, 2002) written by Dr. Jeannette Kennett, Deputy Director and Principal Research Fellow, Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, The Australian National University. Since I didn’t know to search Philosophical Quarterly for papers on psychopathy, I didn’t find that paper until I read “Moral Psychology, Volume 3, The Neuroscience of Morality: Emotion, Brain Disorders and Development” MIT Press, 2008. Dr. Kennett also has two chapters in that book. But Chapter 5, Varieties of Moral Agency: Lessons from Autism, is a discussion of Dr. Kennette’s paper by Dr. Victoria McGeer, of Princeton University’s Center for Human Values. There is a back and forth discussion of the issues raised, with several noted professors also participating.
Both sources begin their discussions by saying that moral agency has two parts two it, a thinking part and a feeling part. They trace these concepts back to philosophers Kant and Hume. Dr. Kennett concludes that Kant is right and that reason is the most important aspect of moral agency. Dr. McGeer points to emotions being important even for people with autism. I am going to summarize the arguments, then give you my own opinion.
Now like sociopathy, autism is a spectrum. A large percentage of people with autism are mentally retarded, so this discussion involves those autistic individuals who are not mentally retarded. I should point out that many sociopaths also have poor intellectual functioning. These sociopaths tend to live in prison.
Dr. Kenneth quotes the following description of autism,
The most general description of social impairment in autism is lack of empathy. Autistic people are noted for their indifference to other people’s distress, their inability to offer comfort, even to receive comfort themselves. What empathy requires is the ability to know what another person thinks or feels despite that is different from one’s own mental state at the time. In empathy one shares emotional reactions to another person’s different state of mind. Empathy presupposes amongst other things a recognition of different mental states. It also presupposes that one goes beyond the recognition of difference to adopt the other person’s frame of mind with all the consequences of emotional reactions. Even able autistic people seem to have great difficulty achieving empathy in this sense.
Autistic people also experience an “aloneness,” yet this aloneness does not bother them. They are indifferent to the presence of other people and do not require affection. One autistic adult is quoted as saying, “I really didn’t know there were other people until I was seven years old. I then suddenly realized that there were people. But not like you do, I still have to remind myself that there are people. I could never have a friend. I really don’t know what to do with other people really.”
High functioning autistic people recognize that they are very different from other people and report feeling “like aliens.”
Dr.Kenneth correctly concludes, “Both psychopaths and autistic people experience outsider status, deficiencies in social understanding and social responsiveness… Both have a tendency to treat other people as tools or instruments, (they have) a lack of strong emotional connectedness to others and impaired capacity for friendship.” She says clinicians and researchers link these impairments in both psychopathy and autism to impaired empathy. But autistic people are in fact worse off in this respect than psychopaths. Psychopaths at least can interact socially with ease and behave in a charming way.
She correctly questions, “If empathy is crucial to the development and exercise of moral agency, then why is the autistic person not worse off, morally speaking, than the psychopath?” She points out that in spite of the lack of empathy which is at the core of the disorder, “Many autistic people display moral concerns, moral feeling and a sense of duty or conscience.”
That autistic people are not antisocial is evidenced by the observation that few come to the attention of police. I did a Google news search using the terms autistic and arrest. Although there were many arrests of people for abusing those with autism, all of the arrests of autistics for aggression were for aggression that stemmed from self-defense. For example, a 10 year old boy with autism was arrested for assaulting staff at his treatment facility. The boy assaulted staff members because he was afraid and they tried to prevent his escape.
Drs. Kenneth and McGeer basically agree on the source of moral agency in those with autism, and what they say is fascinating with respect to sociopaths. The source of moral agency in autism is a preference for order and organization. Autistic people have reported that their sense of morality comes from a desire to see their world as orderly and organized. Dr. Kenneth states that this need for order gives rise to an extraordinary rationality in high functioning people with autism. She says that since morality is organized and logical that those with autism easily pick up moral principles.
