...Eng. 102 Revealing a Psychopath “If you’re in a room and at one end lies madness and at the other end lies sanity, it is human nature to veer towards the madness end” (Ronson 72). In other words what Jon Ronson is trying to say is that humans by nature are always looking for craziness. One example is a teenage boy always wondering, “What would happen if…” What would happen if I drink one of my dad’s beers instead of the Mountain Dew next to it; would he find out? Or another example when you get your first car, you want to press and investigate what each button or pedal does and you see the accelerator. The first thing that might run to your mind is what would happen if I just press this all the way down? Despite the fact that we know the consequences we still do them because humans by nature veer towards madness as said by Ronson. After reading Ronsons “The Psychopath Test” I realized that we all have some type of manic tendencies or a disorder in us, yet we are not all considered psychopaths. Once Ronson started reading the DSM he started to diagnose himself with disorders and some of these disorders also pertained to me. The disorders were arithmetic learning disorder and caffeine induced disorder. As a kid I was never the best at math so did that mean I had arithmetic learning disorder? How about when you drink coffee for the first time and you start getting the jitters, does that mean you have caffeine induced disorder? In this section of the book I believe that the procedure...
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...Psychopaths Impulsive, narcissistic, antisocial, irresponsible, manipulative, superficial charm; if you guessed that these are traits of a psychopath, you guessed right. A psychopath is someone who has reduced sensitivity to the pain and suffering of others. They can be very dangerous and sometimes fail to notice the emotional harm of certain individuals. Psychopaths are sometimes hard to identify face to face because they can easily manipulate people. Most psychopaths go unnoticed until they commit some act of violence and are put in prison for many years to then be tested by the PCL-R (Psychopath Checklist Revised). For those that do not know, the PCL-R (Psychopath Checklist Revised) was created by Robert Hare, a researcher and professor of criminal psychology at University of British Columbia. After working with thousands of psychopaths in the 1960’s, Hare concluded that psychopaths have specific personality traits and tendencies such as the ones listed above. Hare created a test that would be able to tell who is psychopathic and who is not. The test consists of 20 items that measure elements of psychopathic behavior. The test is scored on a three point scale: a value of zero means that it does not apply to you; a value of one means it somewhat applies to you; and a value of two means that it fully applies to you. For an example, if an inmate was given the PCL-R test, number one might be a visual response such as looking at a horrific picture. Based off of his response, he...
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...Are Psychopaths Violent? Topics as intriguing as the one our group has deserve to have more attention and that is how we tackled the topic. First of all, what is psychopathy was a point we needed to clarify. Psychopathy is a collection of affective, interpersonal and behavioral characteristics including, impulsivity, lack of remorse and empathy, superficial, doesn’t accept responsibility, poor behavioral controls, lack of goals, grandiose, deceitful and adolescent and adults anti-social behavior (Hare, 2000) These characteristics do not relate to criminal behavior but some of characteristics do make the people more willing to commit crime these features are also seen as related to Anti-social personality disorder. The criteria in the diagnosis...
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...About Psychopaths… Psychopath is a term that is often herd in a wide variety of contexts but what does it really mean? Not to be confused with antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy is actually a more severe form of the former disorder. Sociopathy, as it is also known, is defined as “a psychological construct describing amoral and antisocial behavior.”[1] A psychopath is a person who “has deficits or deviances in several areas: interpersonal relationships, emotion, and self-control. Psychopaths lack a sense of guilt or remorse for any harm they may have caused others, instead rationalizing the behavior, blaming someone else, or denying it outright.”[2] A person suffering this disorder will exhibit behavior that does not accord with society’s laws and will lack a moral conscience that tries to control this unethical behavior. Because Sociopathy is a personality disorder there are no physical symptoms but instead one must rely solely on obeserving behavior to identify the mental illness. Psychopaths behavior can be tracked to the early years of childhood. It is very common for children with this disorder to exhibit violence towards animals, bedwetting until a late age, and pyromania. It is possible for children who are not psychopaths to display these behaviors as well so they are not a good way to measure whether a person has the disorder or not. Among adults a clear lack of nervousness and worries acompanies a lack of delusinoal thinking. As a result psychopaths tend...
