Let's Get Studious

Alright, readers. (Of which there are few. And I know this.) It's time to get serious.
   By that I mean it's time for me to get serious. About my studies.
   As you all know, I am now fifteen years of age. That means college is creeping ever closer. (Eep!) So lately, I've been trying my hardest to ramp up my studies. I'm taking courses on genetics, physics, psychology and math. And to help my learning along, I've been writing essays about everything I study. So my mom suggested I put some of them here. So I will. Of course, there are way too many to just post them all here. So what I'll do instead is post my favorite one now, and post them as I write them from here on. So read on, dear reader; for a talk about psychopathy.

Personality Disorders (or, a small introduction to personality disorders followed by a talk about psychopathy).

What is a personality disorder? So far, almost all of the disorders we’ve talked about could be considered personality disorders, somehow. Wouldn’t you categorize depression or anxiety as being a part of one’s personality, unwanted though they may be? A personality disorder is most easily defined as a disorder which largely affects the way an individual interacts with others. They could almost be considered social disorders.

                There are many different categories of personality disorder, and within each category is a myriad of different types. There are dramatic/emotional personality disorders, under which is filed Borderline, Antisocial, Narcissistic, and Histrionic disorder.

                The odd/eccentric category includes Schizoid, Paranoid, and Schizotypal disorder.

                And the anxious/fearful category includes Avoidant, Dependent, and Obsessive-Compulsive disorders. Let’s keep in mind that when OCD is classified as a personality disorder rather than an anxiety disorder, the symptoms are a bit different, and is, of course, defined as having a large effect on those the individual interacts with.

                All of these seem like fairly unpleasant things to have, and you’d be right in thinking that. But there is one disorder that seems to have been glorified by modern media, mostly by cop and detective shows. Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Psychopathy.

                We see it all the time on TV, in the movies. Many will remember the classic American Psycho. Though rather extreme, Patrick Bateman is a wonderful example of psychopathy. Let’s go over the symptoms, shall we?

                A psychopath will tend to have a glibness, or superficial charm. In fact, when people originally meet a psychopath, we tend to like them. They come off to us as appealing somehow.

Then there is the characteristic grandiosity. A psychopath will make everything they talk about or do come off as grand or important. They will also almost always regard themselves as somehow superior, somehow better than everyone else.

Pathological lying is another, and this is where we get into the really problematic symptoms. The thing is, not only do they lie, they are almost always very good at it. You can be talking to a psychopath for months, hearing all these amazing, entertaining stories, before you finally figure out they are lying. And here’s the fun part; when they’re caught in their lies, when they’re really painted into a corner, it doesn’t seem to bother them. They’ll say something like, “oh, yeah, I was just kidding you, I wanted to see how far I could push it before you figured it out.” And blow it off like the most miniscule problem.

Even scarier, a psychopath is characteristically cunning and manipulative. They know how to calculate a means to an end to extents that most of us could only dream about, or perhaps fear.

They tend to have a shallow affect, to the sense that nothing affects them as much as it really should in an emotional context.

Finally, callousness and lack of empathy. Now, this is a fascinating one. Because while it’s certain that psychopaths lack empathy, what they do have is theory of mind. Let’s think about that for a bit. The idea is that “theory of mind” is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s place and see things from their perspective. Psychopaths are rather good at this, in a technical way. They can put themselves in your place and, in that cunning, manipulative way we were talking about, can predict your movements and reactions. The difference between this and empathy is that though a psychopath may be able to realize your emotions, they simply won’t care. They won’t be able to “feel” what you’re feeling, only acknowledge it.

All of these are great reasons why psychopaths are so popular as characters in crime shows, and often in horror movies. In a nutshell they’re manipulative, clever, selfish, good at lying, good at getting what they want, and don’t care who gets hurt in the process.

That was primary psychopathy. There’s also a lesser condition known as secondary psychopathy, not as severe, but still a problem. Those with secondary psychopathy tend to be impulsive; they’re not good at planning, and when an idea comes along they jump at it. They’re irresponsible; they’ll avoid positions of responsibility, and once in these positions, will not act appropriately of the responsibility. They are prone to boredom, and need to be constantly stimulated. They have a lack of realistic long-term goals. For instance, they can say that in the short term they would like to visit the zoo, but if asked of their long term plans they might state that they’d like to pursue world domination, or perhaps visit mars, or even state no plans at all. They tend to indulge in a parasitic lifestyle, having one or two individuals that they live off of. They will show poor behavioral controls, and more often than not, early behavioral problems. Juvenile delinquency is also common. And finally, revocation of conditional release. Basically meaning that, when given a chance to rehabilitate, they will almost always take it, and very soon drop it.

There are a few signs that can be attributed in general to both primary and secondary psychopaths. One is that their sex life will often be impersonal, and poorly integrated. Many psychopaths also tend to engage in criminal behavior, (and be pretty good at it, too.) And they will often show many short-term marital relationships. In fact, when a romantic relationship works out for a psychopath, it is often because the other person is themselves a psychopath.

Now. Let’s try a little test, shall we? See if you can answer this question;

A woman meets someone at her mother’s funeral. She talks to this person, and gets to know them so well that she begins to fall in love. However, when the funeral is over, she realizes she never got the person’s e-mail or phone number, and has no way of finding them again.

A few days later, the woman kills her sister.

Now, I wonder if you can figure out the pattern of logic behind this? Go ahead; I’ll wait.

                Here’s the answer. The woman deduced that since the person was at her mother’s funeral, they were obviously connected to her family somehow, and might be connected to her sister as well as her mother. Ergo, killing her sister might cause the person to show up at her funeral.

                Did you get the answer before I explained it to you? Let’s hope not; the theory is that if you can properly answer that question, you could be a psychopath. Or at least very good at thinking like one. As you can probably tell, the logic behind that course of action was rather flawed, at least from a neurotypical perspective. But that’s how the mind of a psychopath works; they don’t seem to be bothered by the horrific, or even recognize it as such. Everything is just a means to an end.

                In fact, they can even disregard consequences that apply to themselves. For instance, in one study psychopaths were taken into a laboratory environment, and given questions to answer. They were then hooked to a piece of equipment designed to administer an electric shock whenever they got a question wrong. Funnily enough, the shocks didn’t seem to bother them. After getting a shock, they wouldn’t try any harder to answer questions correctly. The physical pain seemed irrelevant.

                But then, a different approach was tried; the psychopaths were given an amount of money, and money was taken away for each incorrect question. That started to really motivate them. Suddenly the psychopaths were focusing hard on each question, desperate not to lose their cash. It tells you a lot about how a psychopath works; choosing completely material objects over their own physical well being.

                In conclusion, the individuals portrayed in the media – from Patrick Bateman to Kyoya Ohtori – aren’t entirely too far from the truth.