I also did a search on morality in autism and can attest to several studies demonstrating normal levels of moral reasoning in autistic children who are not mentally retarded.
Drs. Kennett and McGeer also agree on the issue of the lack of moral agency shown by sociopaths/psychopaths. They both say that this group just plain doesn’t care about morality or regard moral principles as important. This is where psychopaths and autistics differ. Autistics identify with and value moral principles. Dr. Kennett states, “It is not the psychopath’s lack of empathy, which (on its own at any rate) explains his moral indifference. It is more specifically his lack of concern, or more likely lack of capacity to understand what he is doing, to consider the reasons available to him and to act in accordance with them.”
The point of disagreement of the two experts involves the relative role of emotion and reason in autistic people’s moral agency and valuation of morality. Dr. Kennett says that the autistic person is like Dr. Spock of Star Treck, and views life in purely logical terms. Since morality is logical and rational, autistics embrace it. Dr. McGeer disagrees, she states that the autistic need for order leads to an emotional connection to order and rationality. She feels that emotion does play a role in the moral lives of autistics, since she sees them as emotionally as well as rationally invested in maintaining order.
What about sociopaths/psychopaths and the need for order/organization? This disorder truly involves disorder. Psychopaths/sociopaths thrive on chaos and seem to have a dislike for order. Everywhere they go they are a source of extreme entropy as they take order and turn it into disorder. Both Drs. link the lack of appreciation for order to a lack of thoughtfulness in sociopaths/psychopaths. Sociopaths are both disordered and not fully rational or logical.
Dr. McGeer States:
This failure of reason may seem surprising. After all, our image of the psychopath is of a person who is rather good at serving his own interests without concern for the damage he does to others; hence of someone who is rather good at thinking and acting in instrumentally rational ways”¦As Dr. Carl Elliot observes, “While the psychopath seems pathologically egocentric, he is nothing like an enlightened egoist. His life is frequently distinguished by failed opportunities, wasted chances and behavior which is astonishingly self-destructive. This poor judgment seems to stem not so much from the psychopath’s inadequate conception of how to reach his ends, but from an inadequate conception of what his ends are.”
I agree with Dr. McGeer in that I believe that the emotionality associated with the need for order leads to the rationality of autistic people. The brain punishment system is relatively intact in autistics as compared to sociopaths and when an autistic person senses danger instead of being disconnected from the source of anxiety/fear, the autistic person engages thoughtfully to avoid danger (punishment).
The brain punishment/anxiety system of sociopaths is both hypofunctional and hyperfunctional in that they experience anxiety but fail to engage their thinking brains in the presence of danger. The high functioning autistic is well practiced at using his thinking brain to avoid anxiety. The psychopath rarely uses the thinking brain he has- to do anything other than get into trouble and hurt other people.
There are interesting parallels between the autistic’s use of reason to manage anxiety and normal development. It turns out that anxiety and fearfulness in the first two years of life actually predicts the development of conscience. The brain punishment system seems to be more plugged in to the rational brain in kids who are dispositionally more anxious. These kids also have a more highly developed sense of empathy later on.
I am thankful to Drs. Kenneth and McGeer for their seminal contributions to our understanding of sociopathy/psychopathy. I encourage the scholars among you to purchase their book from Amazon. However, I think they both missed a further unifying explanation for why autistics are moral and psychopaths/sociopaths are not.
That explanation involves the brain reward system, which is fundamentally different in autistics and sociopaths. Autistics do not experience social reward, maybe not even in the sexual sense. They are indifferent to relationships. The main reward autistics live for must be the love of thinking because that is all they have. I don’t see that too many are obese, so I don’t think they even turn to food for their source of pleasure. Instead their inner worlds are rich with thoughts and reason. They busy themselves with their own thoughts. Most like who they are, enjoy life and wouldn’t choose a different life if they could.
