Not an EdgeLady

(Arrowverse intro voice) To the outside world, I'm an ordinary student pursuing a PhD in Criminal Justice. But secretly, I study psychopathy. OK maybe not so secretly: I'm published.

[dingdongyouarewrong]

my favourite actual example of a performative DNI is how r/raisedbynarcissists has a rule that ‘narcissists’ aren’t allowed to post on there but also a post about how if you think you might be a ‘narcissist’ you’re not because narcissists aren’t capable of that kind of self reflection….. like girl who is that DNI supposed to exclude then

[thepsychopathist]

The DNI is likely for edgelords/edgefolks who happily claim to be narcissists, whether they are or not. Surprisingly, some psychopaths (the term I’m familiar with, over narcissists, because I study psychopathy, not Narcissistic Personality Disorder) will tell people straight-up that they are psychopaths. The key is they don’t worry about being a psychopath. Because concern about being a bad person and hurting others isn’t something that occurs to them. And those are the kind of people they don’t want interacting. Which is fair, and why I don’t post on this blog that much. 

[thepsychopathist]

Re-watching Criminal Minds from the beginning, because of @sketiana. I missed a lot of the end of it, because Criminal Minds was what I wanted to do when I grew up when it first came on. (I was in high school.) But then I took a course on Criminal Profiling (circa 2009) and found out that the FBI’s method is actually like 80% bullshit and they don’t want anybody with a Psych background, or profiling based on stats, apparently. But the idea of the series still speaks to me. Everyone sees me in Dr. Reid, but Agent Hotchner is really the man I aspire to be. (Though that’s kind of like Reid too, isn’t it?) But I just finished episode 8 of season 1 and it talks about “some of [the people who are abused] grow up to be killers....some grow up to catch them.” And I know I saw the episode, but it would be over a decade before I would finally realize that that’s why I wanted to do the work I do: I grew up with a psychopath, so now I research them.

[thepsychopathist]

Steiner & Wooldredge, 2014: Comparing Self-Report to Official Measures of Inmate Misconduct

With the idea of the “dark figure” of crime in mind, the raw numbers of  officially-recorded misconduct would be expected to be lower than self-reported misconduct. Steiner & Wooldredge (2014) found that to be true for assaults & drug offenses, but not for theft.

They also examine if the effects of various predictors differ across the two offense types, and largely find that they do not. For example: the coefficients for the effect of being African American are not (statistically) significantly different across the two data sources. Steiner & Wooldredge (2014) seem pretty convinced of the validity of official measures for the vast majority of examinations.

And they don't even mention "dark figure" once. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2012.723031

[psych2go]

10 Traits of a Psychopath | Psych2Go

[psych2go]

Can you guys share this video?

[riazhussain-blog1]

Must watch!

[sadroboto-blog-deactivated20221]

Huh I might be a psychopath well good to know

[thepsychopathist]

This is legit. The only part I disagree with is the idea that only 1 in 100 people have psychopathic traits. Technically, psychopathy is an extreme or abnormal level of otherwise normative traits. Therefore, in that view, there are essentially normative levels of psychopathic traits, so basically everyone has some level of psychopathic traits. And if you’re worrying that you’re hurting people by your actions and would want to fix it, you’re probably not a psychopath.

[thepsychopathist]

That feeling when you get to use what you’re learning in therapy as a framework for understanding a book on offender desistance, because it’s evidence-based. And the field of psychology and therapy get new validated concepts years before Criminologists do, so it’s going to be a new insight when people read my paper on the matter.

[intj-confessions]

Accuracy

Ugh. So trying to write a psychopathic main character. It’s really fucking hard. Like, you have no idea. I researched the hell out of this. Their amygdala is about 18% smaller than average. The amygdala is responsible for our perception of emotions, most notably FEAR. They just…don’t have it. They don’t get scared. Their reaction to danger is basically “oh, that’s interesting, hmm.” Very matter-of-fact. They don’t get depressed or anxious or worry about shit. Their other emotions are generally dulled as well. Some they don’t really feel, others are just very dim, though they can conceptually understand the emotions of others. Boredom is a common problem with them, because it takes a LOT for them to FEEL shit. They crave danger because they get the adrenaline high, which allows them to kinda feel something (but not fear). 

