Do sociopaths know that they are sociopaths?

[SlyFrog]

I have always wondered about the mentally retarded (I am sure there is a more modern term for it, but I'm using this one because it is the one I know and convenient). When I see one, I often wonder whether they know that they are retarded, and the implications that brings. Are they sad because of it, accepting, etc. Obviously it differs from person to person, but that is not really the important part to me philosophically. Instead, I find it both interesting and sad that it is (probably) more likely that the more mentally retarded that you are (and therefore more debiliated), the less likely it is that you will know that you are different, understand or grasp all of the slights, etc. that you will likely receive throughout your life. In other words, it may be beneficial to your emotional well-being to actually be worse off in terms of disabilities.

Recently, in a connected vein, I began to wonder about sociopaths. I am no psychology student, so I am simply thinking of the standard definition that I have heard as a layman that they simply do not feel the emotions (guilt, love, etc.) that others feel. To some degree, they can behave in a purely self-aggrandizing, somewhat animalistic fashion because that emotional baggage is not there to stop them from doing what others would not.

Do sociopaths realize that? Not having normal emotions, by definition, I suppose, you can not know what it is to not have normal emotions. Are they like the autistic/Asperger's syndrome afflicted, wherein they can sometimes "study" others to try to learn to approximate, and perhaps develop actual emotions (or things approximating emotions)?

Realizing that you are not "normal" because you do not feel emotional reaction toward other people and things, can you by definition be "sad" or otherwise affected by this knowledge? It is interesting for me to consider that the very problem that is at issue may prevent you from being upset or sad at having the problem, in a way that you would be upset or sad at recognizing you had other deficiencies or illnesses.

[Gordon Cameron]

They might know enough just from encountering other people and from reading books etc. that "normal" people are moved by certain passions. They may not understand what those passions feel like, but they could know intellectually that they haven't got them and other people have.

Just a guess.

[BennyProfane]

It seems to me that you are asking a question akin to "How do I know that when I see a color that I call "green" that somebody else is in fact also seeing the same color?" Indeed, the use of the term "animalistic" seems appropriate, since I've often pondered whether my cats realize that I am in some way different from them. And whether they feel the same emotions I feel, or some approximation thereof. But given that those sorts of things are 100% subjective, and that there's no way to quantify or measure them, I don't think your question can be answered. We can certainly make observations, and ask questions, and test responses to stimuli, but ultimately it comes down to what you SAY vs. what I SAY, and meaning when discussing perception is just too malleable to nail down.

[Lunch of Kong]

When the jury pre-selection questionnaire asks: "Are you of sound mind and body?" the only honest answer can be: "I don't know."

[Quaro]

I don't see why it would be any different than someone with autism. If they happen to be quite intelligent (more rare among autistics than is usually thought, but it happens), they can study normal humans and could come to some kind of understanding of where they differ. If an alien were to describe an emotion with no direct human equivalent, you could probably come to some kind of understanding of it, even if you will never have direct experience of it.

Blindsight, by Peter Watts, explores some evolutationary advantages you might get for being a sociopath. http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm

Full book is CC licensed if anyone is interested.

[Dirt]

Technically, there are no sociopaths. They're psychopaths.

[Bill Dungsroman]

I have always wondered about the mentally retarded (I am sure there is a more modern term for it, but I'm using this one because it is the one I know and convenient). When I see one, I often wonder whether they know that they are retarded, and the implications that brings. Are they sad because of it, accepting, etc.
Depends upon the level of retardation. Profoundly retarded people know it inasmuch as they are told they are special or different and they apply that to themselves, but it only has so much meaning to them. Mildly retarded people may understand that, but they may not. Back when I worked as a busboy in high school, I worked with a dude who qualified as mildly retarded. He did not seem to really grasp that, as far as I could tell. Like, he didn't really get he was in Special Ed in high school, based on conversations with him about it. But then he might have had sucky parents who didn't take the time to explain things to him properly. I mean, there is no shortage of legitimately dumb people walking the Earth who are ignorant of it.