The sociopath on the other hand, is completely dependent on social reward. The sociopath cannot tolerate aloneness because he has no entertaining thought-life to fall back on. The problem with the social reward system in sociopaths is that the only social reward they experience is dominance. All of their antisocial behavior is motivated by their dominance drive. When they lie, cheat or steal it is about gaining short term interpersonal dominance over some poor unsuspecting person. Autistics can’t lie and are as indifferent to dominance reward as they are to affection reward.
Dr. Keltner and associates at UC Berkeley are engaged in important research on the effects on people of obtaining social power. It turns out that when many people get power reward they change. Self-esteem increases, empathy is suspended, and they become uninhibited and less rational. They also think more about sex and tend to use more foul language. Their moral agency is diminished.
I believe that this response to power reward is the point of connection between sociopaths and the rest of us. Sociopaths are constantly in a state of power intoxication, or are in search of their next power fix. The rest of us can manage the power reward better, but the behavior of our politicians suggests that power intoxication doesn’t only make sociopaths less rational.
I could use your help on two things this week. First, I want your opinion on the term moral agency. I have been looking for a single term that would describe the moral deficits of sociopaths. Up until now I have used the term low “moral reasoning ability” because I couldn’t find another better term. Do you think people will better connect with/comprehend the term low “moral agency” or poor “moral reasoning ability”? Actually moral agency is more precise and technically more correct, but will people get it?
The second question I have concerns successful psychopaths. When I read the autism papers, it occurred to me that successful psychopaths do one of two things that unsuccessful ones don’t do. They either have a better appreciation for order or organization, or they find someone to organize and order their lives for them. If you know a successful psychopath, can you comment on how he/she is successful in spite of the chaos he/she tends to cause?
Nottakingitanymore:
I read you post in which you question what you ex really was. My personal take is you’re attributing human emotions where there were none. I think those few episodes you recounted where he felt bad were just instances of him perfecting his game because he knew you had about reached you limit.
Never forget, they are masters of manipulation. They will do whatever they have to do in order to “win”.
I think it was Kathleen Hawk who one time said — turn off their words and watch their actions against a blue screen. That’s the real key. Actions always do speak louder than words.
Dear Nottakingitanymore,
I think you are too “kind” to your X, sounds to ME like he is a full fledged P, enjoying hurting you, and then PRETENDING REMORSE—they are SOOOOO good at that! That is why we don’t suspect for so long that they are EVIL and their intentions ARE TO HURT.
But now you are FREE of his problems, and his putting you down!
Nottakingitanymore – I sometimes thought my ex-S actually felt bad too, but with time and distance now that I look back I think the only thing he felt bad about was breaking his toy. He didn’t feel bad for the toy, he felt bad because he wouldn’t be able to use it anymore until he put it back together. That’s when he’d be really nice, apologize, hugs and kisses, but I’d still get the “you know I only say those things because I care about you and want you to know the truth.”
WHY ARE SOME SOCIOPATHS SUCCESSFUL?
A very big issue which I have about ’feeling and morally rational’ types (normal folks, regular guys), is that I have never witnessed them unify to act against a successful sociopath. Dumb S’s, yes, but they are not considered successful sociopaths, are they? Theoretically, any three or four people with a clue should be able to combine resources to expose and discredit an SS. But in my own personal life, I have never seen this happen. For some reason, people will not effectively unify to aid or prevent more innocent victims being targeted by SS’s, within a complex social context, until much obvious damage has been done. And thus the SS’s moral retardation is reinforced.
1. People knew what was going on when I was targeted for bullying by an SS, yet did nothing. The boss was a good man, yet fell for the SS’s lies. I responded by finishing my schooling, leaving that job, and adding 40# of muscle to my frame. I was targeted the way I was because I was perceived as weak.
2. I found out after the fact that a girl I worked with had been hazed into PTSD for pure sport. Management simply transferred her away, while allowing her tormentor to remain in our group. The rumors which remained involved her having “insecurity issues”, yet her tormentor never figured into any rumors. I found out the rest of the story straight out of that girl’s mouth when I bumped into her months later. Her perceptions ’jived’ with my own, and knowing the truth I became enraged. Some in that group believed me, but nobody wanted to unify against the SS. I assumed that issue ended when I was transferred to a site much closer to my home. But many years later, I found out via an unlikely source, that that SS was still smearing my reputation with lies.