This makes it very difficult to write engaging scenes where a psychopath is in danger, because they don’t respond like a normal person would. I’ve been getting around this problem by focusing on the physiological responses (heart rate, sweat, injury) and having my character get mad (because they can do that). Went back through my whole text in January and red-highlighted any excess emotion for potential removal. I was able to rewrite a lot of it. 

Well I just got to a scene were he’s worried about something. Psychopaths don’t worry. I mean he can ruminate on solving the problem, but like, that’s difficult to describe in terms that will make it impactful, because emotions are the bread and butter of most stories. I’ve already come to terms with the fact that it will not be 100% accurate, but I’m still shooting for as close as I can get. 

[thepsychopathist]

Fun fact time: The heart rate and sweat are actually going to be less too. Even physiologically, psychopaths experience stress responses less.

[intj-confessions]

Well, shit. I’ll have to look into that further. Does it apply to sociopaths as well?

[thepsychopathist]

I realize this is very late now, but the general opinion is that sociopathy doesn’t exist, is the same as psychopathy, or only differs from psychopathy in that it occurs as a result of outside influence (not genetics as many people think of psychopathy). The first two are most common, in my understanding of the field. People may identify as a sociopath, I suppose, but it’s not a discrete diagnostic category. There aren’t checklists or assessment tools specifically designed to differentiate sociopathy from psychopathy.

[intj-confessions]

Accuracy

Ugh. So trying to write a psychopathic main character. It’s really fucking hard. Like, you have no idea. I researched the hell out of this. Their amygdala is about 18% smaller than average. The amygdala is responsible for our perception of emotions, most notably FEAR. They just…don’t have it. They don’t get scared. Their reaction to danger is basically “oh, that’s interesting, hmm.” Very matter-of-fact. They don’t get depressed or anxious or worry about shit. Their other emotions are generally dulled as well. Some they don’t really feel, others are just very dim, though they can conceptually understand the emotions of others. Boredom is a common problem with them, because it takes a LOT for them to FEEL shit. They crave danger because they get the adrenaline high, which allows them to kinda feel something (but not fear). 

This makes it very difficult to write engaging scenes where a psychopath is in danger, because they don’t respond like a normal person would. I’ve been getting around this problem by focusing on the physiological responses (heart rate, sweat, injury) and having my character get mad (because they can do that). Went back through my whole text in January and red-highlighted any excess emotion for potential removal. I was able to rewrite a lot of it. 

Well I just got to a scene were he’s worried about something. Psychopaths don’t worry. I mean he can ruminate on solving the problem, but like, that’s difficult to describe in terms that will make it impactful, because emotions are the bread and butter of most stories. I’ve already come to terms with the fact that it will not be 100% accurate, but I’m still shooting for as close as I can get. 

[thepsychopathist]

Fun fact time: The heart rate and sweat are actually going to be less too. Even physiologically, psychopaths experience stress responses less.

[thepsychopathist]

I don’t know if I write succinctly because of working with my mentor, or if I work with my mentor because I’ve always written succinctly.

[thepsychopathist]

TFW you see research you must replicate

Technically it’s just a review, but hot damn Nigg (2016) has got me hyped! He’s got over a dozen concepts related to self-regulation/self-control, and he hasn’t even gotten into anything in Criminology! Totally ignoring Gottfredson & Hirschi (1990) and Grasmick et al. (1993)! But I really don’t have time to read it in detail and start working on my own that *does* consider the General Theory of Crime version.

Nigg, J. T. (2016). Annual research review: On the relations among self-regulation, self-control, executive functioning, effortful control, cognitive control, impulsivity, risk-taking, and inhibition for developmental psychopathology. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 58(4), 361-383. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12675

[akillerstart]

DRAWING THE LINE: What you need to know about killers

On our first date, we have discussed about humans and crimes: Why it is completely okay to understand about the dark pit of criminology. Not a perfect choice for most dates but still, you’re here once again! So now, to our second discussion.

