Thought experiment: Should public leaders be tested for psychopathy?

[violet_crown]

Neither is clinically a diagnosis, so far as I'm aware. They'd be clumped under Antisocial Personality Disorder in the DSM V.

I guess the reason why I'm reluctant to accept that "psychopaths" feel no emotions at all is because they still engage in pathologically self-serving or risk-taking behaviors, presumably because there's some psychological payoff involved, even if it only involves the self.

I see your point, but think it conflates "emotion" with "sensation".

If you like to rob banks simply because you get off on the rush, that's not really emotional response, so much as enjoying pleasurable sensation of dopamine/adrenaline. There is definitely a bodily component to the experience of emotions, but most definitions will include some sort of subjective experience as well. Psychopaths don't really have that, nor do they express genuine emotion either.

 

[senza tema]

I see your point, but think it conflates "emotion" with "sensation".

If you like to rob banks simply because you get off on the rush, that's not really emotional response, so much as enjoying pleasurable sensation of dopamine/adrenaline. There is definitely a bodily component to the experience of emotions, but most definitions will include some sort of subjective experience as well. Psychopaths don't really have that, nor do they express genuine emotion either.

What is "genuine emotion" though and how can one accurately detect its presence or absence?

Making an "objective science" of things that are subject to human bias is dangerous. Psychology isn't an objective science, whatever that means, which isn't to say it can't be helpful, it just shouldn't be glorified as something it's not.

 

[violet_crown]

What is "genuine emotion" though and how can one accurately detect its presence or absence?

Making an "objective science" of things that are subject to human bias is dangerous. Psychology isn't an objective science, whatever that means, which isn't to say it can't be helpful, it just shouldn't be glorified as something it's not.

I wasn't attempting anything of the sort. It just stands to reason that there's got to be more to an emotional life than simple physiological response to stimuli, or we could say that earthworms have as rich of an emotional life as that of a human being's. I just don't think that's the case.

 

[senza tema]

I wasn't attempting anything of the sort. It just stands to reason that there's got to be more to an emotional life than simple physiological response to stimuli, or we could say that earthworms have as rich of an emotional life as that of a human being's. I just don't think that's the case.

It does stand to reason that there's more to an emotional life than simple physiological response to stimuli. It doesn't stand to reason that psychopaths are incapable of feeling anything other than physiological responses to stimuli because that hasn't actually been proved or even satisfactorily tested.

 

[magpie]

The irony in people who'd be for this sort of thing not realizing that they're the sociopaths themselves.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I'm not sure what a "psych eval" entails, but I was thinking more along the lines of brain scan results. I don't think brain scan results can be gamed? And they seem pretty solid, thus far. I'd think an informed prosocial psychopath would actually be able to pass a psych eval with flying colors. If my understanding of psych eval is correct.

eta: For the record, I actually have very little faith in psychology as a profession. I'm in the camp who sees the DSM as a chemical straight-jacket, and that Big Pharma plays WAY WAY too much of a role in research.

Making an "objective science" of things that are subject to human bias is dangerous.

Yes, this would be my only concern. It would definitely be my concern in actually implementing such a policy. But I'm coming from a theoretical place of wondering- *if* the brain scan tests were solid enough to rely on, would there be any reason to not use them to weed psychopaths out of the political leaders?

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Sociopathy is different from psychopathy. I don't have time right now to look it all up and list the differences. But I think in a nutshell, sociopaths want to hurt people for the sake of hurting people- psychopaths don't necessarily want that. They want admiration and power, and don't care if people get hurt in the process. Or something.

The second one sounds a bit more like narcissism. The term psychopathy used to have the same definition as sociopathy, so there is some inconsistency and messiness with those terms.

What if the very nature of success in our society naturally selects for people with extremely low levels of remorse or empathy? There are also a great many people who lean in the direction of personality disorder, but who may not be fully diagnosable. One problem I see with this sort of testing is that intelligent people can manipulate therapists and lie on tests. I currently know about one full-blown off the charts sociopath who is fooling the legal system and apparently some therapists in my state. And he's not even that smart.

The entire system has to change because it is currently designed to reward people who behave in a manner very similar to sociopathy and narcissism. Finding better ways to reveal factually that this is the case might help wake people up to change it, but it could also continue to normalize it. Right now society has been moving in the direction of overtly admiring and emulating people who behave like that. Just look at some of the current court cases dealing with psycho-sadists. Some of them are getting off with easy sentences.

 

[Fluffywolf]

The entire system has to change because it is currently designed to reward people who behave in a manner very similar to sociopathy and narcissism. Finding better ways to reveal factually that this is the case might help wake people up to change it, but it could also continue to normalize it. Right now society has been moving in the direction of overtly admiring and emulating people who behave like that. Just look at some of the current court cases dealing with psycho-sadists. Some of them are getting off with easy sentences.