3. I quit a job when the SS unified 3 other guys and our immediate boss against me. He’d accomplished this by pretending to be my “bro” and “buddy”, while setting me up behind my back. There had been other good people there who were aware of and/or been targeted by the SS, but nobody unified against him, and they moved on to other ventures when business within that company declined. Eventually, the good boss was ousted by the bad one (with support from the SS), and I had no choice but to quit. I had been a target because I was perceived as psychologically weak and naive. (I’d been burning the candle at both ends working that job while also working on two houses after hours.) I assumed that being a good employee would be protection enough. Wrong!
4. The best results I’ve ever had against an SS was the first time I consciously fought against one. Long story short, I discovered to my shock that our ’friendship’ had been in reality, a skillful cultivation for me to be used as a disposable tool for her career. In hindsight, she was a good psychoanalyst (and actor), with excellent ’people skills’, who could size others up for their usefulness as scapegoats, henchmen, enablers, rivals or allies. I committed the crime of refusing to do her dirtywork. She never took me on directly, as I was twice her size, instead skillfully manipulating others into believing that I was a threat to them, a ratsnitch, was mentally unstable, etc.. But again I was naïve. After figuring things out I attempted to negotiate a rational truce, which her warped brain interpreted to mean that her SS tactics against me were weakening me.
And again the pattern, nobody would unify against her, even when it was obvious that management were the only ones who liked and trusted her, and I was trying to expose the truth about her. But I did get results. While I volunteered for layoff never to be recalled, I had also gotten enough truth about her to stick. She eventual quit “to spend more time with family” (she went into local politics and spent more time with her boyfriend while her husband supported her).
The biggest mistakes I made was not trusting my gut quickly enough, allowing her to poison the big boss against me, and not being more knowledgeable about taking down SS’s. Yes, maybe she could have manipulated a couple of her henchmen into carrying out their veiled threats to kick my ass, but I could have countered with an army of my own. She’d forced her neighbor to quit in disgust (an INTJ) who was friends with the SS’s rival (a big ENTJ). She’d also slimed her 220# 6’3” tall (ISTJ) lead for mistakes she’d made, while taking full credit for the highly creative and inventive work being done by two other excellent employees (NF’s). Plus I had helped get the big boss promoted (ENXJ), once upon a time.
Right now I’m banging my head over this. Instead of using the considerable advantage I possessed, such as the above and my reputation among all the PMs as a hyper productive speed demon, I still managed a draw in that war (the SS and I ruined each other). But that’s all in hindsight, and after considerable knowledge had to be been learned the hard way.
I made the idiotic assumption that being “the perfect employee”, while remaining a civil team player, would magically bring allies to my cause. This is probably the SS’s greatest asset, next to their intelligence: they know that most people are either in it for themselves, or are afraid to risk confrontation and conflict. Nobody came to my aid until the game was over. SS’s know that political cunning and alliances will defeat the pure and good intentioned (but frightened) normal naïve people every time.
Their natural gift for ’low moral reasoning’, and their subsequent survival skill set, is reinforced by polite society.
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Student Of Sociopathy
Grant,
I’m cheered to read you don’t hold bed wetting against children. I never have. My kids pretty much toilet trained themselves when they were ready. Most of their peers were “trained at gunpoint” far before they were ready. The kids toilet trained under heavy pressure were pretty stressed, and not just about potty issues. I felt the demands placed on them were unreasonable.
Their parents were pretty stressed too, so I guess they didn’t realize the pressures the kids were under to meet their expectations.
Dr. Liane,
A couple of comments.
Defining the term “moral agency” for your readers in terms of a capacity to make reasonable choices based on ethical values rooted in an accepted moral code of behavior that separates and defines right and wrong should be easily understood by anyone reading your work. You are an educator! Why water down what you have to say! You have the chance to teach through your writing! Bring the reader up to your level and improve his grasp of the subject!
