3 ms·

I don't think sociopathy is simply a lack of empathy, rather, it's a stress-response characterized (among other things) by an inability to express and possibly

I don't think sociopathy is simply a lack of empathy, rather, it's a stress-response characterized (among other things) by an inability to express and possibly experience empathy. It's probably perfectly adaptive in many situations, I wouldn't want e.g. a sniper for my country's military to express empathy for the enemy in his sights (whether I'd want my country to have a military is a separate question here). The trouble more seems to be that a lot of organizations trigger this stress response particularly among its leadership. We talk about sociopaths as being born bad and then getting drawn to CEO positions, but what if we have it backwards? What if it's really difficult to be a CEO without eventually displaying sociopathic characteristics?

yoav 3y ago
Because my mother, and the last mentee I had, are both dark triad people and neither of them came close to CEO. It’s quite the opposite their behavior is self defeating and they accomplish little in life because it’s more like a disability. They’re unable to experience empathy, are convinced others who do are just pretending and are foolish for pretending, and they prey on those that do for thrill of superiority at great personal cost. The feeling of superiority is only in their own mind as any objective observer would note that they’re harming themselves and coming across as weaker.
- suoduandao3 3y ago
  Yeah, and to my understanding that kind of repeated failure is par for the course for dark triad types. None of the psychos I've come across are the type to make it to CEO in even the most negligent organization. But if dark triad behaviors are the result of handling stress poorly, CEOs becoming CEOs by being normal people capable of forming strong relationships first and then becoming psychopathic due to the stress of the job makes a lot more sense. And some people just handling stress so poorly that they become psychopathic from a normal adolescence, then stumble from failure to failure ever after (barring some kind of effective treatment. I formed this theory after reading about decompression therapy for psychopathy).

yoav 3y ago

Because my mother, and the last mentee I had, are both dark triad people and neither of them came close to CEO. It’s quite the opposite their behavior is self defeating and they accomplish little in life because it’s more like a disability. They’re unable to experience empathy, are convinced others who do are just pretending and are foolish for pretending, and they prey on those that do for thrill of superiority at great personal cost. The feeling of superiority is only in their own mind as any objective observer would note that they’re harming themselves and coming across as weaker.

suoduandao3 3y ago
Yeah, and to my understanding that kind of repeated failure is par for the course for dark triad types. None of the psychos I've come across are the type to make it to CEO in even the most negligent organization. But if dark triad behaviors are the result of handling stress poorly, CEOs becoming CEOs by being normal people capable of forming strong relationships first and then becoming psychopathic due to the stress of the job makes a lot more sense. And some people just handling stress so poorly that they become psychopathic from a normal adolescence, then stumble from failure to failure ever after (barring some kind of effective treatment. I formed this theory after reading about decompression therapy for psychopathy).