That issue just stems from a lack of education of the average person though. You know the "Jumping on the bandwagon" phenomenon.

In other words, better education would mean better critically thinking and informed people.

So the best method to stave this off is simply to improve education.

 

[violet_crown]

It does stand to reason that there's more to an emotional life than simple physiological response to stimuli. It doesn't stand to reason that psychopaths are incapable of feeling anything other than physiological responses to stimuli because that hasn't actually been proved or even satisfactorily tested.

Psychopaths themselves say they don't experience emotions they understand others to experience. As far as I'm aware, all we have to go on to prove that anyone outside of ourselves has some sort of subjective, interior life is self-reporting. What sort of satisfactory evidence do you have that anyone's every been sad except that they've told you as much, or have behaved in a way that made you believe as much?

Whatever the exact nature of the disorder is, there's something about the manner in which psychopaths process feelings that makes their emotional lives distinct from most other peoples'. There's almost certainly a spectrum to this as with any other sort of psychological disorder. It's also possible that there's all kinds of different mechanisms that can give rise to something that shares a common label, but has a different individual, subjective experience. All of these things are plausible to me.

I just think it's a stretch to say that enjoying thrill seeking is the same as having an actual, full developed emotional life.

 

[senza tema]

I'm not sure what a "psych eval" entails, but I was thinking more along the lines of brain scan results. I don't think brain scan results can be gamed? And they seem pretty solid, thus far. I'd think an informed prosocial psychopath would actually be able to pass a psych eval with flying colors. If my understanding of psych eval is correct.




Yes, this would be my only concern. It would definitely be my concern in actually implementing such a policy. But I'm coming from a theoretical place of wondering- *if* the brain scan tests were solid enough to rely on, would there be any reason to not use them to weed psychopaths out of the political leaders?

I was talking to a trans friend about the idea of a brain scan for diagnosing gender dysphoria. She was STRONGLY opposed to the idea, primarily because tying gender dysphoria to physical scan results alone has the potential to exclude people who experience dysphoria but nevertheless don't display the requisite markers on their scans. These people would subsequently run the risk of being denied healthcare and support and continue to have their identities and experiences dismissed because of failing the test

Psychopathy is a different issue but I think the general principle that physical scans are insufficient to diagnose complex psychological phenomena and are moreover susceptible to abuse still holds good.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

That issue just stems from a lack of education of the average person though. You know the "Jumping on the bandwagon" phenomenon.

In other words, better education would mean better critically thinking and informed people.

So the best method to stave this off is simply to improve education.

I'm with you on that! People who desire control of people in a destructive way do prefer they act like sheep. They like them as stupid and compliant as possible.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

For starters, its psychology. Unless there is an obvious issue, no mere test should decide the fate of any one person in our society.

I think it's color-blindness (or some kind of limited eyesight) that stops someone from being able to get a pilot's license. I think it's important to be extremely careful in deciding when/how it happens, but I do think there are situations where a test should limit a person's reach in shared reality.

And if there are obvious issues resulting in potential lack leadership ability, then the voting process would hopefully eliminate the threat, based on actions, not tests.

I definitely don't share the optimism in this statement.

Thirdly, and by far the biggest issue I have with this, is that there is a very fucking good reason confidentiality is a cornerstone of psychology.

And this, I'm not sure I understand. Are you thinking the process would necessarily play out like some kind of public spectacle? I mean, why wouldn't it be confidential? If people knew such a thing was required, then a test would be done before any effort was put into campaigning. I'd think.


*******

It seems like the reaction so far is more about the unethical aspects of labeling someone a psychopath or trusting the profession of psychology too much (to which I definitely agree) than about whether or not we should allow psychopaths to hold office.

 

[senza tema]

Psychopaths themselves say they don't experience emotions they understand others to experience. As far as I'm aware, all we have to go on to prove that anyone outside of ourselves has some sort of subjective, interior life is self-reporting. What sort of satisfactory evidence do you have that anyone's every been sad except that they've told you as much, or have behaved in a way that made you believe as much?

Whatever the exact nature of the disorder is, there's something about the manner in which psychopaths process feelings that makes their emotional lives distinct from most other peoples'. There's almost certainly a spectrum to this as with any other sort of psychological disorder. It's also possible that there's all kinds of different mechanisms that can give rise to something that shares a common label, but has a different individual, subjective experience. All of these things are plausible to me.

