A sociopath is someone who has a pervasive and persistent disregard for the rights and feelings of others. This disregard is manifested in the antisocial behavior sociopaths show. While we usually think of antisocial behavior as criminal, not all antisocial acts are illegal. A person who slips up once is not a sociopath. Sociopathy is a lifestyle.
Since humans are designed to live in society, a healthy personality has prosocial inclinations. Therefore, people who are pervasively antisocial are disordered in the sense that they are not the norm (thank God). Although antisocial behaviors are observable actions like lying, stealing and assault, there are personality traits that cause antisocial behavior. It should come as no surprise that people who have a sense of entitlement, over-rate their own greatness and have poor self-control are more likely to hurt others and show pervasive antisocial behavior.
The American Psychiatric Association has defined a group of personality disorders it calls “cluster B”. According to a recent paper* by German psychiatrist, Christian Huchzermeier, M.D., “ The cluster includes disturbances of personality that go hand in hand with emotional dysregulation phenomena, a tendency towards aggressive—impulsive loss of control, egoistic exploitation of interpersonal relationships, and a tendency to overestimate one’s own importance.”
The disorders of “cluster B” go together because what underlies them is a disturbance in three developmentally acquired abilities I have called The Inner Triangle. These abilities are:
Ability to Love
Impulse Control
Moral Reasoning
These abilities that a child gains during development are a triangle because the development of each depends on the other two. A child begins to acquire ability to love in the first year of life, impulse control begins in the second year of life. At two years of age there is already a link between ability to love and impulse control. Children with the best impulse control also are the most loving/empathetic. Moral reasoning begins in the third year of life and its development depends on a loving nature and impulse control. Similarly the most moral kids are also the most loving and self-controlled.
I think of the cluster B disorders as different manifestations of damage to the inner triangle. I think of sociopaths as individuals who completely lack ability to love and have impaired impulse control and moral reasoning.
Given the Inner Triangle, it should come as no surprise that it can be difficult to find people who have only one cluster B personality disorder. For that reason individuals with antisocial personality, narcissistic personality, borderline personality and histrionic personality often have symptoms of the other disorders. If someone gets a diagnosis of only one of these, it doesn’t mean that the person doesn’t also have one or all of the others. The person making the diagnosis simply thought that the one chosen best described the person. You should know there is a gender bias in diagnosis such that women are often labeled “borderline.” These women can also be sociopaths who leave a trail of victimized friends, lovers and children in their wakes.
A recent study reported in Behavioral Science and the Law, “The Relationship Between DSM-IV Cluster B Personality Disorders and Psychopathy According to Hare’s Criteria: Clarification and Resolution of Previous Contradictions” examines the relationship between psychopathic personality traits as defined by the screening version of the PCL and Cluster B personality disorders. The authors of this study were careful to examine people who had only one cluster B disorder. They found psychopathy to be associated with all cluster B disorders.
The authors conclude:
“One clinical implication of our results, nevertheless, is that in cases where a cluster B personality disorder is diagnosed a high psychopathy value is to be expected, especially where antisocial, borderline or narcissistic personality disorder is involved. The PCL score is a better predictor of subsequent events, such as problems during (criminal) custody or a relapse into delinquency, than a diagnosis of a DSM-IV personality disorder, especially in forensic populations; therefore, an additional investigation with the PCL should be carried out, if a cluster B personality disorder has been diagnosed.”
It is important for Lovefraud readers to be aware of this study especially if there is a divorce/custody proceeding or a cluster B personality disorder has been diagnosed. Many people might think that if the partner has been “diagnosed borderline” or “diagnosed narcissistic” that means the partner is not a psychopath/sociopath. This study suggests otherwise. IF YOU ARE INVOLVED WITH SOMEONE WHO HAS THESE YOU HAVE TO CONSIDER THEIR HARMFUL BEHAVIOR AS AN INDICATION OF PSYCHOPATHY/SOCIOPATHY. There are some people with cluster B, histrionic, borderline and narcissistic disorders who are not highly antisocial. But if the person is lying, cheating and manipulating, that is antisocial behavior. This behavior in the context of any cluster B means the person is potentially very dangerous. As the authors state:
“Screening for PCL-based psychopathy can also be important for general psychiatric patients with a DSM-IV personality disorder, so that potential difficulties in the course of their treatment can be anticipated and this comorbidity can be targeted in the planning of therapy. Patients with both a DSM-IV personality disorder and PCL-based psychopathy can exhibit behavior that is particularly dangerous to therapy (Stafford & Cornell, 2003).”
