Dr. Robert Hare, who did seminal work in identifying psychopaths, refers to them as “intraspecies predators.” This prompted questions from a Lovefraud reader who asked,
- If psychopaths are indeed natural predators (by implication, their design is part of nature’s plan to maintain some balance) then would we ever be able to weed them out of society?
- Do they have a purpose in the natural order of things?
In this article, I’m going to address the second question. Then, next week, I’ll suggest an answer to the first question.
I don’t know about a purpose, but there are researchers who believe psychopaths are around us today because they survived the natural selection process of human evolution.
These researchers call psychopathy “a nonpathological, reproductively viable, alternate life history strategy.” This theory is outlined in Coercive and Precocious Sexuality as a Fundamental Aspect of Psychopathy, a paper published in 2007 by Grant T. Harris, PhD; Marnie E. Rice, PhD; N. Zoe Hilton, PhD; Martin L. Lalumiere, PhD; and Vernon L. Quinsey, PhD.
Evolution
Let’s talk about the evolution idea first. The authors write that our distant ancestors probably formed stable groups, characterized by cooperation and adherence to rules, which enabled early mankind to survive and flourish. However, some humans survived through cheating and exploiting others—the alternative life strategy.
Grant et. al. write that from childhood, psychopathic personalities are fundamentally different from others, but the differences are not the result of a medical failure or injury. They point out that pregnancy difficulties can be related to schizophrenia and mental retardation, but not psychopathy. “While many adverse medical conditions and injuries lead to antisocial and violent behavior, our selectionist hypothesis suggests that they do not cause psychopathy,” they write.
The early psychopaths—cheaters then as now—put a lot of energy into acquiring sexual partners, and were willing to use deception and coercion to do it. As a result, they produced a lot of offspring. Even if early psychopaths died young because then, as now, they probably engaged in high-risk behavior, their liberal procreation was enough to get the hereditary train rolling.
Sex and criminal behavior
Psychopaths first have sex at a young age, have many partners, and are uncommitted in sexual relationships. Studies show that people who have this approach to sex also are more likely to engage in criminal and violent behavior.
Some people, called life course persistent offenders, Grant et. al. write, “begin aggressive and antisocial conduct at very young ages and persist at rates higher than any other offenders throughout the lifespan.”
People tend to think that their problem is poor social learning, that individuals who break laws against crime and violence also break social norms regarding sex. But research has also shown that delinquency and antisocial behavior are associated with early onset of puberty and sexual activity. Young people don’t learn, or decide, when to mature sexually. So why is there a connection between early onset of puberty and crime?
The study
Grant et. al. believe that “coercive and precocious sexuality” is not a result of the psychopathic personality, but a key to defining it. For the study described in the paper, the researchers predicted “early onset, high frequency and coercive sexuality would be a key, unique and diagnostic feature of psychopathy.”
The researchers studied the case histories of 512 male sex offenders. (Sex offenders were selected because their files generally contain detailed information about their sexual history.) They established the scores of the offenders on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). They also looked at the sexual histories of the offenders prior to age 15. A statistical analysis revealed correlations between early and frequent sexual behavior and sexual coercion with general antisocial behavior and elevated PCL-R scores.
“We propose that interpersonal sexual and nonsexual aggression are not best conceived of as the consequence of psychopathic personality traits, but as fundamental aspects of the condition itself,” the authors wrote.
Genetic history
The researchers’ expected that coercive and precocious sexuality were indicators of psychopathy because of their original hypothesis—psychopathy is an alternative life strategy.
“From a theoretical perspective, the present results lend some support to a selectionist hypothesis that psychopathy exists because it has been a heritable and reproductively viable condition during human evolution.”
Psychopaths, in other words, are not physically defective or medically ill. These researchers believe that they are just different, and, because they engaged in a lot of sex, were able to pass on their genes through the millennia.
Read the complete study:
Coercive and Precocious Sexuality as a Fundamental Aspect of Psychopathy
They are what they are
It’s shocking to think that there may be nothing medically wrong with these “intraspecies predators.” But in a way, the idea that psychopaths are pursuing an “alternate life history strategy” dovetails with what we often say here on Lovefraud. Psychopaths are what they are. They are cheaters and exploiters. They take advantage of others because that’s what they do.
Did nature intend this? I don’t know, but they survived.
While researching this story, I came across another paper with an interesting perspective on what to do about it, which I’ll discuss next week.
Nemo, I think all we have to do right now is look at what is going on in Haiti, the rioting and violence are starting now with short resources, people are now starting to flee the city to go to the country where they have family on small farms at outlying areas where they think they will be safer, and probably will be in the short term.