There are many types of killers but not everyone understands those meanings. So, if you commit an unlawful intentional killing of a living being - in this case, a human being -  then holy macaroni,  you’re a murderer with a third degree diploma. Usually, that tiny piece of guilt will tick and stop you from being worse. However, some people are driven further by anger or perhaps, jealousy, therefore, we have the term spree killer, which is like the first type but on a spree: killing two or a bit more than two people at a short time and in various locations. Alongside of that is the mass murderer. They are those, whose wrath is in control most of the time and eventually, they kill a considerable number of people ( more than four) in one occurrence.

Finally, we are left with the serial killer.

Before the 1970s, they were widely known as mass murderer by criminal justice specialists and media until a clear distinction was drawn. Serial killers manifest their crime at separate events (sometimes, they take a cooling off vacation after each murder and blend back in the society) and their victims range from three or even up to one hundred. Due to the timespan, it can be tricky to catch them.

NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL A KILLER START (literally)

A survey back in 2009 marks that about 4% of general world population are sociopathic and another 1% is filtered as psychopathic. They are popular terms in psychology and share the same diagnosis as antisocial personality disorder which leads many people to mistake their identity quite frequently.

It has been proved that almost all serial killers are either one of these two types.

BUT NOT ALL SOCIOPATHS AND  PSYCHOPATHS ARE SERIAL KILLERS SO DROP YOUR PHONE.

PSYHCOLOGIA.CO has summarised thoroughly the first two terms, which are psychopath and sociopath in the infographic below.

(Source: http://psychologia.co/psychopath-vs-sociopath/)

Well-known serial killers who are sociopathic include: Richard Ramirez, John Wayne Gacy, Aileen Wuornos etc. While in the psychopath category we have: Ted Bundy (with the IQ of 136), Paul Bernardo (an enthusiastic boy scout and a university student), Dennis Rader (church council president) etc.

A human, like many other humans among us. We might have walked past them several times, might have seen them on TV, might have heard their name sung in honourable awards and yet, we have never noticed or even thought that they would be a gruesome monster.

Or maybe we just genuinely forgot that they, just like everyone else, are given a choice to be one?

Keep calm and stay tuned until we meet again on our next adventure.

[thepsychopathist]

Important Notes: Not all serial killers are necessarily psychopaths/sociopaths either.

Second: Sociopathy is considered not to exist, except in that it is identical to psychopathy and therefore interchangeable with it. The closest thing I can think of is the difference between primary and secondary psychopathy or Factor 1 and Factor 2 of Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R). [Primary & Factor 1 corresponding to psychopathy in the psychologia image; Secondary & Factor 2 being Sociopathy there.]

[cenkrett]

What is the exact difference between psychopathy and aspd, I read psychopathy is a stronger form of aspd and mostly used on criminals /serial killers, but then there was an article of a German university, testing the moral system of psychopaths and they had three groups criminal psychopaths, non-criminal psychopaths and people without psychopathy, and I got confused.

The difference between a “criminal psychopath” and a regular psychopath is simply that one has committed crimes and the other hasn’t (or hasn’t bee caught).  There are gradations of psychopathy - you can score higher than other psychopaths on an assessment test like the PCL-R, for example - but there aren’t wholly different types of psychopaths.  It’s all the same condition.I suppose it could be fair to say that psychopathy is a more severe form of ASPD, but it’s not as simple as that.  The assessment criteria for psychopathy focus more on behaviors, rather than traits (though there is overlap).  It also includes certain narcissistic traits not found in the ASPD diagnostic criteria (grandiosity, for instance).I confess that I am skeptical of the PCL-R, the most commonly used tool for assessing psychopathy.  Robert Hare, who developed it, did his research almost exclusively on convicted criminal psychopaths, so the test he developed is skewed towards the behaviors of the sort of psychopath who commits crimes and gets caught.  As such, I believe it is flawed.