Dr. Liane wrote: “Remember that psychopaths do not pursue their own interests. They pursue short-sighted gratification of their drives for dominance and sex.”
This makes a lot of sense to me and helps me put some pieces together about something I observed and never quite understood. I think this is very accurate.
For those trying to understand WHY, I found the books “The Lucifer Principle”, and “The Global Brain” by Howard Bloom extremely interesting and worthwhile when it comes to developing an understanding of WHY people behave in certain ways that confound anyone with a conscience, an ethical perspective, or highly developed moral agency. Dr. Bloom considers human behavior from the perspective of “psychobiology” and casts a different light of understanding on social behavior from that which is routinely presented by experts in the mental health field.
As for successful psychos, my observation is that they frequently have an entourage doing everything for them! They exercise power and control over these clinging followers who often carry out the wishes, dreams, or orders of the S/P/N/!
Anyone who cannot function independently and without an entourage in whatever form that takes, raises red flags for me now. Whenever someone must get someone else or others to do even the simplest thing for them, and the “someone else” has obviously surrendered his/her sense of self to the S/P/N, it’s a blazing sign to watch out, IMHO! The chaos they create often has consequences outside of the inner circle. If the psycho is powerful, those closest to him and content with that status are often insulated from the immediate fallout until things eventually break down and backfire!
Eye Of The Storm
SOS,
You ask why Sociopaths are so successful. I don’t think they often are, but Psychopaths can be.
The only Psychopath I’ve ever met had a genius for exploiting people’s weaknesses. He used their perversions. He used their jealousies, envies and petty misunderstandings. He used their fears. He used their cruelties, prejudices and inevitably, their shame.
Over and over I watched the P’s one time dupes become his targets. I also saw subordinates who knew full well he was pulling scams to persecute people remain silent or even play along, hoping they’d be spared if they lay low. They weren’t. Not only were they eventual targets, but by that time these victims must have wondered if they deserved to be punished.
The various other cluster Bs I’ve known have been far too disorganized and impulsive to follow a long term scheme to completion. The S would have liked to, and occasionally thought he pulled one over. In reality he rarely had, and never for long.
SOS,
I saw an S destroy an entire hospital, which ended up being sold. I was there the first six months while this was going on and along with the rest of the nursing staff, we couldn’t figure out why no one higher up SAW This. Then half the staff left at the 6th month of this, then in the next six months the rest of us left, leaving ONLY one nurse there, and she was the human resources and infection control nurse.
Eventually the director of nurses was fired, the S, and the hospital administrator (a clueless dupe) then the hospital sold.
I think a lot of it is like the Jews in Europe and Germany, they kept a low profile and disbelieved what was going on as the psychopaths kept taking small “bites” a few at a time. I think in the corporate world many people think if they will just stay “neutral” and their head down THEY will be safe, and you are on your own.
Whistle blowers are notoriously beaten to the ground….that’s just the way it works. Everyone waits for someone else to blow the whistle, but they will not support them.
I went to work for a BPD (after having been warned BTW) and when she went into a RAGE and spit fire at me, I was totally shocked. I resigned that day. Found out later that she had done that same RAGE and Spitting fire at everyone in the office ONE AT A TIME to show her control and power. I, fortunately, was in a position to quit, but many of the other people weren’t. She was totally shocked when I put my resignation letter in her “in box” and came to me and said “we need to talk.” I assured her she had already said enough for both of us and there was nothing left to say. I worked out my notice and never again spoke to her, if I passed her in the hall I treated her like she was invisible.
ONe of the nice things in my profession (retired registered nurse practitioner) is that I could get a job in 15 minutes, never had any down time I didn’t want. Even now with times really hard and jobs going away, there is still a shortage of nurses to fill the slots that are there.