I don’t see any way that the UN “peace keepers” are going to be able to protect the city population from the predators among them.
Chaos is going to be there for quite some time I think. I think this is a good example of how the psychopaths will rise up to secure resources from the non-violent population, using violence against defenseless people.
Hey..One Step! hmmmm how to answer that question with out writing a Novel…I am doing well and just catching up within the free time that I have and how about you?
I think the evidence points to genetic differences between normals and spatholes; however, I tend to be somewhat skeptical that the differences are for evolutionary advantages.
Human beings are different from other animals in that we are highly social and intelligent. Combining these two traits requires us to have a more sophisticated “emotional intelligence” that most other animals (that may be questionable when comparing ourselves to, say, elephants or dolphins which are also very intelligent and social and yet seem to be lacking the nutbars we humans have to deal with on a regular basis!).
There has been a lot of research lately into the role that emotions play in species lives in terms of survival. Generally, the more intelligent and social the species is, the more sophisticated the emotional abilities are. There is probably a reason for this: emotional intelligent fosters cooperation among individuals so the group, as a whole, can be successful in surviving. Have emotions seems to be a highly evolved evolutionary tactic for survival among social animals.
Conversely, the ability to be hard-wired for highly sophisticated emotions likely means there is a LOT that can go wrong with this trait. As humans we have a broad range of mental disorders among individuals, seemingly moreso than other animals. For instance, schizophrenia is a mental illness that clearly does not help an individual suffering with it to “spread his seeds,” at least before there were medications to manage it. However, an individual who is lacking the human genetic component of full emotions (a socipath), however, is not as easily recognized by the general public as an aberration so such a person CAN “spread his seeds.” This doesn’t mean such a person has an evolutionary advantage (as the example with the selfish vs. altruistic monkey simplistically but effectively shows). Indeed, there is a self-terminating bent in these people (like encouraging abortions and risk-taking behaviours).
It is interesting to me to consider the biblical predictions of “peace on earth” after an almighty struggle. We all know the world would be a better place without spatholes in it, yet now they’re everywhere, even in our corporate environment and world governments. There is no avoiding them. But if the theory of the selfish monkey vs. altruistic monkey pans out, then the selfish monkey is going to get eliminated. Voila! World peace!
One can only hope.
OxDrover, In principle I agree with you but with one important difference. I think that you will find a large proportion of the rioting “mob” in Haiti at the moment are people who would have been described as “normal” prior to this. It is the situation that is driving the behaviour. That famous quote, that I cannot seem to find the source for at the moment, “We are three meals away from anarchy” is coming into play right now. I do think it is important to emphasis the difference between “mob” and “psychopathy”. They may well have similarities but because one or many people are running wild does not mean that they are psychopaths. For one thing, where is the control in this situation. The very phrase “mob rule” implies an anarchistic society where the strongest, most cunning or deadliest wins. It does not imply deep pathological traits, though it can be said that mob behaviour is pathological, but this, in and of itself, does not imply anything about the pathological state of the individual members of that mob.
We are all animals, by that I mean, despite our civilised ways, we are still by and large the same species that came out of the steppes of Africa and spread throughout th world. From a biological view point, regarding animal instinct, etc. there is no difference between us and your average wolf, except that the wolf is better adapted to his natural environment than we are to ours. Given the situation in Haiti, the fear, the death, the lack of food, water, resource and the breakdown of the normal controlling strata of society, (police, etc.) society itself has broken down and the people are, in a very real way, reverting to their more animalistic natures.
Some won’t and, in a bizarre sense, as these will most likely be in the minority, it is these few, in this situation, that are exhibiting abnormal behaviour.
I do not pretend to know what exactly is going on, nor do I pretend to have experienced something similar but I do know human nature and I do not pretend that we are not an animal species, one of many that occupy this planet. When all is said and done, the only things that distinguishes us from, what the majority of us think as “animal behaviour”, though perhaps a more apt description would be “wild animal behaviour”, is our society and the rules and taboos that we have put in place to allow that society to function, which in turn is indicative of our reasoning process, our ability to co-operate, etc.. Take away the society and you potentially take away the veneer of civilisation and change the human animal to the wild animal.
Jofary, If I may, I did not speak of evolutionary advantages, to do say implies some kind of race or game where one side has the advantage over the other. There is only evolution. Some trends prosper, some die out. More than one trend can coincide with the other at any one time. There is no controlling power, no master who gives more of an advantage to one species.
