The prevention of sociopathy is something we all should be concerned about. Last week, we had an excellent discussion about sociopathy and lying. We all agree lying is the cardinal symptom of sociopathy, thanks to all those who posted comments. Your comments truly help those who are new to the site. Lying is part of the poor impulse control that sociopaths have. Poor impulse control or impulsivity and lying are recognized as central to sociopathy by every expert and diagnostic method. To prevent sociopathy we must start by preventing impulsivity. Unfortunately the brain structures responsible for impulse control are very sensitive to damage, especially early in life; although, damage to the frontal lobes can produce sociopathy at any age.
If I were given the option of one intervention that would reduce the prevalence of sociopathy in our society it would be to get all pregnant women to stop smoking both actively and passively (through second hand smoke). Although there are no direct studies of second hand smoke and sociopathy, second hand smoke is associated with an increased incidence of SIDS and other problems also linked to active smoking.
Where is the evidence that links maternal smoking directly to sociopathy? One of the largest studies to explore this link is reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry, arguably the most reputable journal in the profession. In this paper Maternal Smoking During Pregnancy and Adult Male Criminal Outcomes (follow link to read it yourself) Patricia A. Brennan, PhD and colleagues report data obtained from 4169 males born between September 1959 and December 1961 in Copenhagen, Denmark. They conclude, “Maternal smoking during the third trimester predicted nonviolent, violent, and persistent crime even when controlling for parental, psychiatric hospitalization, pregnancy and delivery complications, mother’s use of prescription drugs during pregnancy, father’s criminal arrest, maternal rejection, mother’s age, and SES.”
In a recent review of 7 independent studies of the association between maternal smoking and antisocial behavior, published in the American Journal of Public Health (folow link to read it yourself) Lauren S. Wakschlag, PhD and colleagues discuss the magnitude of the problem. They calculate that more than 500,000 infants a year are exposed in utero to direct smoking. They further estimate that this exposure increases the risk of sociopathy 1.4-4 times. It is estimated that 3% of the general population is sociopathic. This estimate already includes those exposed in utero to tobacco. If we conservatively estimate that 6% rather than 3% of the 500,000 will develop sociopathy, smoking may produce 15,000 additional sociopaths per year!
The problem of maternal smoking may be even worse in other countries. One internet source reports, “In ex-socialist countries about 28% of women are smokers, in developed countries about 23% and in South America about 21% of all women.” If the stats from the US apply here, at least half of these women will continue to smoke when they become pregnant.
In the beginning of this article, I proposed that maternal smoking increases sociopathy by producing impulsivity/impairing impulse control. Although there are many good studies linking sociopathy with maternal smoking, there are even more studies linking maternal smoking with ADHD. ADHD is strongly associated with the development of sociopathy. Reviewing the relevant studies for my book, I estimated that adult sociopathy develops in about 25% of kids with true ADHD.
To see some data for yourself, read Effects of low birth weight, maternal smoking in pregnancy and social class on the phenotypic manifestation of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and associated antisocial behaviour: investigation in a clinical sample by Kate Langley and colleagues. They examined 356 British children who were patients at their clinic diagnosed with ADHD. In their sample, half of the mothers reported smoking during pregnancy! Maternal smoking was associated with impulsivity, conduct disorder and symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) even when other risk factors were taken into account.
That symptoms of ODD were related to maternal smoking is of particular interest to me because I have said that these symptoms are a sign of an excessive drive for social dominance in children. In my view it is the dominance drive, or power motive that produces the evil behavior of sociopaths.
The major developmental task of childhood is to learn to love and cooperate. To do so we must be able to exercise restraint over our dominance drive. If a child lacks the capacity to exercise this restraint, s/he is handicapped when it comes to learning to love and cooperate.
As a group of people who know first hand the devastation caused by sociopathy, I propose we all work toward the prevention of this disorder in any way we can. If you smoke, please quit. Stop financially supporting the tobacco companies and stop contributing to the problem of second hand smoke. Please also support anti-smoking legislation and government programs that encourage women and pregnant women not to smoke.
MoonDancer
awh Dupey – hugz…
still reeling
Hens, so glad weeny is better!!!!!!! I know that feeling of relief…they are so innocent and you just want all that’s good for them. Such troopers too. Let us know how she’s doing. How old is she? You prob said earlier….
Hens, I hear you on not getting the aha moment and voila, inner peace, enlightenment, etc. I want what Toller has but unless it’s spontaneous nirvana, it is not happening, not with my mind…too many years of head noise and habits. I really don’t need to fail at something again.
Yes, you are so so correct. We need to stop feeding that part of us that relishes pain so much, I’m assuming as punishment for all these obviously terrible things we’ve done in the past. I’m just in a confused state about that. Too much therapy, too much introspection, not enuf living in the now, I guess. Way too much analyzing. I’m convinced I like the pain because it allows me to stay rooted rather than whatever it takes to move ahead. I have always placed obstacles in my own way. Not sure why.
I think some of my misery with life now is because I am afraid of death so if I allow myself to hate very min of every day, maybe I will welcome it. I just do not know.