Obviously it differs from person to person, but that is not really the important part to me philosophically. Instead, I find it both interesting and sad that it is (probably) more likely that the more mentally retarded that you are (and therefore more debiliated), the less likely it is that you will know that you are different, understand or grasp all of the slights, etc. that you will likely receive throughout your life. In other words, it may be beneficial to your emotional well-being to actually be worse off in terms of disabilities.
I'd say not. Rather, it makes no difference in the long run. The only thing that makes you depressed is...being depressed. You can be a brain surgeon or a dirt-eating imbecile, whether or not you're happy about it, or your life, seems pretty independant of those factors (based on data collected for depression).


Recently, in a connected vein, I began to wonder about sociopaths. I am no psychology student, so I am simply thinking of the standard definition that I have heard as a layman that they simply do not feel the emotions (guilt, love, etc.) that others feel. To some degree, they can behave in a purely self-aggrandizing, somewhat animalistic fashion because that emotional baggage is not there to stop them from doing what others would not.
It's not quite that binary. Frank psychopaths, such as severe forms of schizophrenia, are the closest thing you are thinking of in terms of emotionally devoid individuals. Blunt affect, depersonalization, sociopaths may exhibit these things but there's no direct association by and large, to my experience. Sociopaths typically express an inability to sympathize nor empathize with other people's feelings - it does not necessarily mean they themselves cannot or do not feel those emotions. Although yes, many sociopaths experience inability to feel certain emotions such as the ones you list.


Do sociopaths realize that? Not having normal emotions, by definition, I suppose, you can not know what it is to not have normal emotions. Are they like the autistic/Asperger's syndrome afflicted, wherein they can sometimes "study" others to try to learn to approximate, and perhaps develop actual emotions (or things approximating emotions)?
You mean fake it? Sure, but if it develops into actual emotional response within themselves, I am not as certain. I'd guess not.


Realizing that you are not "normal" because you do not feel emotional reaction toward other people and things, can you by definition be "sad" or otherwise affected by this knowledge? It is interesting for me to consider that the very problem that is at issue may prevent you from being upset or sad at having the problem, in a way that you would be upset or sad at recognizing you had other deficiencies or illnesses.
It's been my experience while studying these things in the past that no, they do not. Someone with more recent or more extensive experience in this area can amend or refute it, but that has pretty much been my experience.

[wisefool]

My (not so little now) cousin is a high-functioning autistic. This means he's fully capable of getting your ebay account and bidding on hundreds of imported-Japanese Gundams.

Autism seems to be an inability to perceive emotional context in a voice, facial expressions, body language. It's like they perceive all speech as text messages without emoticons. I *think* my dog, like most pack animals, can perceive these.

Slyfrog, if you care enough to ask if you're a sociopath, you're probably not. I think.

[Rimbo]

Yes.

I mean, no.

Wait, what?

[bloo]

Watch the Iceman's interviews:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0347228/

[Zylon]

Do left-handed people know they're not right-handed?

[Bill Dungsroman]

Do people who can't make legit analogies know it?

[Harugon]

Not having normal emotions, by definition, I suppose, you can not know what it is to not have normal emotions. Are they like the autistic/Asperger's syndrome afflicted, wherein they can sometimes "study" others to try to learn to approximate, and perhaps develop actual emotions (or things approximating emotions)?


Isn't that how babies learn to smile and whatnot, by observing their parents? How does a sociopath or autistic person know that their emotions are real and not just things approximating emotions? Half the functional people in society could be sociopaths that are pretending to have emotions.

[fire]

And the rest are paranoid that half the functonal people in society are pretending to have emotions.

[Bill Dungsroman]

Isn't that how babies learn to smile and whatnot, by observing their parents? How does a sociopath or autistic person know that their emotions are real and not just things approximating emotions? Half the functional people in society could be sociopaths that are pretending to have emotions.
Babies learn to smile, yes, but they also learn to attach the emotion of happiness to smiling. Two different things, one is an action, the other is an emotion that has a neurophysical component in the brain.

