Тег: Psychopaths

How corporate psychopaths affect working conditions and the long-term success of a company

Voluntarist, Bitarch

In businesses with high staff turnover and relatively superficial assessments of personality traits when appointing employees to various positions, unscrupulous and deceitful corporate psychopaths often find opportunities to promote themselves. Such characteristics as ultra-rationality and a lack of emotional distress and empathy for other employees may even initially seem useful in activities aimed at generating profit. However, in the long run, the actions of corporate psychopaths can lead to catastrophic consequences.

To begin with, many employees cannot psychologically endure being their subordinates. Under psychopathic managers, staff turnover increases significantly. Additionally, they cause a decrease in the level of cooperation between different departments within the company. For example, psychopathic managers may order employees not to interact with other departments in any way except through their mediation. This is done to hide the fraudulent schemes they are implementing. Another management trait of corporate psychopaths is the bullying and intimidation of subordinates to draw them into their schemes, as well as the forced dismissal of anyone who refuses to obey them unconditionally.

At the same time, as counterintuitive as it may sound, psychopathic managers appear to be excellent employees to senior management, as they are proficient at reducing the company’s monetary expenses. Of course, in reality, this is not their own achievement; they appropriate it from other managers whom they have forced to participate in their schemes. They are adept at deceiving senior management and concealing the bullying they inflict on their subordinates.

Of course, in the long run, such manipulations and the creation of unbearable working conditions only cause harm. It is believed that corporate psychopaths are often the cause of company bankruptcies. Talented and skilled good people resign under their leadership, the company’s ethical reputation plummets, and product quality declines, leading to the loss of customers. Furthermore, through deception and manipulation, corporate psychopaths obtain positions for which they are unfit, while “silencing” truly experienced employees for the sake of their own personal interests.

Research often cites the example of American turnaround manager Albert Dunlop, who specialized in “saving” companies, which consisted of bringing them into a saleable condition while completely ignoring their future. Many researchers believe he was a psychopath. On Wall Street, he was known for his ruthless and intimidating approach to cost-cutting and heartless indifference toward firing employees. After becoming the CEO of Scott Paper, he disposed of assets worth about 2 billion dollars, fired a third of the workforce, and successfully sold the company to a competitor a year later. However, the company proved to be non-viable, and its headquarters were closed. In the end, about 11,000 people lost their jobs. Dunlop, meanwhile, walked away with a 100 million dollar severance package. Dunlop acted similarly with the company Sunbeam. After a year of his management, the company reported a huge increase in sales, and its shares rose by 50%. However, it was later revealed that this was a deception. At the very beginning, Dunlop created the impression that the company was incurring huge losses so that it would later seem that its situation had sharply improved. In the end, he faced trial for fraud, and the company went bankrupt.

Executives who exhibit psychopathic traits, such as ruthlessness and heartlessness, create unbearable working conditions and, in pursuit of purely personal gain, may even destroy a company. Such individuals should be feared; they should never be given leadership positions, at least until they undergo therapy to correct the dysfunction of the violence inhibition mechanism, which is why they are ruthless psychopaths.

Why the achievement of voluntary free relationships is impossible in a society where too many people are capable of committing violence

Voluntarist, Bitarch

There is a view that the only essential condition for achieving freedom of activity, agreement, and association is the creation of significant costs for criminals. Allegedly, it is sufficient that any harm inevitably requires compensation, and that everyone owns weapons, which would make attacks unprofitable (do not think that we are against gun ownership – it is useful for evolutionary selection, but right now we are talking about something else). In such a case, even if everyone were a psychopath, significant violence would not arise in practice. Moreover, some might say that aggressiveness is even necessary for a free person, for example, to easily kill for any encroachments upon oneself and to carry out violent revenge (on the principle of “an eye for an eye”). But we can easily dispute this position and prove why freedom is possible only in a society of peaceful people.

First, it would be foolish to believe that people always act rationally and accurately assess benefits and risks. Even in societies where fingers and hands were cut off for theft, thieves did not disappear completely. This is even more true for psychopathic individuals. As research shows, they concentrate too heavily on their goals, missing important details. For example, in a task where they had to navigate a maze by manipulating levers and avoiding those that delivered painful electric shocks, they handled the first condition well, but were worse than ordinary people at the second. In gambling, they were poor at learning long-term strategies; it was important for them to quickly hit a huge win, even at the risk of putting themselves in the negative. Likewise, psychopathic pilots in World War II would easily chase an enemy, forgetting to monitor fuel, the position of other aircraft, and other factors critical for victory.

