Is every violent person a sociopath? Are all sociopaths violent? What is the relationship between violence and sociopathy/psychopathy? These are the questions we will think about here. I welcome your comments and stories.
In his book “On Aggression” Nobel Prize winning ethologist Konrad Lorenz expressed deep concern for the human race. He pointed out that other social animals have “releasers;” these are inborn signals that turn off aggression. For example, when wolves fight, if one animal turns over on its back, the fighting generally stops. The purpose of aggression in social species is simply to enforce dominance, so when the victor gets the signal it is dominant, the fighting stops.
Lorenz said screaming and crying act as releasers for humans as these tend to inhibit aggression. The problem for humans is that we have created weapons that enable aggression to occur at a distance so the natural releasers don’t have a chance to turn it off.
Yet we also know there are those who enjoy seeing other people suffer. In these individuals there is not only no mechanism to stop aggression, there is also a positive incentive toward violence. An extreme example of this is serial killers who seek out victims to enjoy the act of killing them. Some people are fascinated and mystified by the behavior of these serial killers, but actually the behavior is pretty simple to understand. I’ll explain it using two other pleasures with which you are familiar- eating and sex. These are two examples that illustrate the way the pleasure system works.
First, let’s consider eating. The purpose of eating is to nourish the body, but eating is also much more than that. Eating gives us pleasure and can even reduce anxiety. Why it is that eating feels good is likely connected to our need to overeat during times of plenty. Eating during times of plenty allows us to become fat and thus protected from famine. If eating stopped once the body was nourished, we couldn’t get fat. So to keep us eating more and more, Mother Nature made it an enjoyable act.
There are different was to get pleasure from eating. Foods that are sweet, sour, fatty, or meaty all stimulate different nerve cells. People also differ with respect to the pleasure associated with different tastes. Some people don’t like sweets very much and some people are repulsed by meat.
Now consider that sex is the same as eating in many ways. The “purpose” of sex is procreation, but it also strengthens social bonds, is pleasurable and reduces anxiety. We are prone to becoming “oversexed” just as we are prone to becoming obese. There are also different flavors of sexual pleasure.
The dominance system is another instinctive behavioral system just like the feeding and sex systems. The pleasures associated with the dominance system come in different “flavors.” One “flavor“ or pleasure associated with this system is winning at a competition. Whether the competition is a chess or baseball game, winning is a pleasure.
In social groups the dominant members are the “enforcers” as they get to administer rewards and punishments to others. Helping people can actually be a function/pleasure of the dominance system. Similarly, enjoyment of hurting others is also part of dominance. The alphas get to punish those who don’t do what they want and they take pleasure in inflicting this punishment.
What we see in some sociopaths is a type of “fetish” of the dominance system. Just like some people are excessively turned on sexually by underwear, some sociopaths are excessively turned on in the dominance sense by violence.
If you think about what I am saying you will see that there are two pathways to violence in sociopaths. The first is an immediate impulsive response to threats to their dominance. The second is a premeditated seeking out of the pleasure associated with hurting. Both of these occur and the presence of one correlates with the presence of the other because an over active dominance drive underlies both.
Lack of empathy is important to the development of the enjoyment of violence because a person who lacks emotional empathy, lacks the releaser Lorenz talked about so there is nothing to turn off the violence. But it is also possible that some sociopaths have a modicum of empathy that is drowned out by the pleasures of dominance.
The take home message for you is that if you are involved with a person who is preoccupied with dominance, control and manipulation you have to wonder what violence they are capable of. It is like the sexual pervert, you may only be seeing the tip of the iceberg. We just do not know how to pick out those sociopaths who lead secret lives in which they kill. If you know a sociopath who has a track record of violence, please assume the person is potentially very dangerous.
And then, my last one.. was so mannerly and gentlemanly in some ways .. I liked that.. in fact, part of the attraction..
Man, this whole thing is so confusing..
and yes,,, they watch the movies and pick it all up..
I liked that in TWILIGHT … they treated the young lady with respect.. I mean what happened to a man being protective of and respectful of a woman . .. not just as an ‘act’ but deep into the core of their being.. that is the dynamics that create male/female…
Then women need to demand respect and turn from and away from that which is not..
I’m totally with you on the dynamics that create male/female. I know it’s not for everybody to be this way, but I’m a womanly woman, and I want a manly man. And my ex Spath/N figured that out and was sooooo charming,soo chivalrous, and seemed to have so much respect… except that it was all based on lies that had to be discovered the hard way. Once he even had the audacity to say to me, when he was abusing me, “why do you let yourself be treated this way, is it because you love me?” That was actually one of my ‘a-ha’ moments, and as much as it pains me to say it, he was right. Why the h#ll did I let him treat me that way?! I had to figure that one out . . . . Had to learn to expect respect, and to respect myself- sadly enough, it didn’t come with the training I recieved as a little girl.
But yeah, I want a man who wants to be respectful towards women, as part of his own sense of self-respect . . . and call me crazy, but I want it to be REAL next time 🙂
P
am off to bed, have a good night. P
OxDrover
I gotta point out something about your post about wolf packs near Yellow Stone wiping out the other pack for fun. I gotta ponder about that. Yellow Stone is located over a huge “volcano underground puss pocket”. Weird things are going in Yellowstone. Gotta wonder if it has something to do with the animals acting out of character.
Yet, how does that correlate with humans acting aggressively for pleasure. I think humans do it cause they have nothing left to loose.
Could the Yellowstone wolves being doing it for same reason?