I do not want to contradict your belief system, which I respect. However, the “earth” that the bible talks about is not the world we know today. By that I don’t mean the society then compared to now, I mean the world was literally smaller then in relation to human experience and exploration. What was called the “earth” then could be, in todays terms, a country or even a general tribal area.
I do think you have an interesting point regarding behavioural psychology and adaptation. One thing is clear, in any society there are those who want/need to be in control. In a “normal” society, these individuals become politicians, bosses, etc. In the few, this control may be symptomatic of a deeper pathology and perhaps, as you implied, we have to live with a certain dis-functionality in order to progress. Because without the will to impose our order upon the world, we would never have become the society that we are today. So, in a very real sense, we need people with the internal drive to control their environment. It is an intrinsic part of being human.
this is an interesting thread, i’m new, my wife joined us into this group. in regrads to ICANSEECLEARLYNOW this gave me much reflection..
ICANSEECLEARLYNOW stated:
“…1. Right off the bat, I see holes in this theory. If psychopathy is nothing more than an alternate “species” of human, a totally selfish way of living, in which altruism, loving relationships, bonded committed sexuality are replaced by full out self-interest and sexual promiscuity, as just an alternate strain in evolution, then I would have to ask where all the other abnormalities fit into the psychopathic portrait…”
Icanseeclearlynow, I think if one considers psychopathy on it’s own as nothing more than an alternate “species” of human we should also consider the other abnormalities within SOME of the “current” models as deviations or mutations or evolutions of, or even secondary conditions manifested ALONG with, but also possibly independent of, the alternate ’species’ of human model that is the psychopath.
If you consider the issues you described in terms of the psychopath, they also do exist in the non psychopath population as well. To which neither would have survived for too long or too successfully at some point in history but can and does now in a helping culture environment.
I have a book in front of me where the title alone just jumped at me, “One Nation under Therapy: How the Help Culture is Eroding Self Reliance.” I don’t know yet why the title alone grabbed me in one aspect, but in the another vein of thought, I consider that the Help Culture also ensures the existence of many different kinds of human deviations or branches within the human spectrum today that would not have survived at other points in history or even today in some places. Blanche’s statement in “A Streetcar Named Desire” comes to mind when Vivien Leigh states. “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers—
I feel that at one point in history psychopaths with addictions, poor impulse control, distorted thinking patterns, paranoia had the same chances of survival with those weaknesses as those with schizophrenia, autism, Down syndrome and other issues did, at different times or places. They existed but were few and far between and their survival was also dependant on the kindness of strangers, and not so much on their own survival instincts.
Weaker and “disabled” psychopaths chances for survival were just as slim but their chances for survival in this day and age are stronger. Survival of the fittest is not so much of an issue these days, survival is always possible, success is another matter. Surviving today is easy enough to do in America, while it may not be so in our backyard in Haiti.
As an example I am much involved in autistic matters, and I have come to learn that children in Haiti that displayed Down syndrome features or autistic behaviors were often abandoned or left to die in Haiti. Individuals that deviated from the norm simply didn’t have the capacity to survive in that environment, well, unless that individual was a psychopath.
Taking Haiti as an example, while the down syndrome and autistic and schizophrenic individuals quite often died nearly as soon as they happened, the psychopath with little ’other’ maladies afflicting him will likely still be standing, (well, standing and running the place nearly, I can imagine)
In say Haiti, a psychopath with disabilities, may be rare as they would likely die out very soon, or in America, they’d be receiving therapy” thus there is more rampant conditions and or other branches within the human spectrum that can survive and even thrive more often now today that would not have survived in another time in history or today 90 miles from the U.S. or elsewhere in underdeveloped countries that are still in ’survival’ mode.
My wife alone would have been burned as a witch at one time, or thought of as devil possessed, or just thrown away or hidden away. For quite some time families discarded them into madhouses and institutions often just forgetting their existence altogether. In my wife’s family an autistic, or rather one afflicted with the “family curse” as they said, was sent away and hidden from others from the shame and disgrace it would bring to their entire family and how they as a whole would be ostracized from their community. It was feared that the other children will never find suitable marriage partners as they would fear that they would produce children also afflicted. Many feared that their sibling’s condition, would leave the sisters left into spinsterhood, or brothers who might as well be donated as a priest to the church, since they would become untouchable for fear of passing on this trait to their offspring. Children were needed to help the farming and other such chores for the families’ survivals and an afflicted child would be a burden the families often could not afford, understand or as a whole survive. In those days even a chance that their other children would bring more of those afflicted put the other children at risk for not being good candidates for marriage. The one great aunt was sent away and never seen from or spoken about again. But the other girls that married did pass on the autistic trait where my wife would not have been here now if not for their families’ deception.
the psychopath in it’s classic form with no clear and evident issues and a strong will to survive will have no problem surviving in various settings… whilst another probably never made it to hit adulthood as he got strung out on opium in those days.