I just think it's a stretch to say that enjoying thrill seeking is the same as having an actual, full developed emotional life.

a. I'm not saying that.
b. Psychopathy is poorly understood, the label is a controversial one like you said yourself, and it's not used as a clinical diagnosis. Based on those things, I'm going to take claims that psychopaths feel no emotions with a grain of salt, even if some guy on psychology today said so. Not because it may not be true but because no one actually knows yet.

 

[Amargith]

We're just not there yet, people. Unfortunately.

 

[Lord Lavender]

The idea here reminds me of an idea I had in the past to stop governmental corruption. I suggested we have robots who cannot feel any emotions such as greed, rage, hate, fear and the likes that can cause negative behaviours and instead just have robots that operate on pure logic. There are many kinks in this idea but with time I think it would actully be a pretty good idea in many ways. However they cold be coded to suit the interests of the people making them and such. Just throwing an idea out there .

 

[violet_crown]

a. I'm not saying that.
b. Psychopathy is poorly understood, the label is a controversial one like you said yourself, and it's not used as a clinical diagnosis. Based on those things, I'm going to take claims that psychopaths feel no emotions with a grain of salt, even if some guy on psychology today said so. Not because it may not be true but because no one actually knows yet.

Fair enough.

Have we tussled enough to keep the fire in the relationship, dearest?

 

[Z Buck McFate]

The second one sounds a bit more like narcissism. The term psychopathy used to have the same definition as sociopathy, so there is some inconsistency and messiness with those terms.

The difference between narcissism and psychopathy is that narcissists typically twist reality around in order to avoid shame because they are capable of remorse/shame, they just can't bear it- their subconscious spins reality around to protect them from that feeling- but psychopaths just really don't care. Their subconscious doesn't need to spin reality around- they can own up to doing something incredibly shitty to another person (at least to themselves) and sleep just fine. Narcissists can make your head spin because they manipulate themselves (unawares) into a flattering reality and they neee-e-ed you to affirm it, basically, but psychopaths manipulate you and they're somewhat aware they're doing it. And I thought a sociopath was basically a psychopath who also really felt the sadistic need to hurt others just for the sake of hurting others, but I'm not as confident about the latter.

I'm not sure exactly where I'm pulling these understandings from (about psychopath/sociopath/narcissist differences), but I probably should have looked it up before starting this thread. I realize information out there isn't consistent, and that my understanding of the difference might not be universal.

What if the very nature of success in our society naturally selects for people with extremely low levels of remorse or empathy? There are also a great many people who lean in the direction of personality disorder, but who may not be fully diagnosable. One problem I see with this sort of testing is that intelligent people can manipulate therapists and lie on tests. I currently know about one full-blown off the charts sociopath who is fooling the legal system and apparently some therapists in my state. And he's not even that smart.

Oh I think the nature of success in our society is definitely conducive to people with extremely low levels of remorse of empathy. And yeah, I think an informed prosocial psychopath could probably glide through most evaluations without raising any red flags. But that's why I think the brain scan studies are interesting. Like, there's no gaming it. AFAIK.

The entire system has to change because it is currently designed to reward people who behave in a manner very similar to sociopathy and narcissism. Finding better ways to reveal factually that this is the case might help wake people up to change it, but it could also continue to normalize it. Right now society has been moving in the direction of overtly admiring and emulating people who behave like that. Just look at some of the current court cases dealing with psycho-sadists. Some of them are getting off with easy sentences.

I agree.

 

[Fluffywolf]

It seems like the reaction so far is more about the unethical aspects of labeling someone a psychopath or trusting the profession of psychology too much (to which I definitely agree) than about whether or not we should allow psychopaths to hold office.

Oh no, the reaction from me is definately that we should not disallow a psychopath from being able to hold office without any concrete proof of bad practice and only based on test results.

Also, I find it quite outragious that you would compare a colorblind test for a profession where sight is absolutely paramount in a very concrete way to a mental disposition test for a profession where the results could potentially maybe, but not neccesarily, be of lacking ability. A lack of ability which for the record would be completely indeterminable in terms of concrete value.

The thought that you can make that analogy without batting the proberbial eye really is upsetting to me.

Judge people on their actions, not their labels or disposition. The ethical repercussions of doing so are terrifying.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Yeah, that went well.

 

[Fluffywolf]

Heh, I'm sorry if I came across a bit harsh. But it is a topic dear to my heart after all, as I am wanting to live in a non-restrictive, open and fair society.

Maybe you really believe that psychopaths are such a menace that there are no better ways to deal with them than stripping them of their human rights without justifiable course. Or maybe you just don't/didn't understand the full gravity of what you where saying. I hope I've shed some light on the situation, maybe opened some eyes.

But as far as the thought experiment goes. Then yeah, I can really only lean on one side of the coin, the other is far too scary for me to consider.