I don’t dream about path…yeah, he started the flirtation, followed pretty quickly w/ a lot of very hideous phony devious, mind-boggling sh*t, once he knew I wasn’t going to have sex with him. He started it, but *I* created the “relationship,” based on flimsy nothingness and physical attraction. He did his share to keep it going but once again, most of it was in my mind…I had no idea he was a path, just thought he thought I was “special.” Hahaha.
At any rate, I dreamed about him last night or I should say early this AM..have had maybe 2-3 dreams about him, the one I described a few months back and one where we were lying next to each other somewhere, fully clothed btw, and he merely took my hand, flipped it around a little in his and held it. Feels so sad to think about that 3 sec dream since basically that’s all I wanted…my husband doesn’t like hand-holding or anything like that. And my hands are ugly. They are shaped like my dad’s and kind of large…when I was young, it didn’t matter as they were young too…now they look so bad.
This morning I dreamed that I asked him why he was at my house (I’ll leave out the details) and why he bought tickets for us and a few other people to go see a play in a few days and he said, “Because I want you.” Then he just got very close physically for a moment. I don’t want these dreams and I know I author my own dreams, but it’s like he’s so wormed into my head in a bad way, and I don’t want to exorcise him….he is and always has been a distraction and a focus for my wildly anxious mind.
Anyway, Athena, so glad NC is getting longer and longer…you sound great.
Dupey, lots of good stuff in your post! Glad you sound good.
Thanks again hens.
MoonDancer
still reeling – your craving affection and intimacy, the touch of a warm hand, that oneness that holding hands brings..
I miss that about my X also – when we would be driving somewhere we would hold hands. At first, then when I would reach for his he would pull away..oh those warm fuzzies that they applyed on us to hook us.. we long for that ya know…and at time’s sleeping with him was like heaven, we fit togethewr like gloves, with a wiener dog here and there, all was good at first…but soon it was like a big piece of glass between us and if we touched it, it would shatter…..nothing wrong with dreaming about those things, after all it was just our dreams to begin with,,not theirs..
MoonDancer
“” So, I began to starve my junky mind of all the juicy pain it seems to revel in, and in the process I found some relief, some peace and quite..”””
I got that sentence from a blogger here years ago, dont remember who but it stuck with me and I started to push away the noise, turn down the volume of all the chaos and pain, after all we can not go back and change who we were.. I begged the universe (literaly) for forgiveness of all the bad things I have done and screamed to the heavens to release the pain of all the bad things done to me…somebody was listening because I do have ( some ) peace at last….
Back_from_the_edge
still reeling: thanks for the feedback on my sounding good. I AM doing LOTS better now that I have managed to sort things out and my lexapro is truly helping me TREMENDOUSLY. xxoo
happy day still reeling: remember it belongs to US; not them: US!
Dupey
Back_from_the_edge
hens: hi my friend: hope things are good with you today.
I completely relate: turning down the noise, turn down the volume, cut away the chaos and the drama…the pain lessens when you do that. It’s like a self discipline and we are our own best disciplinarians, if we try hard enough. Just cut out all the ugly stuff, as much as possible. Yep, I get that. It works.
I am happy hens that you have some peace. I have some too now. It took fighting off the devil, though…almost lost a lot; too much to comprehend, most days, but I have gained even more. My life, for one. Hopefully, the stalking will just stop now and I won’t ever have to go through that anymore. HOPEFULLY. So far, so good.
Hang in there hens…I think you ROCK!!!!!! xxoo
MoonDancer
I bet my mom smoked, that would explain why I blabber on so…
She used to tell me she had the biggest boob’s until she had me, and then she got breat fever and they deflated. hmm everything was my fault ya know.
And year’s later she had me drive her to the boob doctor and swore me to secrecy..Well a few weeks later she shows up at my house for dinner, my x wife looked at her and said ”You got your boob’s done” OMG ~! my mom looked at me with those demon lizard green eyes like she was going to kill me. I never told my wife anything, but excuse me she had cleavage for miles and looked like dolly you know who. I mean nobody had to tell anything… HELLO ~!! THE GIRLS ARE HERE ~!
Like I said ,I am sorry I blabber on so….it’s all her fault…
Louise
hens:
Hahaha, you are too much!!! You are killing me!
Ox Drover
Yea, Hens, I used to laugh myself at the OLD women who got boob jobs and their entire bodies sagged and here are these perky mamas sticking out like Dolly U-NO-WHO LOL Same with face lifts, the face is so smooooooth and the neck is so wrinkled and the hands so wrinkled but boy the face is smooth.
I saw Ann Margaret a while back on TV and OMG she looked like a plastic Barbie doll that go too close to the fire…I LOOK BETTER THAN ANN MARGARET! Well, at least better than she looks NOW! ha ha ha
I’d rather have my wrinkles than her skin…that dimple in her chin used to be her navel!
MoonDancer
lol dimple..yes my Mom set me up for the face lift secret also…I mean to this day she blames me for telling everyone her secrets..hell I never told nobody – i mean chit by the 3rd face lift she always looked surprized and mad at me, so who knows.?