How To Tell If Someone Is A Psychopath | Random Thursday

[Music] well hi looks like the ugly stick got beaten with you what you didn't think you're a Miss America did you know that hurt your feelings oh sorry it's not personal I don't know any better hey hey don't get mad at me I'm a psychopath I can't help it see if you get mad at me for hurting your feelings then you're just intolerant of people with mental issues and now I'm offended I mean would you get mad at a guy who had no legs if you didn't like carry you across you know a pond or something what do you do you hate disabled people now I mean if you looked in the mirror you're one to judge no I've got a card right here hang on it's somewhere in here hey would you mind getting me a drink while I'm looking at this I'm not saying I'm allowed to do whatever I want I'm just saying I can't control myself and if you don't like it well that's your problem oh can you validate my parking no we all like to think that people are getting worse over time but Psychopaths have actually been with us from the very beginning I mean according to the Bible the third human ever murdered the fourth human ever and we were off to the races Theophrastus was one of Aristotle students and he may be one of the first people in history to really talk about Psychopaths which he called the unscrupulous cuz they're just daggum without scruples some examples of psychopaths in literature over the years include Medea from Greek mythology King jr. and the book of the 1001 nights Richard the third and Titus Andronicus from Shakespeare Alex a large and a Clockwork Orange and Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs psychopathy comes from the words psyche and pathy psyche meaning the soul of the mind and pathy meaning suffering of disease psychopaths are basically people without any kind of conscience or empathy was first described in a psychiatric setting by one of psychiatry's founding fathers Philippe Pinel he called it mania sans du da and people with this he described as having certain behavioral deficits deficits such as antisocial acts drug and alcohol abuse willfully cruel irresponsible and immoral and he believed that the difference between these people and the rest of society was at they suffered from what he called an absence of confusion in the intellect but the word psychopath came from the German psychiatrist Jael a coke in 1888 he actually called it psycho pastiche and he believed it was the constitution of a person at birth that created this condition but in the early 20th century the word psychopathy was actually used to describe anybody with any kind of shyness or insecure behavior it was kind of a placeholder term for anybody that wasn't completely normal kind of like the word hysteria applied to pretty much anything women did but the term psychopathy became a little bit more codified in 1941 with the book the mask of sanity by dr. Harvey quickly the mask in the title refers to the projection of normalcy that Psychopaths can put out there it's kind of a seminal book on the subject and it was based on a wide variety of studies on psycho psycho pass out there in the world and fifty years on it's still considered one of the most influential works on the subject but the first person to really like put together a test to determine whether or not somebody was a psychopath of dr. Robert hare in 1980 it's known as the hare by professionals and it includes 20 different personality traits that can indicate whether or not somebody's a psychopath and just in case you're wondering what they are and you know if you want to check and make sure you're all right or anybody that you know here's here's the list right here here's all 20 of them I'm gonna let them do their thing [Music] and if you're watching that list and you're like oh my god that's my boyfriend and that's my boyfriend and that's my boyfriend get out girl get out I'm by the way there also is an extra interesting finding about Psychopaths they like bitter tasting foods in a study published in the journal apatite in 2016 researchers were able to show that quote participants confirm the hypothesis that bitter taste preferences are positively associated with malevolent personality traits with the most robust relation to everyday sadism and psychopathy it was the overall strongest predictor compared to other taste preferences and the participants who didn't like bitter taste tended to be more agreeable and cooperative and sympathetic yes all those people drinking kale shakes out there psychopaths and it's thought that they prefer bitter tastes because they have this need for stimulation that's kind of something that's prevalent among Psychopaths is that their senses and their emotions are dulled so they're always seeking stronger and stronger stimulations and risk risky behaviors and whatnot and let's face a few things or as thrilling as hurting other people so what exactly causes someone to be a psychopath now there has been some research that suggests that there's reduced brain activity in certain parts of the brain they have to do with emotion and decision-making like in the amygdala which I covered in a recent video this means they showed less activity and blood flow in those regions of the brain when they were showed images of people in distress or when they had to face like the consequences of their actions but this opens up a question because we know about neuroplasticity in our brain we know that our behaviors and our thinking patterns can actually change the way our brains are shaped so is it the shape of our brains that causes us to be psychopaths or is it the fact that we're psychopaths that changes the structure in our brain so one way to answer that is to look at identical twins and adopted children and those studies seem to suggest that unemotional psychotic behavior and thought patterns actually do have a genetic component to them that those