Understanding this, would anyone still think that psychopathic individuals can be reasoned with or intimidated enough to ensure they definitely do not commit violence, do not organize criminal gangs, or even avoid trying to forcibly subjugate everyone and create their own power in a society where none exists? Let us not forget that current states arose precisely through the violent subjugation of people. And striving for the position of a “stationary” bandit, “nomadic” bandits ignored the risk of death at the hands of defenders and their competitors.

Second, there are many ways to cause harm to people without direct violence. Various kinds of manipulations, including gossip, blackmail, threats, pitting people against each other, provoking a hostile reaction (to make you look unstable to others), wearing someone down, psychological and economic violence, etc., which are often used by psychopaths in the pursuit of their own benefit. It will be impossible to write deterrent factors and punishments for all such scenarios. This means that the more psychopathic individuals there are around, the more such manipulations will be applied to you personally, and instead of productive activity, you will spend all your time defending yourself from attempts to walk all over you. Also, psychopathic individuals are prone to sabotaging collective work for personal gain.

Now imagine the opposite situation – psychopathic individuals are absent or negligibly few. In such a society, freedom of relationships would occur instantly and without additional requirements. At the same time, in a society of psychopaths, one could likely expect something similar to what is currently happening in Haiti or the scenario of the movie “New World,” where rapists sent to live on an island organized a mass slaughter, and at some point, a small portion of them even forcibly subjugated all the others and monopolized the possession of resources. And if you would not want to participate daily in a war of all against all in a “free” society, you should first think about eradicating such a pathology as the dysfunction of the violence inhibition mechanism, which makes some people psychopathically predisposed and capable of easily causing harm to other people.

Can psychopaths experience empathy and how does it differ from the empathy of normal people

Voluntarist, Bitarch

It is a commonly held opinion that psychopathic individuals experience little empathy or do not manifest it at all. This, of course, makes them cold-blooded and callous, capable even of easily committing murder if there is a reason for it and no significant risks. But besides this, their lack of empathy has long cast doubt on the possibility of providing easy and effective therapy for their condition.

However, a study of psychopathic criminals found that they can experience empathy. Moreover, during the experiment, they exhibited the same level of activation of mirror neurons—which are responsible for the ability to learn through imitation of other people and are believed to be involved in the manifestation of empathy—as healthy individuals.

However, psychopaths have one very important difference. While empathy manifests spontaneously in normal people, regardless of whether the person wishes to experience it, psychopaths can intentionally control this process. Their normal state is switched-off empathy; they manifest it only when they want to. And within the experiment, normal activation of mirror neurons in psychopaths was observed only when the researchers explicitly asked them to show empathy.

The results of this study align with what psychopaths often claim about themselves, for example, on question-and-answer websites like Quora. If you search there for questions asked to psychopaths about whether they are capable of experiencing empathy, you will see many positive answers, but with the note that they can literally turn empathy on and off whenever they want, as if they have a switch for it. However, there are also psychopaths who claim a complete inability to feel empathy. But, given the data already known to us, it can be suggested that they simply do not know how to turn it on within themselves.

Researchers do not yet know how to turn the empathy that psychopaths can manifest intentionally into the spontaneously manifested empathy characteristic of most people. However, the fact that psychopaths can show empathy, at least under certain conditions, gives therapists something to work with.

It is also worth hypothesizing that empathy can be made spontaneous quite easily by using certain agents that activate specific serotonin receptors and favorably influence the function of the serotonin system as a whole. Pharmacological activation of serotonin 1A and 1B receptors in animal experiments often leads to them ceasing aggressive attacks on their peers, or even becoming more predisposed to help them—for example, by sharing food, even if it brings the subject no personal benefit. This effect is linked to the activation of a violence inhibition mechanism, which in humans plays an important role in the development of empathy.

The results of this study provide an answer to another important question. Someone might easily find and point to individuals who, in their ordinary social life, are normal family men, good friends and colleagues, law-abiding citizens—that is, full members of society—despite the fact that under certain conditions, for example, while serving in law enforcement or as a soldier on the battlefield, they easily committed violence and even murder without feeling the slightest repulsion. As is known from a number of studies, including military ones, the ability to easily commit violence and murder in such conditions would still be a manifestation of an individual’s high psychopathy. But there is no contradiction here. For perhaps such cases are precisely explainable by the fact that psychopathic individuals can be empathic when they intentionally want to be, for example, wishing to have a full social life. However, it should not be forgotten that such individuals can decide not to experience empathy at any moment, and this carries certain threats to society.