[thepsychopathist]

There are other psychopathy measures that don’t focus on the behaviors as much. The Elemental Psychopathy Assessment is one. It was developed using the Five Factor Model of personality as a basis. Comparison research has shown it to be slightly different from the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual’s attempts at including psychopathy under the umbrella of Antisocial Personality Disorder. But you’re right that it includes narcissistic traits that ASPD doesn’t. In a lot of the literature, it’s Factor 2 of Psychopathy that most resembles ASPD, and also a lot of the criminal-esque activity is there too. Factor 1 is the typical psychopathic personality stuff. (The EPA doesn’t really break itself down into the Factor 1 & Factor 2; those are more the realm of PCL-R, the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale Version 3 (SRP-III; derived from PCL-R), and Levenson’s Self Report Psychopathy scale do it more, I think.) Another thing that distinguishes psychopathy from any of the personality disorders is that it doesn’t have diagnostic criteria. You get a score, and you compare that to all the other people’s scores. Some cutoffs are set, but they’re completely arbitrary (30 on the PCL-R for men, 22-25 for women for some reason) so most researchers have taken a more dimensional approach. Which results in one of my favorite things to tell people: Everyone has psychopathic traits.

[thepsychopathist]

I sometimes get concerned that I might be psychopathic and that that draws me to studying it. I’m only in the 83rd percentile on Secondary, though. And, I’m sure, much lower on primary. LSRP is not my favorite psychopathy scale though. (I’m also not sure if this is the real/full LSRP either.)

A link: https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/LSRP.php

[lauterdrehen]

Narcissists as inherently abusive parents?

When people share articles about how narcissists and psychopaths can’t love their children and only see them as possessions genuinely infuriates me.

I, for one, am both, and I’d even go as far to say that I love my (future) children because of my NPD.

Why?

Firstly, if my children did well in school, behaved well and were happy, that would reflect very well on me. I have a lot of motivation to be a good mother. The best mother.

Secondly, I do see them as mine, and things and people I see as mine I get very defensive over and will fiercely protect. I.e “that’s my baby! You can’t hurt my baby!” - the baby is still mine, but is it being protected? Yes. Am I being toxic here? No.

Thirdly, if they grew up to become successful in whatever they wanted to do, it again would reflect well on me and they would be happy! We’d all be happy! This would happen if I supported and mentored them well.

Sure, there are abusive narcissistic parents, but there are abusers who are not narcissists or psychopaths too. Looking at how many people actually have these PDs, the likelihood a parent would have one is low - around 1-3%, and a minority of those are abusers.

A very small percentage of the population.

In conclusion, I have far much more motivation to be a good parent than any other. I certainly can’t be seen as a bad one, it just won’t do; nor would I ever let anything or anyone harm my child(ren).

I’m certainly not the only one who thinks like this either

[thepsychopathist]

The problem with this is that there’s no manual to being “The Best parent" so efforts to be so could end up being abusive. (Neither of our individual personal experiences has any statement on this scientifically, but there’s very little research on this topic. I’m hoping to change that, whatever the outcome might be. That being said, the following is my own personal experience.) I grew up raised by my grandmother, and I realized only a year ago that she’s why I study psychopathy. I’ve never understood how someone can face their child/grandchild (or anyone, really) telling them “You are hurting me” or “You have hurt me to the point that I have wanted to die in order to no longer endure this” and not want desperately to make amends and/or be better. None of the things my grandmother did that were abusive were out of intent to “hurt” me, it was out of intent to help me avoid things that would make me not the best. Protect me from anything that would interfere in me reflecting the best of her. But all of those things she wanted to “help” me avoid still happened to me, and in fact her trying to prevent them made them worse to endure. (If the person raising me thinks I need to be on a diet, it’s a lot harder to face the bullies who say I’m fat.) All of the non-psychopaths I’ve discussed her actions with recognize immediately that what she did was abuse. But yet she still says she loves me, and has said she loves everyone else in the family. It has taken me a long time to realize that her “love” means “I enjoy you when you do what I want” (to quote Leedom, Bass & Almas, 2013). It is not the unconditional love that marks a good parent.

[withdnotb]

On ‘psychopath’

Lately I’ve been seeing people that throw around the word “psychopath” far too carelessly.

“Yeah I’m a bit of a psycopath haha”

Like, no. Hating someone and being glad that something bad happened to them isn’t being a bit of a psychopath for fuck’s sake.

I’m the grandson of a true psychopath. She drove my grandpa to suicide, manipulated him and destroyed his life.