[Dirt]

Do teenagers know that they don't really know?

Psychopaths are developmentally challenged, damaged or limited in some way. Often, the problem lies with us, not them in their own minds. That's why they're psychopaths.

[Harugon]

That doesn't leave alot of room for the sane.

[Podunk]

Isn't that how babies learn to smile and whatnot, by observing their parents?

Babies have been observed smiling in the womb. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3105580.stm)

[Dirt]

What is sane? Sanity isn't mathematically quantifiable like logic or science.

[Bill Dungsroman]

Psychopaths are developmentally challenged, damaged or limited in some way. Often, the problem lies with us, not them in their own minds. That's why they're psychopaths.
Please expound on this awesome theory of yours. Right now.

[Bill Dungsroman]

What is sane? Sanity isn't mathematically quantifiable like logic or science.
That doesn't mean it cannot be rationally determined.

[ElGuapo]

Do teenagers know that they don't really know?

Psychopaths are developmentally challenged, damaged or limited in some way. Often, the problem lies with us, not them in their own minds. That's why they're psychopaths.

I think I read about this theory in Knightfall Part One: Broken Bat.

[Dirt]

Please expound on this awesome theory of yours. Right now.
Take the Korean guy for instance. Didn't his video say that we forced him to commit the murders? Wasn't it our fault? You think he knew the problem was with him?

[Dirt]

That doesn't mean it cannot be rationally determined.
Absolutely and that's what makes Psychology a soft science.

[Bill Dungsroman]

Take the Korean guy for instance. Didn't his video say that we forced him to commit the murders? Wasn't it our fault? You think he knew the problem was with him?
Ok so, you're either trolling or you're just stupid in which case arguing with you is pointless.

[MikeJ]

Isn't that how babies learn to smile and whatnot, by observing their parents?

I have a nephew who has been blind since birth, and he smiles and makes a lot of regular facial expressions.

[Shadarr]

Ok so, you're either trolling or you're just stupid in which case arguing with you is pointless.

I think Dirt just left the words "in his own mind" as implied.

[Dirt]

Ok so, you're either trolling or you're just stupid in which case arguing with you is pointless.
Do tell.

[Flowers]

Sociopaths are usually too caught up in whining about the problems their selfish nature creates for them and blaming everyone else to notice that everything is their fault.

[MattKeil]

Sociopaths, Flowers. Not Livejournal account holders.

[ElGuapo]

I think after reading that sentence a few times Dirt just put it poorly. I think what he meant to say was that in their own warped minds, psychopaths see the problem as society/other people (i.e. "us") rather than a problem within (i.e. "them").

That makes some sense to me.

[Dirt]

Yeah, Bill. It's not my fucking fault if you don't get it.

[MattKeil]

Your inablity to clearly express yourself isn't your fault?

[Shadarr]

I think Dirt is illustrating, intentionally or not, that retarded people do not know they are retarded.

[fire]

I dunno what's wrong with you guys (maybe you're sociopaths?) but I got what Dirt was trying to say on the first try.

Or maybe it's us.

[Drastic]

I think after reading that sentence a few times Dirt just put it poorly. I think what he meant to say was that in their own warped minds, psychopaths see the problem as society/other people (i.e. "us") rather than a problem within (i.e. "them").

That makes some sense to me.
Seconded. It makes some sense to me that lacking in the capacity for empathy probably correlates with lacking in the capacity for clarity in self-awareness.

Of course, if studies show I'm wrong about that, I don't see how that's my problem.

[SlyFrog]

Damn it, I'm scrambling around so much today, I can't even take part in the question I raised. Which, of course, may be for the better for everyone else.

In short, I would note that whether something is your or society's problem may be different than being aware that you are abnormal, and also different than being upset or saddened that you are different. You could also recognize, I suppose, that the problem was with others, but still wish you could fit in or otherwise just get along better.