The Typical Politician is a Psychopath

Voluntarist, Bitarch

It is known that more than half of people will not score higher than 2 out of 24 on Robert Hare’s PCL:SV test. And only 1–2% of individuals will score 13 or higher, indicating a high level of psychopathy. But it is interesting to wonder how a “typical” politician would fare on this test? Based on the article “On Politics and Psychopathy,” let us conduct a thought experiment and assign a score from 0 to 2 points for each trait of psychopathy to his personality.

Let’s start with the first factor of psychopathy, which assesses an individual’s selfishness, callousness, and ruthlessness.
– Does a typical politician possess superficial charm? Of course, it is very important for him to present himself well in public. It should also be noted that he tends to pretend to be someone he is not and simulate emotions. On this point, he can certainly be given 1 point, and possibly 2 points.
– Does he consider himself better than everyone else, i.e., someone worthy of ruling others? He wants power, so he certainly gets 1 point, and possibly 2 points.
– Is he deceitful, insincere, manipulative, unscrupulous, and dishonest? Needless to say, 2 points.
– Does he lack empathy, sensitivity, and respect for other people? And we are speaking specifically about people as individual persons; we are not interested in his feelings toward a certain nation or political course, since empathy can only be felt toward individuals. Of course, he actually doesn’t care about individual people, except perhaps his friends and family members, so we confidently give 2 points.
– Does the politician evade responsibility for his actions? Naturally, he will cover up his wrongdoings and will only take responsibility if it brings him even more power, wealth, or fame, so we can confidently give 1 point, or even 2 points.
– Does the politician lack guilt and remorse, and is he cold toward others? Is he completely indifferent to the pain and suffering of the victims of his actions? Yes, he passes laws that cause people inconvenience, make them poorer, or violate their rights, so we confidently give 2 points.

Now let’s move to the second factor of psychopathy, which assesses how antisocial an individual’s lifestyle is.
– Is the politician impulsive, reckless, rash, and unpredictable? Not always, however, from time to time he may support extremely risky decisions, so we give 1 point.
– Is he impatient, unrestrained, and irritable? Also not always, but politicians often allow themselves sharp, “alarmist” appeals, so we also give 1 point.
– Is his lifestyle parasitic, does he have no long-term goals for the future? Of course he has goals, but these goals consist of achieving power, wealth, and popularity by worsening the situation of others. Also, a politician lives on taxes forcibly collected from people, so he is a parasite who receives 1 point.
– Is he irresponsible, unreliable, and fails to meet his obligations? A confident 2 points.
However, as for antisocial behavior in adolescence and adulthood, this is not typical for a politician, and if he did behave this way at some point, it would be hidden from the public, so a confident score cannot be given here.

In the end, a typical politician receives 9 to 12 points for Factor 1 (which is the maximum result) and 5 points for Factor 2. His total score is 14 to 17 points. It turns out that he confidently falls into the worst 1–2% of the population. He is not someone we would want to associate ourselves with, let alone vote for. And in a properly organized human society, he would simply be exiled; he would not receive the slightest share of power.

I would also like to add a comparison of a typical politician with war criminals. As research demonstrates, ordinary violent criminals have high total scores, but fairly balanced scores across the two factors of psychopathy, whereas war criminals, while having similar total scores, have higher scores on Factor 1 and lower scores on Factor 2. They are not overly antisocial personalities. At the same time, they are excessively cruel and callous, just like a typical politician.

Treating the Incurable: A Single Case of a Psychopathic Patient Undergoing Therapy

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Since the first conceptualization of psychopathy in modern psychiatry, this condition has been considered practically incurable. However, there is an experimental approach that may refute such a view. Schema therapy is a psychotherapy for the treatment of personality disorders that has performed well in the therapy of borderline personality disorder, but has also been adapted for patients with other problems, including those with high levels of psychopathy.

