Very interesting. I wonder if she lacked socialised guilt/shame in the "wrongness" judgements while retaining understanding (and possibly emotional colour) around harm?
The logic behind the breaking in and spending time seems perfectly rational: she's not doing any HARM.
I'm not a proper full spectrum sociopath (eg I really like helping, I fear many things --- tho very rarely people -- and I have acceptable empathy levels) but I definitely have big guilt deficiency, and I ALSO on a visceral level completely fail to understand "deserts", punishment and retributive "justice" and seem to be very wobbly on "fairness". Utilitarians often seem to fit here actually.
So maybe there's something about justice/fairness related social emotions that makes a bundle sociopaths have deficiency in (along with separate deficiencies in fear and empathy).
Thanks for the comment. Very interesting. I do wonder if there might be a link between sociopathy and utilitarianism. I haven't done a deep dive into the primary literature, but I plan to. Here is an source from 2012: Koenigs, M., Kruepke, M., Zeier, J., & Newman, J. P. (2012). Utilitarian moral judgment in psychopathy. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 7(6), 708-714. I'll be interested to see how this literature has developed since then. (They find: "only the low-anxious psychopaths were significantly more likely to endorse the personal harms when commission of the harm would maximize aggregate welfare, the 'utilitarian' choice.") Related, Bartels & Pizarro (2011) find “Participants who indicated greater endorsement of utilitarian solutions had higher scores on measures of Psychopathy, machiavellianism, and life meaninglessness.”
Interesting. It makes sense to me that some (tho not all) moral feelings help the individual (selfishly) avoid punishment.
I’m not familiar with Mealey’s work. But I get the game theory case for sociopathic amorality. If I squint, I can even sort of see how genes can calibrate its prevalence — a dearth of sociopaths boosts the strategy’s payoff, but the more there are, the more pressure there is to tamp it down (via altruistic punishment, and possibly group selection). So it makes sense that the cooperative cluster of emotions will be dialed down in a few percent of the population.
But here’s what I don’t get: why would this also come with a lack of fear?
The only thing that comes to my mind is the possibility of pleiotropy — maybe genes that endow us with an aversion to pissing people off (which can involve the experience of fear, at least for me) also endow us with the fear of being abducted by strangers?
(I also wonder if there’s a selection effect at work—do the fearless sociopaths disproportionately wind up in prison and get studied?)
Yes, frequency dependent selection has been known for some time and to my eye the theory seems solid, with plenty of evidence behind it. That is, in the broad sense, not necessarily this case. As for why these traits (amorality, lack fear) travel together, it does seem a puzzle. I have them all under the heading "competition," so maybe all of these systems draw on a set of common underlying modular components? I confess this question is beyond my expertise, but it's certainly a reasonable question.
Hi, thanks for the reply! I didn't know the term "frequency dependent selection" but when I read that, it made sense to me that that's a thing, and that it's already well-studied.
PSYCHIATRIST says - diagnosis is suspect. Excessive engagement in activities that have a high risk for harm to self and others, "fearlessness", and impulsivity, plus compentalization of emotions, low empathy, etc. are hallmarks of ANOTHER common psychiatric condition. ALL diagnoses must be "not better explained by an alternative formulation" (i.e. you are not suffering "depression" if you have a brain tumor - although you will be depressed). Just saying - don't believe everything a sociopath tells you (sorry - couldn't resist).
Heh. Fair enough. Just to say, the title is her diagnosis of herself, not mine of course. Thanks for the reminder that it's important to be cautious in such things!
Very interesting. I wonder if she lacked socialised guilt/shame in the "wrongness" judgements while retaining understanding (and possibly emotional colour) around harm?
The logic behind the breaking in and spending time seems perfectly rational: she's not doing any HARM.
I'm not a proper full spectrum sociopath (eg I really like helping, I fear many things --- tho very rarely people -- and I have acceptable empathy levels) but I definitely have big guilt deficiency, and I ALSO on a visceral level completely fail to understand "deserts", punishment and retributive "justice" and seem to be very wobbly on "fairness". Utilitarians often seem to fit here actually.
So maybe there's something about justice/fairness related social emotions that makes a bundle sociopaths have deficiency in (along with separate deficiencies in fear and empathy).
Thanks for the comment. Very interesting. I do wonder if there might be a link between sociopathy and utilitarianism. I haven't done a deep dive into the primary literature, but I plan to. Here is an source from 2012: Koenigs, M., Kruepke, M., Zeier, J., & Newman, J. P. (2012). Utilitarian moral judgment in psychopathy. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 7(6), 708-714. I'll be interested to see how this literature has developed since then. (They find: "only the low-anxious psychopaths were significantly more likely to endorse the personal harms when commission of the harm would maximize aggregate welfare, the 'utilitarian' choice.") Related, Bartels & Pizarro (2011) find “Participants who indicated greater endorsement of utilitarian solutions had higher scores on measures of Psychopathy, machiavellianism, and life meaninglessness.”
Interesting. It makes sense to me that some (tho not all) moral feelings help the individual (selfishly) avoid punishment.
I’m not familiar with Mealey’s work. But I get the game theory case for sociopathic amorality. If I squint, I can even sort of see how genes can calibrate its prevalence — a dearth of sociopaths boosts the strategy’s payoff, but the more there are, the more pressure there is to tamp it down (via altruistic punishment, and possibly group selection). So it makes sense that the cooperative cluster of emotions will be dialed down in a few percent of the population.
But here’s what I don’t get: why would this also come with a lack of fear?
The only thing that comes to my mind is the possibility of pleiotropy — maybe genes that endow us with an aversion to pissing people off (which can involve the experience of fear, at least for me) also endow us with the fear of being abducted by strangers?
(I also wonder if there’s a selection effect at work—do the fearless sociopaths disproportionately wind up in prison and get studied?)
Yes, frequency dependent selection has been known for some time and to my eye the theory seems solid, with plenty of evidence behind it. That is, in the broad sense, not necessarily this case. As for why these traits (amorality, lack fear) travel together, it does seem a puzzle. I have them all under the heading "competition," so maybe all of these systems draw on a set of common underlying modular components? I confess this question is beyond my expertise, but it's certainly a reasonable question.
Hi, thanks for the reply! I didn't know the term "frequency dependent selection" but when I read that, it made sense to me that that's a thing, and that it's already well-studied.
PSYCHIATRIST says - diagnosis is suspect. Excessive engagement in activities that have a high risk for harm to self and others, "fearlessness", and impulsivity, plus compentalization of emotions, low empathy, etc. are hallmarks of ANOTHER common psychiatric condition. ALL diagnoses must be "not better explained by an alternative formulation" (i.e. you are not suffering "depression" if you have a brain tumor - although you will be depressed). Just saying - don't believe everything a sociopath tells you (sorry - couldn't resist).
Heh. Fair enough. Just to say, the title is her diagnosis of herself, not mine of course. Thanks for the reminder that it's important to be cautious in such things!