Elizabeth,
I “conditioned” mine instead of “training them at gun point” by sitting them on the potty and pouring warm water over “it” at which time they would urinate and then they got some reward and praise, didn’t take long til they had it down pat! Animal training comes in handy! I also train my dogs to “do it on command” by saying the word(s) as they are DOING it, and it isn’t long before they will do it when you say the word.
I also taught them (my kids) to “sit” and “stay” by the time they were a year old! LOL ROTFLMAO. I actually didn’t even realize it until a new friend pointed out that I talked to my kids like they were puppies! LOL But heck, when I got my kids I had never seen a new born baby so used the “skills” I had to teach them. It worked well with puppies and did with my kids too—I never did spank them with a newspaper though and I never “rubbed their noses in it”—the analogy with training puppies only goes SO FAR! LOL
Concerning the “successful ” sociopaths….here is my experience:
When I first met my S(online) she was way down and out! Living with a woman who had two kids and living off the government. Of course her situation was all the fault of the other woman(something I can laugh so hard at now) She was financially in ruins and emotionally as well. At least that is what she led me to believe and I fell for it hook,line,and sinker! The only bright spot in her life seemed to be her job where she bragged repeatedly how everyone loved her there and she really knew what she was doing. Now I can see a pattern in that for her. Her jobs is where she shines and becomes someone else to all her coworkers and the “front” that she so cautiously maintains.
I sent her thousands of dollars to pay off bills and get her out of her situation so she could move three hrs south to live with me. I even sent her the lead to the job she holds now. Ultimately, she interviewed and got the job at a property management company working the front desk. Within three months she had the owner wrapped so tight around her little finger that she was given a supervisors position over other candidates that had been there much longer. She had NO experience and was actually going to have several managers under her!!! Low and behold she worked her magic over and over and transformed into a shining star of the company. Loving that she was able to hire and fire people at her leisure. She has these people so fooled because they dont know who she is….that she abused me for three yrs, lied, cheated and if I had pressed charges for everything she did to me she would be in prison for 5 yrs. If I told everything I knew to her boss about the company policies she has violated she wouldnt even have a job. But her successfulness is her employment. She is very professional,courteous and it used to make me sick she adopted some of the “southern drawl” sayings and everytime she said them it would make my skin crawl but to other ears it was like “Oh she is so sweet” Yuck! But as soon as she walked in the door in the evenings she tranformed into a lying manipulating,conniving, user. And the worst part is, now that she is gone, Ive been finding out she was telling her coworkers and friends that I abused her!!!!!!! There are two of her friends(husband and wife) that I have somehow managed to be on my side. probably because my S had slept with the husband(LOL) and he used to work with her at her old job. When I started telling them all the things she had done they were like OMG she told us you did that to her. So it made for a good weeks worth of conversations and emails with them asking question upon question. They absolutely couldnt believe it!!! But I knew too many tiny details for them to think I was lying. Of course when my S found out I had been talking to these friends they were her instant enemies. Forget they had been friends forever ya know. She deleted both their numbers from her phone and they were now known as expletives instead of their first names.
So my S’s successfulness is her employment. It it where she keeps the spinal cord of her evilness in tact and “healthy” if you will. Where she wanders around in her fantasy that she is so needed and non dispensable.
Ox Drover,
My kids are just naturally easy going people. I think God sent me easy going kids because He knew I am a pushover. I even have a good natured husband and the world’s most easy going dog. This can’t be an accident. God knows I’m simply not lion tamer material, and has been merciful toward me.
As for the toilet training, it just kinda happened on their time table. They’d each watched the parent of the same gender, and wanted to imitate us. At that point in their development when they started waking up dry in the morning, I started taking them to the toilet when they woke up. They were pretty thrilled to be doing the big people thing. Within a few days they had it mastered. All the other kids in their play groups had been through months of exhausting drama, and still wore pull ups at night. We started later than everyone else, but within a few days we were done.
I’ve read volumes on toilet training, and volumes more have been written. I think the biggest problem is the pressure to start early. Daycares think they want toilet trained children. They should want sane children.