“””The point you made about wolves (or most breeds of dogs) who will stop aggressing if the “whipped” animal gives up is very valid. However, I have seen a documentary in the last year or so that suprised me quite a bit about a couple of wolf packs. It was about the various packs of wolves near Yellowstone and how one pack systematically wiped out the other, deliberately killing the weaker pack. They took over territory that they neither needed nor could defend, apparently just for the “fun” of it.””
Dear Jeannie,
I got interested in the pack behavior of wolves in the wild about 30+ years ago and started reading all the research I could find books, etc. (I used to be a wild life photographer) and the more I read the more I became interested.
The way they are different and yet similar to dogs was very interesting too. Of course there have been several people who have studied them for years like Jane Goodall studied the chimps, and filmed them, wrote books, papers etc. One guy even lived on a diet of MOSTLY mice like the wolves he was studying! LOL
I used to raise and sell and train dogs as well, and dogs I had sold off that were between 12 and 16 weeks old seemed to REMEMBER me years later, and it turns out that is the BONDING PERIOD oft wolf pups to their pack. They keep these bonds even when one leaves the pack and joins another pack. It is like a kinship bond.
Also, in a wolf pack if a pup does not take “discipline” or refuses to obey, they will be cuffed (growled at first, then shaken by the ruff, then bitten on the ear) and if they REFUSE to obey the rules of the pack, will be killed by the alpha male.
When I train dogs, I GROWL at them first, then if necessary, shake them by the ruff, or if they are “very definant” I will bite them HARD on the ear. I have never drawn blood on an ear but I know trainers who have actually had to bite off a piece of a very definant dog’s ear. The only other option is to let the dog BULLY you, threaten or bite you, which is not an option. YOU must be alpha in the pack to your dogs whether you have 1 or 100.
I never hit a dog, they don’t understand that and it will make them fearful of you. If you “cuff them” with either a growl or even a bite, they UNDERSTAND THAT, because that is how their mother weaned them, and 5 seconds later, ALL IS WELL again with the world and they know that YOU are boss dog.
With training oxen, I actually DO hit them with my “horn” a long wooden stick. They understand that because that is the way THEY establish dominance with each other. Pretty rough, but you have to talk to them in a language they understand., An ox knows if he is allowed to touch you with his horn, even a tiny bit, that HE IS DOMINANT TO YOU, so next time he may decide to put all 2,000 pounds behind his horn to show YOU who is boss. That cannot be allowed to happen–well, not more than once–then you go to the hospital or morgue and he goes to the slaugher house. The nice thing about oxen though, is that when you take your “horn” and tap them smartly where their horn joins their head ONCE, you will never again need to do so, as they accept that dominance FOREVER and don’t try to climb up the ladder and push you off. In fact, MOST oxen will accept ANY human as dominant from then on. A few will diffenterate between humans though and will try out any “new” human that works them once to see if that person is also dominant. They usually don’t do more than a tiny test just to see, so if the human responds immediately they never try again. They also respond like most prey-type ainmals to EYE CONTACT as a dominance act.
The psychpath’s frequent use of DIRECT EYE contact and the “psychopathic stare” as a dominance gesture is fairly well known among many former victims. I’ve seen that same kind of eye contact in predator species as well. Sometimes, though, human predators as well as some ainmal predators learn how to disguise that PREDATORY STARE so not to tip off the intended victim that they are being stalked.
I can relate to to the titled post.
I have been in relationships with men who “walked the line”. They were violent but in ways where it could be “explained away”. They want to stay undetected.
Whether the guy who sneaked up on me while I was putting groceries in refrigerator. He sneaked up and silently opened the freezer door. So, when I stood up I smacked my head hard on freezer door. He meek and mildly said that he said “excuse me”…. He also sneaked up on me and tickled me while I was bench pressing 100 lb.
I ignored the tickling by fixing my eye on focal point on ceiling. I managed to lower the 100 lb to safety. It would have crushed my throat if I dropped it.
Or the other guy that backed me into a corner to poke me in the eye, to the point where I was looking over my shoulder to dodge him. Yet, he managed to corner me every time he poked my eye. And every time he poked me he said he saw something in my eye. (yeah, an eyeball) He also would said MOVE! as he pushed and shoved me around. His excuse was he said excuse me.
I think these people have no life of their own. They only feel alive when they are controlling someone.
They don’t kill anyone in a second. So is the new term “serial emotional killers?”
They just kill you a slower death than a murderer. A death that can not be prosecuted.
Dear Jeasnnie,
I’m glad you have come to an awareness that these “not so subtle” dominance antics are what they are DOMINANCE ANTICS and you do NOT have to tolerate them. Not a second time! When someone starts this crap, tell them in no uncertain terms to get out of your space and ACCEPT NO EXCUSES of any kind.
That is setting boundaires to protect ourselves. I also had to learn it the hard way, but it gets easier with practice.
First comes awareness of what is going on. You’ve got that down pat! TOWANDA for you!!!! good going! (((Hugs))))
Iwonder…..
Too many women take abuse and don’t stand up for themselves. “Men RUIN women”….my uncle used to say.
Over the course of his life, he saw so many beautiful women get so messed up from the hell they had to live thru with a man.
I am teaching my girls to be tough “biothes”….smart women and NEVER SETTLE…for less than the best~
@Psyche, I can totally relate to your feelings about being a giver, a pleaser… and that people with high self esteem might not be such an easy target. I always gave too much, and in my case I ignored red flags that were as big as the side of a barn.
I liked your list of trying to identify toxic people. I don’t seem to have the “smarts” to think up something like that. I need to be more mindful of people’s reactions and to the things they are saying. I don’t know how to spot a predator very well, and any idea helps!!!! Thank you.