Incidentally, I have heard that sociopaths (or psychopaths, to make Dirt feel better, if he can feel at all) are often deterred from crimes not because of any caring that they would harm someone, but merely from fear of being caught. But don't most people feel that way occassionally, albeit to greater or lesser degrees? Has anyone been so angry with someone, due to road rage, sleeping with your sister, whatever, that deep down inside you think it is possible you would crack them with a tire iron without remorse, but for the chance of ending up in prison? I suppose that one can occassionally have such things that happen to cross over with sociopathic behavior (really, more sociopathic feelings), and of course unless one goes through and acts out the impulse, it is probably really impossible to say whether any sense of feeling, compassion, humanity, etc. would have actually stopped you before you did it.

[Rimbo]

Sociopaths, Flowers. Not Livejournal account holders.

You're joking, of course; I think there's a truth behind the joke, which is that few of us see the problems our own personalities cause in life. By the same token, it's perfectly possible for someone who's a sociopath to recognize that he/she is sociopathic without necessarily being able to control it or change it (or want to).

"Being unaware of one's own issues" is neither necessary nor sufficient to demonstrate that one is a "sociopath," and vice versa.

Oh, and I knew what Dirt meant on the first read, too, but what he wrote did start off sounding like something Tom Cruise would say.

[Bill Dungsroman]

Yeah, Bill. It's not my fucking fault if you don't get it.
Some people got your point, some people didn't. I was taking into account the other stuff you'd said in this thread, none of which was very thoughtful or even remotely correct. I apologize for that particular misunderstanding, inasmuch as it is my fault, which is arguable. Also, you're retarded.

[Bill Dungsroman]

Damn it, I'm scrambling around so much today, I can't even take part in the question I raised. Which, of course, may be for the better for everyone else.

In short, I would note that whether something is your or society's problem may be rdifferent than being aware that you are abnormal, and also different than being upset or saddened that you are different. You could also recognize, I suppose, that the problem was with others, but still wish you could fit in or otherwise just get along better.

Incidentally, I have heard that sociopaths (or psychopaths, to make Dirt feel better, if he can feel at all) are often deterred from crimes not because of any caring that they would harm someone, but merely from fear of being caught. But don't most people feel that way occassionally, albeit to greater or lesser degrees? Has anyone been so angry with someone, due to road rage, sleeping with your sister, whatever, that deep down inside you think it is possible you would crack them with a tire iron without remorse, but for the chance of ending up in prison? I suppose that one can occassionally have such things that happen to cross over with sociopathic behavior (really, more sociopathic feelings), and of course unless one goes through and acts out the impulse, it is probably really impossible to say whether any sense of feeling, compassion, humanity, etc. would have actually stopped you before you did it.
Well yeah. See, as I mentioned before, few if any psychological disorders are binary in nature. There will always be a range or degree of expression of any type of mental process. The fundamental difference is whether or not someone can refrain from acting on those impulses. That is, as modern psychological theory would have it, a clear difference.

[Rimbo]

Because Bill Dungsroman obviously knows so much more about it than the rest of us. We should all just suck his cock and hope that in the semen we swallow we somehow acquire some of the great wisdom that he deigns to grant us poor ignorant plebes.

[Bill Dungsroman]

Because Bill Dungsroman obviously knows so much more about it than the rest of us. We should all just suck his cock and hope that in the semen we swallow we somehow acquire some of the great wisdom that he deigns to grant us poor ignorant plebes.
Looks like someone needs to do some more anti-crazy calisthenics.

[Dirt]

Well yeah. See, as I mentioned before, few if any psychological disorders are binary in nature. There will always be a range or degree of expression of any type of mental process. The fundamental difference is whether or not someone can refrain from acting on those impulses. That is, as modern psychological theory would have it, a clear difference.
Reconcile your statement with rational determinism of psychological determination.

[wisefool]

Autism Study: Tracking eye movements of autistic subjects watching a film. Subjects pay more attention to inaminate objects than faces.

http://yalemedicine.yale.edu/ym_sp03/rounds.html

[Bill Dungsroman]

Reconcile your statement with rational determinism of psychological determination.
No. There's no need on my end.