If you have been diagnosed with borderline personality and reading this frightens you, I am sorry. You can improve by working on your inner triangle. Talk to your therapist about DBT a treatment that is very effective in improving the state of the Inner Triangle in people who are motivated to do it.
*The reference for the paper discussed is Behav. Sci. Law 25: 901—911 (2007).
Dear Constantine,
Thanks for that quote from Hare (Hare is my HERO!) LOL It is easy to blame a psychopath’s mistreatment of their children as the big factor in their children turning out to be psychopaths, when in fact, the kid gets a DOUBLE WHAMMY of both a bad parent and bad genes.
The studies done of identical twins who were adopted into different homes shows a big BIG connection to if one kid is a P the other one is also, but even if the kid who is “not” a psychopath (scoring <30 on the PCLR) does he score a 20 or a 29? None of the studies mentioned THAT aspect. Actually Psychopathy is not just an "is or ain't" concept, it is a SCALE of behaviors and thinking, the Bell Curve measurement of traits as you will.
I realize the PCL-R doesn't catch every person who is high in the traits…especially if they have managed to stay on the shiny side of the law, look at Bernie Madoff—I have no doubt he is a psychopath, or the BTK killer…but both of these men led lives that were apparently "normal" on the surface even though they were destroying others—and look at that Canadian soldier who was breaking into homes for years and stealing underwear before he started murdering women. I have no doubt he was a psychopath either….yet, if you had given him a PCL-R he would have scored low until you KNEW THE HIDDEN TRUTH.
Many "normal" appearing families hide a monster in their midst, that behind closed doors does horrific things, either emotionally or physically or both. Fortunately, though, not every child who is molested sexually becomes a molester, or every child who is beaten doesn't become a beater–and probably the majority of abused children do not become abusers. My P sperm donor had 4 biological children and as far as I can find out, only one became "just like his father" –and though neither my husband no I were psychopaths, but with both our fathers being psychopaths, we gave birth to one, I realize there is some environmental influence in which child with the genetics becomes a psychopath and which doesn't, but at the same time, as a life time breeder and observer of animals, I know that temperament is very hereditary in most kinds of mammals, and humans are definitely mammals.
This will be my last post. I am very surprised at many of the comments on this board, not from random posters, as that is to be expected, but from long time members. I was hugely surprised and disappointed that Donna chose to champion PsychoExWife but do give her a huge amount of credit for her work in general and her timely and fair response to my concerns about PEW.
However, the comments here are really starting to get to me. First my comment about a clear link between animal abuse and psychopathy turned into a anti-vegan rant (and yes, I see that whole exchange among a few people, not one person in particular, as a rant that kept addressing me even though I clearly said I didn’t want to get into it anymore). Second, now there are posters claiming there is no direct link between childhood abuse and sociopathy. You can’t be serious?
And before another person goes off and declares I am not open to others opinions- I most certainly am BUT I did not expect those kind of uninformed beliefs from THIS site. I thought most of us were quite educated on the topic of sociopathy and it’s incredible that there is still debate about the above two issues, at least here.
I will close by saying that just because one hero doctor became famous and wrote some books doesn’t mean he is the end all be all on even his own specialty. Even the famous have their bias, blinders, personal world view, etc., and just because they say something doesn’t make it true. Common sense alone should tell you that abused children are open to a host of psychological problems. I never stated that abuse was “the” cause of sociopathy but my “experts” certainly believe it is the PRIMARY trigger. Find me a psychopath who didn’t have some dysfunction in their childhoods- religious indoctrination alone can trigger it- Jeffrey Dalmer- the list is endless, and again, there may be some with that families “appear” ‘normal’ but that doesn’t mean they are and even if they were it ‘normal’ it doesn’t mean that just because Johnny didn’t grow up to be a measurable path, he secretly isn’t or that there isn’t a link regardless.