genes have more of an influence on someone than antisocial behavior itself but when it comes to adopted children those genes seem to be able to be counteracted by environmental and parental influences as well some recent research from Vanderbilt University seems to suggest that Psychopaths are hard-wired to seek reward at any cost like they have a hyper reactive dopamine system that may be amplifying their behaviors by the way you might be wondering what's the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath well they're both considered antisocial personality disorders but there are a few little differences associate paths disregard society's laws morals orders and values and what not and has purely selfish interests but they don't go out with an intent to hurt others they just want to do what pleases them a psychopath disregards humanity entirely intentionally chooses to hurt others deliberately makes plans to use others that satisfy their personal goals and to them people are nothing more than just objects one simple way of looking at it as a sociopath is basically just unrestrained whereas a psychopath is premeditative so hearing those traits might give you the impression that all Psychopaths are dangerous sexually isn't true chances are you've worked for a psychopath because they are actually because of their narcissistic tendencies they're attracted to higher positions of power like CEOs or politicians I mean sure you can make the argument that politics are dangerous but when you think about a psychopath you think Patrick Bateman not so much patrick leahy which begs the question how do you know if you're dealing with a psychopath well here are some traits to look out for overconfidence insincere irresponsible selfish doesn't understand metaphors or abstract ideas but specializes in logic and reason shallow emotions uncaring has a parasitic lifestyle chaotic behavior has a high threshold for disgust and doesn't look at a person's eyes when that person's having an emotional moment now you might be looking at that list and seeing that some of those things apply to you so does that mean you're a psychopath no unless you're a psychopath really when testing these kinds of traits for psychopathy it's not just about the traits themselves it's really about more the intention behind those traits like somebody might have a little bit of narcissism or overconfidence but that doesn't necessarily make them a psychopath now if that is geared toward using other people for their benefit and not having any empathy for those people well then yeah that you might be a psychopath so is there any hope for somebody that's a psychopath can we change them in any way can you change yourself in any way if you're a psychopath or are you just destined to hurt other people for the rest of your life not necessarily there are some studies being done at the Mendota juvenile treatment center in Madison Wisconsin that might give you a little bit of hope on the youth psychopathy check nearly all of the kids at the Mendota treatment center tested as severe for potential psychopathy as adults Psychopaths rarely give any kind of consideration to punishment in fact punishment tends to only hardened their criminality and Psychopaths are six times more likely to commit more crimes after they leave prison so the sinner decided to not focus on punishment so much they kind of flipped the script and focused on positive reinforcement what they call the decompression model and the decompression model signs a positive behavior no matter what size were reinforced with a reward like candy bars or video games and rewards could scale meaning good behavior equals bigger prizes so did it work well they studied 300 participants that were in the Mendota treatment center and then some that were treated in other places with different models and of those after five years only 64% of the treatment center youth were arrested compared to 98% of the non treatment youth that's a 34% reduction in recidivism the Mendota Center youth were 50 percent less likely to commit a violent crime and the treatment center youth didn't commit any homicides compared to the non treatment center youth who killed 16 people after their release yikes so it appears there's a lot of importance and a lot of weight in identifying these traits and kids when they're young and being able to teach them tools to be able to work through those as they get older or to use a cliche a carrot is more effective than a stick now there's a lot of misinformation out there about psychopathy just because somebody is you know defined as a psychopath does not necessarily mean that they're gonna be violent most people want to do the right thing even if they don't know what that right thing is but still if you think that somebody that you work with there's somebody that you're involved with in some way might be a psychopath you might want to keep your guard up just saying so what do you think do you know anybody in your life that could be defined as a psychopath have you had any experiences with them got any crazy stories to tell share it down in the comments below all right thanks for watching I hope you enjoyed that if you did Google thinks you might like this one too so you might want to check that one out or look at any of the videos down here on the side that have my face on it and if you like them and you enjoy them I invite you to subscribe I'll come back with videos and Monday and every Thursday alright with that I thank you for watching you guys go out have an eye-opening rest of the week and I'll see you on Monday love you guys take care

Channel: Joe Scott

Views: 674,911

Keywords: answers with joe, psychology, random thursday, psychopath, sociopath, patrick bateman, antisocial personality disorder, personality disorder, mental illness

Id: nb2c7gj2Vs4

Length: 10min 19sec (619 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 30 2020