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.
ErinBrock, I just wanted to tell you how crazy-angry it made me to hear that your ex told the kids they weren’t wanted. And that they were living with that for a while, before you knew.
I hear this and I think these people have some kind of soul-shriveling jealousy that sees everything anyone else has as some kind of statement about themselves. So they have to ruin it to make themselves feel better.
I’m so glad they are your kids. I read these stories and how you handle them, and I almost wish I were your kid. Not now, but when I was a kid. It’s too bad, we couldn’t time travel you back to train all our parents.
And while I’m in fantasy land, I really thought about how satisfying it would have been, when you heard about this, to be able to call up your brother, the Mafia guy, and say, “Do me and the rest of the world a favor, and just take this guy out.” You don’t have a Mafia brother, but the homicidal fantasies made me feel a bit better. I really hate your ex.
Kathy
thanks, I have been studying human behavior and attempting to understand humanity for quite some time. My story, here goes, sharing is good for the soul they say. i have been doing it for a while and i am not really feeling it.
I have been diagnosed as having Asperger Syndrome when I was 11, I am married to an autistic woman and we have an autistic child.
My experience with psychopaths comes through observations and being a victim of bullying as a child. So I have had much experience with them throughout my life. While I spent a lot of time observing humans like I did ants on an anthill I started to recognize a lot of different breeds in the human specimen.
it started in school when there was always someone who was picking on me, then there was always someone who joined in but seemed uncomfortable with it, and there was also always someone who would jump to my defense. I spent a lot of time attempting to identify the different breeds to figure which to avoid, which to call on for assistance and so on, and where i fit in.
There was the obvious psychopath who took particular joy in shoving my head into toilets, and other such abuses, enough for me to not be able to watch a “Simpson’s” episodes without getting considerably uncomfortable. There were other more subtle ones, which can still pull the wool over my eyes, as the saying goes. That IS the saying isn’t it?
I realized Psychopaths were everywhere, although I didn’t know what they were called because no one calls them anything. In movies and TV shows, unless on rare occasions they were seen in the most extreme cases: The Bad Seed, The Good Son, and The Talented Mr. Ripley. I penned the term The Asshole Syndrome. Altruistic people were everywhere too. But the true essence of a person will be showcased in extreme conditions. I don’t think people know who they really are until they are there, and only then realize which direction they would turn.
I have to admit that I envied them. Yes I did. They were well liked, charming, and fit in everywhere they went. I really didn’t know or have met for quite sometime any one remotely like me except maybe in sparingly in textbooks, and of course recently with the autism ’epidemic’.
But even when dumped in the ADHD class(incorrectly as i was the opposite of ADHD) the same things happened as in mainstream class. There would be some ADHD kid picking on me because it was fun, another ADHD kid joining in because it was something to do, and another ADHD kid that would always jump in and defend me. It’s like my WTF moment. I just could never categorize people like I did other things. Every time I thought I had it figured out someone would always surprise me.
Even as I write this I feel I left some artificial elements in that I need to work on. I have this need to make myself present more human and somewhat less robotic.
My wife describes us all as different animals or different breeds. Maybe. But the whole machine concept stands out to me. As in a sense I consider them machines just as I am also a machine. Just a different kind.
like Aspies, they have a certain logic in their method, like us they collect data, sort it out, categorize it and figure out how to use the information they have gathered. just to different ends.
i need stability, order and i strive for a certain harmony. but i also have a will to survive. i have a wife and child now. i’m going to survive and it isn’t going to be dependant on the kindness of strangers.
i have been trying to shed my autism like it was a liability. to become like as my wife terms ‘everyday people” even to imitate “their” tactics and techniques. no. No. i will not compromise or sacrifice who or what i am which in the natural order of things is a good thing. i am a good thing. i’m not going to sacrifice what i am to become something else to survive. i don’t think it’s a matter of becoming like you or becoming like them it is a matter of a decision to use what i have already to survive, to not only survive but to leave something that society and humanity can use to a better end. will it mean to become a different breed of Aspie? i am so uncomfortable with change. But we are changing, aren’t we? we are all changing, transforming. i’m not the same kid with his head in the toilet. like everyone else, i am also adapting and evolving.
i’m going to succed and survive in my own terms now. i don’t know what kind of autistic this will make me.
i just know that a new machine is coming into the playing field.
Mike
has anyone read Dr. Leedom’s book?
a few posts have mentioned the things spaths say to their children 🙁 would someone be interested in starting a thread specifically about the experiences that go unspoken by our kids? (I am taking the possessive here, not as a mother, but as a human.) I’d really like to see a discussion about this – to stem the tide, stop the lineage, expose this malignancy to light.
not only a human, but a daughter with ‘rot’ in her head.
best,
one step.
kathleen:
I just lost a post to ya! Shit!