I wish you all well. There is clearly a lot of pain going around and healing to be done here.
Dear Whybother,
Well, of all the posters on this board, I’m probably the one who has taken the strongest stance against “argument from authority.” But as I said, in this case, I think Hare is nevertheless a force to be reckoned with.
At any rate, with all due respect, I think you’re taking this far too personally. A lot of us here–myself included–enjoy a nice “rough and tumble” intellectual debate; but as far as I can tell, there are no hidden agendas or ill-will being expressed in these posts. As Nietzsche was fond of saying, one can relentlessly attack IDEAS while being kind to the people who express them. Indeed, if we shy away from challenging ourselves in this manner, how can our own positions ever hope to grow or evolve?
And in the same spirit, it’s hardly fair to call a view “uninformed” when it is expressed by probably the world’s most credentialed expert in the field.
But again, I have no desire to annoy you, so I’ll leave it at that.
Whybother,
I also think you are taking these discussions too personally.
Many of us here disagree all the time. It’s bound to happen.
I agree with YOU that early childhood experience is THE crucial turning point that will create a spath or not. Perhaps Robert Hare is considering people like my spath brother and spath sister who were raised as the golden children yet became spaths. Child abuse, the way my parents implemented it, often goes under the radar. Robert Hare would not be able to see anything abusive about my “wonderful, sweet, charming parents”. Even I couldn’t see it (and I was there), until I educated myself by reading articles like http://parrishmiller.com/narcissists.html which explained all the subtle and not so subtle behaviors by which narcissists abuse there children.
Nobody is perfect, but when you pass on the P gene to your kids, you absolutely need to make the extra effort to modify it through environment. Unfortunately, our culture is part of that environment and it does everything to encourage narcissism over responsibility.
But anyway, I just wanted to jump in here to say, lighten up, all opinions are valued here, except spath ones. 🙂
whybother: here’s the list of what can cause fires on lf:
vegetarianism
religion
guns, and the right to bare arms (sorry, needed the funny in there)
ideas about ‘bi-sexuality’ of spaths
and on being misinterpreted i have never ever found saying, ‘i didn’t mean it that way, and i don’t want to get into it’, to be at all effective.
(of course THIS post might cause a fire also 😉 )
i state all of this because many of us have stood where you do right now. but in general we work past this and stick around for the other healing. contrary to sky’s evaluation, i don’t think all opinions about all things are valued here when they are first put forward. sometimes we have to disengage from certain discussions and let them die a natural death (then pick them up later and slowly wear down our nay-sayers. ;))
if you can stomach it, stick around. if not, i really wish you the best. you can always read and not post. many posters do that form time to time when it gets too uncomfortable for us.
amended to add: i think my point is, that lf is as imperfect as the rest of life, where when we try to introduce new ideas, or different ideas, we may be dismissed. we have to figure out how to work together (which sometimes means avoiding one another), but it IS a place where people DO understand about spaths and a lot of healing can happen here in that context.
and sky, if you ever tell me to ‘lighten up’ i am going to give you the raspberry.
it’s soooo dismissive and would hurt me. xo
A friend of mine sent me this link today about “the Dunning-Kruger effect”
As one scientist explained it:
people who may actually be very successful–intelligent, even–in other fields of knowledge make newbie mistakes and draw egregiously misinterpreted conclusions from existing data. Worse, they have no clue that they don’t know what they’re doing. In the arrogance of ignorance, they believe themselves the equals or superiors or real scientists who have spent many years studying the discipline in question and doing real research in it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Also, just because I am competent, educated and smart about X (whatever field of study I am an expert in) doesn’t mean that I know what I am talking about in Y field of study.
And I think that I am as guilty of this as others of this and I have observed it but didn’t know the name for this “effect.” Actually my last article about my own narcissistic belief that I could change or accomplish “anything” including the impossible task of reforming a psychopath….LOL is essentially about this. So I am not just throwing stones at others, I’m aware that the stones land on my head as well.
Here’s another link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome that I can also relate to.