[Dirt]

No. There's no need on my end.
Cool, now I can call you, "Retard."

Ooh... That was fun. Let's do it again.

[Dirt]

Some people got your point, some people didn't. I was taking into account the other stuff you'd said in this thread, none of which was very thoughtful or even remotely correct. I apologize for that particular misunderstanding, inasmuch as it is my fault, which is arguable. Also, you're retarded.
No, you're retarded.

[SlyFrog]

NOOOOOMAAAAAAR!

[Mike O'Malley]

What is sane? Sanity isn't mathematically quantifiable like logic or science.

I dunno, you're making a bit easier every time you post.

[Rimbo]

Bill Dungsroman vs. Dirt?

http://www.comedycentral.com/press/images/southpark/503CrippleFight_thumbnail.jpg

[Rob Beschizza]

The diagnostic features as of DSM IV, for what it's worth, indicate that sociopaths may or may not be self-aware. They may blame their victims and the world or see their lives as fated or deterministic; or they may "indicate complete indifference." Self-appraisal tends to be "inflated."

The diagnostic criteria, however, don't say anything about self-awareness other than "lack of remose, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another."

In other words, "They might know what they are, but they don't care either way."

[Bill Dungsroman]

Cool, now I can call you, "Retard."

Ooh... That was fun. Let's do it again.
OK, you dull fuck, let's pretend you have any idea what you're babbling about and address your former post:

Reconcile your statement with rational determinism of psychological determination.
Rational determinism is a cop-out. So I guess it's not surprising you bring it up, you loafer. Lick my Kant. Although I suppose it cleaves to your probable Eastern heritage, but who knows.

Pretending further, the only way to truly reconcile the CRAZY WACKY NOTION that people are responsible for their own actions and aren't pushed from behind while pulled from the fore to commit idiotic acts like, say, posting racial slurs spontaneously in a forum, would be to bring up the theory of "soft" determinism, rather Libertarianism. Otherwise, I'd guess you'd want to argue the fallacy of if there is no free will, then there is no actual morality, as we are all bound to our fates anyway. But I'd call you a backsliding douche nozzle and point out that it can be argued society and its people can have their deterministic futures controlled away from deviant behavior by making examples of those who are gonzo.

And as for how it all relates to my post:

Well yeah. See, as I mentioned before, few if any psychological disorders are binary in nature. There will always be a range or degree of expression of any type of mental process. The fundamental difference is whether or not someone can refrain from acting on those impulses. That is, as modern psychological theory would have it, a clear difference.

Wait, let's clarify a few things:

Technically, there are no sociopaths. They're psychopaths.
Wrong. (http://faculty.ncwc.edu/TOCONNOR/428/428lect16.htm) Check it:

People who cannot contain their urges to harm (or kill) people repeatedly for no apparent reason are assumed to suffer from some mental illness. However, they may be more cruel than crazy, they may be choosing not to control their urges, they know right from wrong, they know exactly what they're doing, and they are definitely NOT insane, at least according to the consensus of most scholars (Samenow 2004).
So there's the long answer for my original "No." Anyway.


In such cases, they usually fall into one of three types that are typically considered aggravating circumstances in addition to their legal guilt -- antisocial personality disorder (APD), sociopath, or psychopath -- none of which are the same as insanity or psychosis.
DUH. "Technically," huh?


Central to understanding individuals diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder is that they appear to experience a limited range of human emotions. This can explain their lack of empathy for the suffering of others, since they cannot experience the emotion associated with either empathy or suffering.

Anyway. My original statement was that people exhibit varying levels of varying psychological expressions. Simplistically, this would vary from having no mental or resultant verbal, perhaps physical expression (by act), to merely having thoughts, to having those thoughts be obssessive, leading to verbal expression of those thoughts, to compulsive physical expression of those thoughts. Simply put, people aren't categorized as "crazy" or "not crazy," there is a wide and progressive range of various psychological phenomena that are (perhaps arguably arbitrarily, perhaps not) assigned terminology meant for descriptive and explanatory purposes.