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...the hipster and postmodern psychopaths, as well as the psychopath as an object of emulation and envy. In his 2011 exposition "The Philosophical Significance of Psychopaths: Postmodernism, Morality, and God," Stamos composed, "Generally as insane people need moral excellencies and values and don't need them, postmodernists need epistemic temperances and values and don't need them."9 The Oregon State University therapist Michael Levenson contrasted psychopathy with the bête noire of postmodernists, scientism (the overextension of science to clarify for all intents and purposes everything) this way: "The maniac...
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...Psychopath or human? The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) written by Patricia Highsmith is known for exploring the gap between benevolence and malevolence. The novel engages its readers to question how far one can go to feel a sense of belonging and love. It investigates how narrow the line between evil and human is in real life. Is Tom really a psychopath or is he just a lonely soul looking for acceptance? To begin with, Tom's depiction of the ideal life is filled with wealth and reputation. He tries to mould himself into the man he thinks will be appreciated by society. This twisted image of society and its standards leaves the reader questioning who is to blame when a sociopath is born. His desire to be Dickie Greenleaf is brutal and unmoral, but still relatable and empathetic. Tom's train of thoughts about loneliness and being admired is heartfelt and impossible to ignore. The talented Mr. Ripley shows how deception and voracity can almost transform anyone into a hedonistic, merciless human. Haysmith manages to almost manipulate the reader to feel sympathy for the miscreant as she describes his thoughts about belonging: "He only wanted a home, a base somewhere, after years of not having any." (Andersson and Ernst, Streams in Literature, 2007, p. 52). In addition to this, Tom is often referred to as an anti-hero. Reason behind this statement can be explained by Highsmith's narrative flow. The novel provides a striking insight into the mind of a sociopath in his...
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...Topic: Do you agree with the film's diagnosis that the corporation is a psychopath? Psychopathy in a psychiatry terms refers to a personal disorder. Later the name 'psychopathy' was changed to ' personality disorder' due to its inability to grow any attachment or lack of empathy. It is hard to say if the cause of this mental disorder is genetic or it resulted from a previously experienced trauma. The very important characteristic of a psychopath is their ability to successfully deceive people with their main motive being unrevealed. In the documentary movie by M. Achbar, J. Abbott, and J. Bakan the term 'psychopath' is used to describe the big corporations of our time. A corporation might not be a person but it is controlled by the people at the top and everything depends on their ethical standards and morales. If they fail to maintain it at an appropriate level the corporation becomes a psychopath in itself. Now I would like to discuss the characteristics of a psychopath listed by DSM with a reference to th corporations: Failure to conform to social norms: here, lawful behavior is the key topic. Psychopaths do not adapt their behavior to fit into the society, they rather look for an opening to use in order to fit the society to their behavior. So do the corporations. Very often corporations look for a situation (mostly in law) to take advantage of it using their workers as tools and means to reach their goal of power and profit. Deceitfulness: deceiving others...
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... He is the author of four bestsellers, Them: Adventures with Extremists, The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Psychopath Test, and Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries. In an interview, Ronson stated his reason why he wrote The Psychopath Test, “I wanted to write a book about madness because it has always been—I think— the elephant in the room of my other books. Do the people I write about behave the strange ways they do because madness is the engine that powers them? I felt I needed to address this question head-on. Is madness the force that makes the world go around?” The Psychopath Test: A Journey through the Madness Industry starts out with a mystery. A group of the world’s top researchers are plagued by an elaborate riddle, set in a series of curiously handmade books, and Ronson is called upon to investigate. He is of course, an established London writer, and by this time, fairly well-known for his taste in investigative journalism. Ronson is sucked into the mystery immediately, with an obsessive, infectious fervor. It’s through the riddle Ronson was introduced to, when he unwittingly stumbles into the world of psychopaths. Once solved, he finds that the world is populated by a group of people he had never truly examined—people that act without empathic reason and wreak havoc on the world simply because they can. This realization is what sparks the hunt for psychopaths and what makes this book such a captivating read. He moves from influential psychologists who teach him how...
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...Good morning class, my name is alyazia al kamda, i would like to present about psychopaths in general. According to urban dictionary: psychopath is a person tend to lack normal human emotion such as guilt and empathy. they are also often high skilled at manipulating others. so who are they? they can be your neighbours, person sitting next u and person serving you in cafe or restaurant or minimarket, person you walked past this morning. Then There are 20 characteristics according to robert hare , psychopathic and criminal behavior; Psychophysiology. Hare has been devoted to understanding the nature of psychopathy. Those are the 20 characteristics belong to Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) that the FBI and other american agency use...