I am very grateful to my friend for the SCIENTIFIC research and information that they send my way, and they have been a very big part of my growth both in knowledge and emotions by pounding me over the head with SCIENTIFIC research results and encouraging me to look at this from a RESEARCH and SCIENCE based focus, not for an emotional knee jerk reaction.
Though I admit I sometimes do DO a knee jerk reaction when other people post information that I know is PROVEN WRONG by real life real scientific RESEARCH I’m trying to remain objective.
One of the ones I got boinked on by RESEARCH was the question “which is cleaner, a wooden or a plastic cutting board?” Well, it looks OBVIOUS TO ME that the plastic cutting board would be cleaner than a wooden one….but RESEARCH showed that the wooden was much less likely to harbor bacteria….there is some substance in the wood that KILLS bacteria that is NOT on the plastic board which actually harbors them in it’s little micro-nicks. WHO’D A THUNK IT?
I’m sorry you are leaving Whybother…I do not believe any of us intentionally drove you away, I know I didn’t, but I do feel free here to discuss or debate or refute opinions, but I won’t name call anyone and say “you are stupid for believing that” but I WILL argue the belief. That is how we learn and grow here. I learn something NEW every day. There are a bunch of SMART folks here (doctors, lawyers, nurses, nurse practitioners, journalists, managers…etc etc) and that was one of the things that ATTRACTED me to LF is that the bloggers here are in general VERY WELL EDUCATED AND SMART…but that doesn’t mean that everything each of us believes is right, or wise, or best case….actually, we all got here for the same reason, we got hoodwinked by a toxic person who is high in the traits common to a psychopath and we fell for it for a while.
The group here is very diverse, there are old, young, fat, thin, PhDs or higher level, and others with a GED, straight, gay, not sure, employed and rich, unemployed and poor or employed and still poor. Male and female (though primarily female bloggers) But the very diversity of our group is part of what makes it so interesting. Ones who have been the OW and ones who were the wife/husband. Grandparents raising kids. Parents trying to co-parent with a disordered parent.
People who have parents, or children, or spouses, lovers, or people who have sibs who are psychopaths or ALL OF THE ABOVE. We’ve all been injured and to some extent are raw and more easily insulted or hurt, but as we heal that rawness goes away to a great extent and we can discuss our various ideas, agree to disagree, and sometimes call BS on someone’s ideas or actions…that’s what friends are for. And while a cyber friend may have more difficulty communicating with someone in text than in person (90% of communication is non verbal) after most people have been here a while, they don’t take offense at the honest discussion or even the occasional BS call out, but take it in the manner it is intended. There are damn few flamers here on LF and they are not allowed to stay here long, which is why I am still here and why most of the people are still here. The discussions ARE lively at times though, and if you will look at the PEW thread, none of us were shy about calling BS on Donna’s touting that blog if that is what we thought about it. This is Donna’s blog and I don’t say I agree with her on everything she says and I don’t think she thinks everything out of my mouth is pure gold either, LOL but we can agree to disagree in a civil manner and we do.
I hope you will stay around Why bother, you’d be surprised what you an learn from this bunch.
I am working so very hard on the grey (gray) rock thing that I actually kept my farm girl mouth shut. Oxy did just fine standing up for “our side”.
Just something to think about, I have no idea where this quote came from, but I love it. – When two people agree on everything, one of them is not thinking !!!
That is why love fraud is so special – thanks Donna
Dear Oxy,
Great points. One of the things I enjoy most about this site is what I think of as the “point/counterpoint” between personal experience and theoretical discussion. I think we have a very good balance here between the two.
I also agree with your thoughts on “scientific opinion.” At the same time (as you know), I think there is a way to engage in tentative critique of “established views” that is both probing and discussion-enriching, rather than ignorantly dogmatic. For that matter, you have to remember that most of the great breakthoughs in science have come from the “renegade amateurs” who (perhaps precisely because they WERE amateurs) were able to think outside the box. (Picture Galileo looking at the moons of Jupiter with his homemade telescope–and the extent to which his conclusions were an affront to “current scientific opinion”!)
Not that any of us are Galileos! But that’s no argument for not pushing the envelope a bit! Though again, I think there is a nice “grounding” here, where if someone gets too far from reality, another person will call him out and say, “Prove it!”