So, if someone is considered "sociopathic," that person fulfills some, many,or all of the accepted criteria to be so. However, another person may only exhibit one of the criteria in full and perhaps another criterion to a much lesser degree (ie only by thought), and yet another person may exhibit none of those things. The first person is labeled a sociopath, the latter person Jim Dandy, and the middle person is arguably troubled (but is probably just generally regarded as a dick). And there's like eleventy-thousand other people who run the gamut between all three of them.

But that's all observation. It's a far cry from whatever the point is you want to make about determinism. So somebody is teleologically determined to act like a sociopath and exhibit 14 of the 16 or so behaviors common to sociopaths. All I got at this point "Okay...and?"

Your turn.

[magnet]

In general, psychiatrists divide mental illnesses into two categories, "ego-dystonic" and "ego-syntonic". The former are those that interfere with the patient's goals (depression, bipolar disorder, autism, substance abuse, etc.), and they are generally the type that patients actively seek to treat. The latter are those that are not necessarily perceived as an obstacle by the patient, although they tend to irritate others.

An illustrative example is the contrast between "obsessive compulsive disorder" and "obsessive compulsive personality disorder". People who can't get anything done because of their urge to keep washing their hands over and over have OCD, and they are miserable. People with OCPD describe themselves as "anal" and become successful engineers.

According to the DSM-IV, "sociopaths" have an ego-syntonic personality disorder. In a nutshell, they enjoy using other people, they think they are not bound by society's rules, and they don't want to worry about other people's feelings. Some people can get pretty far with that strategy. So even if they know they are sociopaths, they probably don't care.

[Dirt]

/Insert angry diatribe here.
By determinism, I meant the second meaning as according to webster.com:

1 a : a theory or doctrine that acts of the will, occurrences in nature, or social or psychological phenomena are causally determined by preceding events or natural laws b : a belief in predestination
2 : the quality or state of being determined

Here's your original quote:

That doesn't mean it cannot be rationally determined.

I figured you would know that I had meant the second meaning based upon the context of the entire thread. So, I apologize for not quoting your original post first. If something isn't binary, how do you make a rational determination of what the problem is? I ask a simple question...

[Ephraim]

This very question is explored at length in both the "Dexter" novels (http://www.amazon.com/Darkly-Dreaming-Dexter-Jeff-Lindsay/dp/0307277887/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-5960821-2618407?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179360592&sr=8-1) and mini-series (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0773262/).

Dexter is a psychopath who is very much aware of his inability to feel emotions, particularly the ones he knows he should be feeling towards his sister and girlfriend. He has learned to fake them very well, and, not spoiling anything too much, it seems that the more he fakes them, the closer they are coming to actually being "real".

It's an excellent TV series, and the books are pretty good, too. You'd like them, if this kind of thing interests you.

As for the actual question, my copy of the DSM-IV agrees with Rob's, so yeah... what he said.

[nutsak]

Because Bill Dungsroman obviously knows so much more about it than the rest of us. We should all just suck his cock and hope that in the semen we swallow we somehow acquire some of the great wisdom that he deigns to grant us poor ignorant plebes.

So that's what his college room mate was doing.

[Bill Dungsroman]

I figured you would know that I had meant the second meaning based upon the context of the entire thread. So, I apologize for not quoting your original post first. If something isn't binary, how do you make a rational determination of what the problem is? I ask a simple question...
Ok, maybe this will help. There are roughly 14 or so behavioral patterns all sociopaths exhibit. True sociopaths display anywhere from most to all of them. But some people only display half, less than half, or maybe only 2 or 3. So there are people who are considered "borderline" sociopathic, "normal" people, frank sociopaths, and people who are just big fat assholes. A whole gamut. A lot of it is up to the therapist or psychiatrist, as well. Is that what you mean?