4 ms·

How meaningful is it to manifest psychopathic trait to a clinically significant degree? If you look at them, they include impulsivity, risk taking, and violence

by strken 4y ago

How meaningful is it to manifest psychopathic trait to a clinically significant degree? If you look at them, they include impulsivity, risk taking, and violence. Of course prisoners will be impulsive, take risks, and/or be violent! That's how a lot of them end up in prison! There is something of a jump from there to the pop science understanding of psychopathy. It's not clear that everyone who displays some of those traits is going to display all the others, that a pattern of risky violence means someone is automatically beyond help, that the stats on psychopaths aren't including lots of people with other underlying problems that fully explain their behaviour, or that anyone else who goes to a therapist is doing anything radically different from simulating normal human behaviour.

AlbertCory 4y ago
> the pop science understanding of psychopathy the reference I gave is not pop science. Your debunking and pooh-pooh'ing is unpersuasive. This is a professional association publishing that, and they do have shrinks in prison. "About 1.2% of U.S. adult men and 0.3% to 0.7% of U.S. adult women are considered to have clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits. Those numbers rise exponentially in prison, where 15% to 25% of inmates show these characteristics (Burton, B., & Saleh, F. M., Psychiatric Times, Vol. 37, No. 10, 2020). "
- strken 4y ago
  I'm not debunking anything, I'm asking how meaningful manifesting traits to a "clinically significant" level actually is. If I shoot my neighbour's dog in broad daylight then show no remorse it's probably manifesting psychopathic traits to a clinically significant degree, but it doesn't mean it would be totally worthless to send me to a psychiatrist. It may not even mean that I meet the threshold to be diagnosed as an actual psychopath, under whatever contorted DSM-V diagnosis it currently sits. Your reference has no bearing on the answer to that question and in fact notes that 30% of the population display some traits of psychopathy, which is the entire point here. If you squint hard enough, you can label 30% of the population as psychopaths; if you're also convinced it's useless to send them to therapy, you can use the label to deny them mental health care and stick them in prison. I'm worried that a broad and underspecified definition of psychopathy combines with an overstated inability to treat them, in a way that is morally bankrupt and tantamount to just giving up.

by strken 4y ago

AlbertCory 4y ago

> the pop science understanding of psychopathy the reference I gave is not pop science. Your debunking and pooh-pooh'ing is unpersuasive. This is a professional association publishing that, and they do have shrinks in prison. "About 1.2% of U.S. adult men and 0.3% to 0.7% of U.S. adult women are considered to have clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits. Those numbers rise exponentially in prison, where 15% to 25% of inmates show these characteristics (Burton, B., & Saleh, F. M., Psychiatric Times, Vol. 37, No. 10, 2020). "

strken 4y ago
I'm not debunking anything, I'm asking how meaningful manifesting traits to a "clinically significant" level actually is. If I shoot my neighbour's dog in broad daylight then show no remorse it's probably manifesting psychopathic traits to a clinically significant degree, but it doesn't mean it would be totally worthless to send me to a psychiatrist. It may not even mean that I meet the threshold to be diagnosed as an actual psychopath, under whatever contorted DSM-V diagnosis it currently sits. Your reference has no bearing on the answer to that question and in fact notes that 30% of the population display some traits of psychopathy, which is the entire point here. If you squint hard enough, you can label 30% of the population as psychopaths; if you're also convinced it's useless to send them to therapy, you can use the label to deny them mental health care and stick them in prison. I'm worried that a broad and underspecified definition of psychopathy combines with an overstated inability to treat them, in a way that is morally bankrupt and tantamount to just giving up.