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...THE EXECUTION OF PSYCHOPATHS Is the Performance Unconstitutional? Mental illness and capital punishment make an extremely controversial mix. However, what happens when the subject of psychopaths get introduced to this popular mix? The main focus of this paper is to shed some light on the argument of whether or not it is unconstitutional to execute psychopaths. This paper will introduce definitions, history, and current theories being introduced by both sides of the argument. Brief History of the Death Penalty on the Mentally Ill The death penalty is one of the most talked about punishments in the United States today. However, there are common misconceptions as to where did the death penalty originate in the United States. Early America actually...
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...The huge key feature towards attributing moral responsibility to psychopaths is tied to their amount of self awareness. By this I mean just how aware they are of what space their psychopathy is mostly likely to be able to manifest in a harmful way towards others. Psychopaths whom become serial killers typically have a consistent type of target and often a type of space where they carry out acts that are morally wrong. In having an awareness of their own patterns psychopaths become morally responsible for their actions as they are presented with a means of control. Upon having such a realization whenever it occurs, if at all, a decision is being made at that point deeming the psychopath morally responsible for their actions. I find that judging...
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...who craves excitement, feels little guilt, and is unable to form meaningful emotional attachments to others” (McCord & McCord, 1964). Psychopaths often describe themselves as dealing with “intense feelings of boredom” that they crave to satiate (Copley, 2008). http://criminology.wikia.com/wiki/Psychopathic_Personality_Theory According to The Psychology of a Psychopath, psychopathic researchers have found that psychopaths often have common traits including, a lack of empathy, guilt, conscience or remorse, shallow experiences of feeling or emotions, impulsivity and a weak ability to defer gratification and difficulty...
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...Different Types of Psychopaths And Successful Psychopaths Antisocial Personality: Personality disorder characterized by egocentrism, lack of conscience, impulsive behavior, and charisma. The term antisocial personality is often used interchangeably with the terms “sociopath” and “psychopath”. (Fast Facts about Psychopathic or Sociopathic Personality Disorders) There are four different subtypes of psychopaths; primary, secondary, distempered, and charismatic. Primary and secondary distinctions were made back in 1941 by Harvey Cleckley (What is a Psychopath?). Primary psychopaths seem not to experience any real emotion, they do not respond to punishment, apprehension, stress, or disapproval. Words do not seem to have the same meaning for them as they do for us, we are unsure if they even grasp the meaning of their own words, Cleckley called this condition “semantic aphasia” (What is a Psychopath?). Secondary psychopaths take more risks, react to stress, worry more, and feel more guilt. They are just as vulnerable, but tend to expose themselves to stress more than the average person. These people began developing their own rules at a young age; they tend to be adventurous and daring. Secondary psychopaths have a much like that of a child, the more something is forbidden to them the more they are attracted to it. They have a strong desire to avoid pain but are often times unable to resist temptation. Primary and secondary psychopaths are then subdivided...
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...population, but when that one percent is psychopaths, it becomes exponentially more influential. According to Robert Hare (Hare, Focus on Psychopathy, 2012), a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, that one percent of psychopaths also make up ten to fifteen percent of the offenders in the United States. He defines these people as “manipulative, deceptive, self-centered, lacking in empathy and guilt, callous, and remorseless.” (Hare, Focus on Psychopathy, 2012, p. 2) These people pose a serious potential problem to society when nonviolent. However when violent they are very dangerous and are easy to spot (e.g. Ted Bundy). They act in severe, harmful and often...
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...The Mind of a Psychopath Research on Psychopathy Disorder Randall Parker Jr St. Johns River State College When beginning my research on Psychopaths I believed that I would find an abundance of information and research on psychopaths and their behavior; however, after following my research I seen that Psychopaths are one of the most under studied disorders in society. Have you ever taken the time to really ask yourself what types of people really surround you in everyday society? Most people in society are fairly normal and then there are those that do not live amongst the social norms, they tend to break all barriers for what we would consider moral and just. People dealing with the disorder are display a lack of remorse or guilt associated...
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