The psychopath knows how to pretend, knows how to survive, and knows how to infiltrate. I think if some 2012 world event were to actually happen the one human breed I think has the best chance of surviving through it all would be the psychopath. Right along with the cockroaches”
on another note this interested me also:
“….Cluster B’s comes from something inherently WRONG with them that cannot just be explained away by an alternate survivalist species theory…”
Right and so they have other issues and conditions beyond the main alternate survivalist species theory going for them. Simply because they are psychopaths do not mean they are immune to some other form of affliction that creates a different sort of psychopath. In which case this should have an answer to this line,
“…Grant et. al. write that from childhood, psychopathic personalities are fundamentally different from others, but the differences are not the result of a medical failure or injury. They point out that pregnancy difficulties can be related to schizophrenia and mental retardation, but not psychopathy. “While many adverse medical conditions and injuries lead to antisocial and violent behavior, our selections hypothesis suggests that they do not cause psychopathy,” they write…”
But individuals with psychopathy can still develop other issues through pregnancy difficulties, medical failure or injury or environmental issues that can change their psychopathy propensity or features. I would think statistically that psychopaths are not anymore immune to medical failure or injury or problems with pregnancy as the rest of the population, although psychopathy can exist independent of other issues.
One can be the most loving and nurturing mother but still end up with a psychopathic child or an autistic child.
Now an abusive parent can not create classic psychopathy or an autistic in and of itself, but can create one meaner, more dysfunctional psychopath or a very frightened anxious ridden traumatized autistic, or a child with symptoms shadowing upon either but something else altogether. A child bred of trauma with tendencies and features toward either of the two but not in the classic sense. Children with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can shut down and develop some characteristics seen in autism, or a child of trauma can also develop sociopathic tendencies as a result of their trauma while not having had the psychopathic genetic material.
All on the human spectrum will adapt and evolve in some manner to survive. I think there is a difference between created psychopaths and psychopaths no matter what, I’m thinking of that movie, The Good Son, and older yet, The Bad Seed as examples of psychopaths no matter what.
There are great diversity in the human specimen, and within certain breeds, certain deviations that can be attributed to genetics, or to injury and to environment, that can and will affect psychopaths and nonpsychopaths alike.
There is I think a product of genetics, and a product of environment, and also a product of the two combined that create different manifestations of the same breed.
i’m also thinking of memetics. but that’s another train of thought which will make this post way longer than it should be.
Mike
Hi Mike – what an eloquent and articulate post = you have obviously been doing a lot of reading and thinking around this topic. What I take from your post (and please correct me if I am wrong) is that our current societal structure provides the perfect playground for sociopaths / psychopaths to hide and run free with their power agendas – many of the traits the psychopath has are in fact valued in Western societies – we can certainly see this in corporate settings where ‘dog eat dog’ is valued and executives can climb the ladder by stepping on others.
On a related note I read at the cassopeia website that psychopaths are machines and the ones we can spot by their behaviours are the defective ones. They are made to elude detection … this is just one person’s opinion of course and it’s rather far fetched and a little Matrix like, but it has really got me thinking. They are to all intents and purposes like machines – they have no sensitivity to the higher order feelings and emotions that most humans have. They don’t struggle with ethical situations as most of us do – life is a clear cut survival race for them with themselves as the only important competitor.
So this idea of a machine is sticking in my head. Yes it sounds like science fiction I know, but where does it come from and what is the ultimate purpose of the psychopath? We think at this stage it is caused by a combination of nature and nurture – both genetics and environment. The two interact on the developing child to form the adult psychopath. I had the word simulacrum pop into my head this morning … here’s a definition
Simulacrum (plural: -cra), from the Latin simulacrum which means “likeness, similarity”,[1] is first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation of another thing, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god; by the late 19th century, it had gathered a secondary association of inferiority: an image without the substance or qualities of the original.
I am now wondering what ancient philosophers and religious texts might tell us about these people considering they have existed in society from the dawn of time.
I take your point about parents not causing it but having the propensity to create a worse version of psychopathy through poor parenting. I see the condition as existing on a scale – this doesn’t help victims unfortunately – someone who is ‘just a little bit’ psychopathic will still do lots of damage, but there definitely are those who show worse symptoms than others in society. A lot of the cases I read about in The Mask of Sanity involved people who could not hold down a job. They come in all shapes, sizes and colours. Some are hopeless drug addicts, some are fully functional and very difficult to detect – co-existing pathologies are common in addition to psychopathy.