My uncle and mother have trauma because of her and it affects their lives even when we have 0 contact with her. If it weren’t for my father, my mother would’ve ended her life too. My father made my mother realise what was happening.

Luckily for me, I’ve had minimum contact with her, and yet I’ve suffered.

We no longer have any contact with her or that part of the family because they keep saying that it’s how she is and yes, of course it’s how she is because she is a psychopath.

She has no empathy, no remorse, she’s completely egotistical. She wastes more money than she has and then asks someone else to cover her debts. She won’t help anyone.

And she’s not a killer-type psychopath.

I have a psychopathy (not being psychopath but having some of their traits) and I don’t joke about it because I know it and know how to treat it in a way that won’t harm those whom I love. And even though I don’t care about anyone else or what happens to them, even though my empathy is scarce, I’m not going to joke about it or flaunt it.

It’s not somethig 'cute’, it’s not something 'romantic’.

It destroys people. It can end up killing them.

So think twice before you use the word psychopath.

This ended up being way longer than expected (and it’s just a small portion of all the things I could tell you about the psychopath in my family) but I needed to get it out.

[thepsychopathist]

The overuse of “psychopath” is my biggest pet peeve. For exactly this reason.

This is also what drives me to push the field of Criminology to examine the effect of a psychopathic parent/grandparent/”caregiver”. The difference between its quantity (literally like 2 studies) and how much research there is on the effect of having a psychopathic child (LOTS) is staggering. But psychopathy is heritable, so there’s probably just as many psychopathic parents as there are children. (Not to mention the ethics boards will be easier to get by with research on adults vs. children.)

[thepsychopathist]

Berryessa (2018) compared ten diagnoses (psychiatric and otherwise: ADHD, ASPD, Addictive Disorder, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, behavioral variant Frontotemporal Dementia, High Functioning Autism, Borderline Intellectual Disability, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Prost-Traumatic Stress Disorder). Of note, these include antisocial personality disorder, but don’t include psychopathy. They used both physical and sexual assault as crimes (whichever best fit the diagnosis specified). For each vignette (of the 10), they had 3 conditions: no diagnosis, diagnosis, and diagnosis plus biomechanism. I’m not sure the detail level of the biomechanism given, and they didn’t use that word (that’s from Aspinwall, Brown, & Tabery, 2012 and Fuss, Dressing, & Briken, 2015). They examined the diagnoses with mediating variables of: lack of recovery, lack of treatability, dangerousness, social acceptance, and personal responsibility of the afflicted. No significant result for antisocial personality disorder, which they admit is surprising.

Berryessa, C. M. (2018). The effects of psychiatric and “biological” labels on lay sentencing and punishment decisions. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 14(2), 241-256. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-018-9322-x

[thepsychopathist]

This suggests that the influence of psychopathy on restrictiveness is driven primarily by perceptions of dangerousness...Specifically, judges’ recommendations for placement are not directly related to their attitudes or perceptions about psychopathy. Instead, their schemas of psychopathy influence their perceptions of dangerousness, which in turn, affect placement recommendations.

Jones & Cauffman, 2008, p.159

[thepsychopathist]

Is Psychopathy a Theory?

I didn’t feel like DeLisi’s book made the case of psychopathy as a theory, it was mostly just a summary of current research on psychopathy (at least through the lens of supporting DeLisi’s ideas about psychopathy). But one of my classmates suggested that a book detailing a theory didn’t have to have what I was looking for. [Which is why I attempted to distill the hypotheses one would test from DeLisi’s book, since I feel the ability to at least distill testable hypotheses is requisite for a theory.] Doing so made me lean more toward “maybe it IS a theory?” so I brought it to my mentor. He said psychopathy is not a theory, it’s a construct.

But self-control is also a construct, so what makes Gottfredson & Hirschi’s self-control a theory but psychopathy is not? That’s my next big question, but it would require a close reading of Gottfredson & Hirschi 1990 to consider on my own and I so don’t want to do that. Might just ask my mentor, or see if a G&H fanboy (and I say that with the utmost respect for people with the patience for that) wants to do a detailed reading of DeLisi’s book like I did, to compare & contrast.