Anyways….Yes…..take a hit out on em all huh!!!
I was thinking..since I’m adopted and don’t know my bio parents….I know bio mother had 6 siblings….NOW I’m certain…..one of them MUST BE MAFIA huh! Maybe Uncle Bubba can take care of it as a ‘welcome to the family’ gift!
No….but really…..When I am certain of something….I am at peace….and I am at peace because I KNOW he won’t get away with how he’s treated anyone….let alone his kids.
I KNOW he’s going to suffer something fierce….and I’m only glad i’m not around to have to caretake his sorry ass! I really do believe everything happens for a reason….and he’ll get whats coming by the universe, no need to enlist Uncle Bubba.
I can’t tell you how confident I feel in KNOWING this! IT WILL HAPPEN!!!
So…I can move on to more productive things……like damage control for the kids….. 🙂
Thanks for your thoughts of the kids….it is just despicable that someone can participate in making a human life and them participate in the ’emotional demise’…..so goes against everything I feel for the kids…..SO!
I want the kids to conquor the world……do everything that I haven’t…..and have…..take life by the balls…..be the queen and kings of the world….(not sociopathically of course!!)….but you know…..shoot for the moon!
I want only the best for them…..and I just can’t imagine being jelous of them……my god!
With the one child not going to graduate, most likely……it’s gonna be a sore point….because my ‘poor parenting’ is going to ‘come up’ I’m sure…..I can’t do anything else for this kid…..and I feel confident I have opened every door to success for them. It’s their choice……
It’s not like I haven’t been here 100% plus for all of them!!!
That is heartbreaking for me too! I think they think they will ‘punish’ their father by failing…..
I have modeled quite the opposite…I say succeed until you own the world…….and make him come begging to YOU…..and then you will be in control of how YOU choose to deal with it! Uh, sorry dad….remember when?
I’m sure there is way more that I DON”T know……and I’m also sure it will ooze out in time, as it has thus far….
One thing I always said….being molested myself…was that if anyone ever molested my children I would kill them……
I’m wondering if he ever did this to the kids….and that info is coming down the pike……
Sharing my ‘inner’ most feeling with the S….like the molestation, in Spath twist would give him the licence to do it….for his jollies…..to see my reaction….
Well…..that’s when I may need to be in contact with U. Bubba!
They are sick fucks! PERIOD!!!
UNNNNCCCCLLLLEEEEEE BBBBBBBUUUUUBBBBBAAAAAAA where are you?????????
EB – i proposed a spath slayer squad on one of the threads. i am rather serious.
no physical injury, but doing lost of recon and taking them down – the thing that would make it work is that we could go after each other’s spaths – where they have no emo. control.
i still have A LOT of revenge fantasies.
they take up a fair amount of my head space daily. there’s some kinda cool ones.
no bubbas. but lots of nefarious one step.
best
on step
If there is ever a movie about a spath slayer, he should be played by Clint Eastwood, in my humble opinion. That way, he could spout off one of his one-liners right before he pulls the trigger. Now THAT’s what I’M talkin about!
LOL!
but i want girls in the movie, too.
hmmm, Nina Olen!
ERIN BROCKOVICH!!!!
🙂
yah, but THAT was a given!
Kathy, you ARE intune to people. my wife said so but you know how it is when people second guess themselves which i often do. You must of tapped into us as we were both writing at the same time and saying the same thing.
my wife says don’t dissmiss it but acknowledge it and it will get stronger.
as you stated:
“…but a lot of us are finding that our experiences with them are making us stronger, more self-referenced and self-reliant…”
isn’t that something…
i think it’s strange when i read over my words that things didn’t hit me so hard because of recent events but that it has been a build up of abuse i’ve suffered over the years and chose to push aside only to resurface in light of recent events. i think it would be appropriate to cry but don’t know if i’de be able too… i think posting has been enough release.
emotions are hard to feel through. they are so disruptive and turbulent.
erin brock’s posts seem so traumatic and raw. i feel like i should say something or do something but there’s nothing i can think of to say, so i’ll say nothing. it’s a bit scary to witness but i have felt like that too. i wish i could articulate it too in the same manner and i did a little. but it’s bit overwhelming to ever really let myself go like that. i’m afraid of my emotions because if left unchecked emotions can distort things and disorganize me. it can also be destructive. i can’t think straight if i’m feeling too much. thinking is an orderly process. feeling is a disorderly process.
the ability to shut down is a godsend at times. someday i must send you picture of us. My Des and our Dolphin.
Mike