Please keep posting your thoughts Mike and forgive me if I can’t keep up with your thinking! I don’t even know what memetics is!
Nemo, I agree, not everyone in Haiti that is rioting or looting is a psychopath. I have no doubt that most of us would steal without a backward glance if we had to to survive, but at the same time, I don’t think we would throw a large stone off a building and deliberately hit a 12 year old kid in the head in order to do it. I saw this yesterday on the news and Cooper Anderson, the reporter picked the kid up and ran him to safety. But my point is that in a situation like this, those that ARE psychopathic will use whatever violence is “necessary” to Get what they want, even if it is ripping the last of food out of a child’s mouth, which those of us who are not psychopathic probably would NOT do, no matter how hungry we were.
I recall the story in the Bible where the two women in a famine situation had made a deal. The first woman gave her son to be cooked and eaten, but the next day when they were supposed to eat the son of the second woman, and the second woman refused to give up her son. The first woman complained that she had kept HER part of the bargain and wanted the second woman MADE TO KEEP HER PART OF THE BARGAIN by giving up her son. Famine and scarce resources makes for some horrific behavior, as witness the stories of the Nazi camps from WWII, yet, not everyone becomes a predator no matter how short the resources are. Dr. Viktor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning” which was his story of the emotions experienced in his several years of incarceration in a Nazi camp and the horrific conditions in which he lived in famine and slave labor, after having lost everything he owned or had except his life.
There is an old saying in my family, “the same sun that melts the wax, hardens the clay” so i.e. the same conditions will act differently on different substances. So what we are MADE OF and what we are is brought out in adverse situations. Some people become cruel and predatory, and others become altruistic. What adversity brings out in you is proof of what was there to begin with in my opinion.
I think if I were starving I could eat the body of my dead son, but I sure as heck couldn’t kill him in order to eat him.
OxDrover, I know what you mean and I think that we are in agreement.
I would like to believe that I would be altruistic. Having said that, although I am reasonably sure I would not drop a brick on someones head for the fun of it, if my six year old daughter was dying of starvation, I do not know to what extremes I would go to allow her to survive……….
EB
quoted “One of the kids told me today that the S told them all they were not wanted!”
This made my stomach sink to read this, as this is EXACTLY what the exMN told my youngest son. It just kills me that he would say that when it was nothing farther from the truth. I was not using bc, we were not actively trying for a third child, but were hoping for one, and I was blessed with my son at age 40, 5 years after the birth of my second daughter.
So 15 years later, the MN tells my son that I got pregnant by accident, and he wasn’t wanted by his mother. This purposeful cruelty knows no boundaries.
Donna
Excellent article and it sure rings true from what I know of the exMN’s parents, grandparents and brother….not only the gene-pool but also the childhood environments. I was inspired to order “The Selfish Gene” (could a title be any more appropriate?)
Best
heartmoomstar
autisticsouls / Mike, just a brief note. I’ve been talking to your wife. I think she is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met, and I’m so glad she found us. Please let her know that I watched “Mozart and the Whale,” and I loved the movie. It was also about something in my family, though I’m not sure exactly what to name it.
I have a great deal of difficulty in the nature vs. nurture. In psychopathy as well as autism. I’ve met born psychopaths. They are a certain types that is unforgettable. I’ve also known people that have become sociopaths, possibly with some level of genetic inclination, but with background issues, particularly related to desperate situations in early nurture that effectively shut down their trust and empathy. (Temple Grandin’s discussion of panic as response to a loss of resources is relevant to this, I think.)
On the autistic side, I’ve believed for a long time that environmental factors at least contribute. In my family, the selective carbohydrate diet has relieved a lot of psychological and psycho-motor symptoms. Based on the success of the SCD and related food restrictions, I have come to thing that the combination of antibiotics and high-grain diets for baby’s is at least a contributing factor to panic or anxiety-based systems.
In talking with your wife (I don’t know her name) about, as she puts it, autistic people, everyday people and pretender people, it really made me think. Not just about survival strategies, but relative strengths. She has awareness and instinctual knowledge that make me feel only vestigially sentient in these realms. I want to just sit by her and see if I can absorb this by osmosis.
My experience with sociopaths, especially after recovering from my last relationship, is that their strengths can also be communicated and learned. They are so dangerous to be around, because they are relentlessly and unfeelingly exploitative (at minimum), but a lot of us are finding that our experiences with them are making us stronger, more self-referenced and self-reliant.
Well, I have to go back to work now. Please tell you wife that I said hi.
Kathy