There is a case study of schema therapy for psychopathy in a 25-year-old rapist. His father was a cruel man who subjected him to beatings and authoritarian upbringing. From the age of 8, the patient exhibited serious behavioral problems; at 17, he was first convicted of assault causing grievous bodily harm, and at 19, together with an accomplice, he committed rape, after which he tried to shift all the blame onto the victim (calling her a prostitute and claiming she had consented) and the accomplice (saying that he had forced him into it).

First, the patient took the PCL-R test. He scored 4 out of 8 on the interpersonal component (dishonesty, manipulativeness, etc.), 7 out of 8 on the affective component (lack of empathy, guilt, other emotions, and failure to take responsibility for his actions), 6 out of 10 on impulsivity, and 8 out of 10 on antisociality (history of behavioral problems and criminality). Considering additional traits outside the components (sexual promiscuity and a tendency toward multiple short-term relationships), he scored 28 out of 40—a high level of psychopathy.

The therapy lasted 4 years. In the first year, the therapist earned the patient’s trust and worked on his control over impulsive aggression. He also discussed his early behavioral problems and encouraged him to evaluate his emotions. Initially, the patient had difficulty with this and did not want to admit guilt for his actions. However, later, a sense of guilt was successfully evoked in him. He burst into tears, admitted responsibility, regretted that he could not restrain himself, and said that he deserved to pay for this act for the rest of his life. After a year, the therapist managed to establish a close emotional bond with the patient by employing empathic confrontation (convincing the patient of the sincerity of his intentions).

In the second year, the patient decided to make peace with his past. Additionally, he entered a relationship with a girl (who often accompanied his mother when visiting the clinic), after which he began to have conversations with the therapist about friendship and love. Although the relationship was later broken off due to the girl’s infidelity, he still wanted to build a healthy relationship.

In the last two years, the patient underwent imagery exercises in which he imagined, described, and worked through memories of his father’s cruel acts. After this, he was allowed to leave the clinic, he started a new relationship, and underwent resocialization. At the end of the 4 years of therapy, he was released, found a job, had a child, and no longer participated in criminal activities.

For another 3 years, he was monitored by the therapist and took the PCL-R test again. Now he scored only 1 out of 8 on the interpersonal component, 1 out of 8 on the affective component, and 3 out of 10 on impulsivity. Of course, the antisocial component remained unchanged, but this was primarily due to its historical nature. In total, he scored 14 out of 40, which is no longer a high indicator of psychopathy.

Of course, such an approach is very long. The creation and application of pharmacological agents to correct the dysfunction of the violence inhibition mechanism—due to which the interpersonal and affective components of psychopathy and the lack of certain emotions in a person manifest—could potentially yield a faster and more reliable result. But at the very least, it shatters the myth of the incurability of psychopathy and violent behavior, which gives us huge prospects in eradicating the problem of violence in human society. It should also be noted that congenital predispositions to weak violence inhibition tend to manifest in practice due to the negative influence of the environment, which is why proper psychological work with children is very important.

Why some private companies cause harm

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Private companies, especially from the perspective of supporters of left-wing socio-economic views, are often considered socially irresponsible, working solely for their own material gain, while being completely unconcerned about the impact of their activities on society and the environment in which they exist. It cannot be denied that such a statement is to some extent true, as it is not difficult to imagine how a businessman might dump toxic waste into a river or squeeze the last bit of strength out of their employees without providing fair compensation for their labor. However, this is not always the case, and the problem of “bad” companies deserves a closer look.

A study on the topic of corporate psychopathy can help us with this. In it, 346 Australian employees took part in a survey in which they rated their supervisors (managers) for psychopathy using the PM-MRV test; they were able to rate both current and previous supervisors, resulting in a total of 567 individuals being evaluated. Based on the survey results, the managers were divided into normal, dysfunctional (partially psychopathic), and psychopathic. The test itself includes standard items for assessing primary psychopathy, such as superficial charm, deceitfulness, manipulativeness, a grandiose opinion of oneself, a lack of remorse regarding causing harm to employees, cold-bloodedness, a lack of empathy, and an unwillingness to take responsibility (shifting the blame for one’s own mistakes onto others). In addition to the psychopathy of the managers, the study assessed whether the activities of the companies with these managers were socially and environmentally responsible, beneficial to the local community, and loyal to the employees.

Of the 567 managers, 292 were rated as normal, 132 as dysfunctional, and 143 as psychopathic. Such a high proportion of psychopathic individuals among managers (as much as 25%), which significantly exceeds the general population (only 1%), should not be surprising, as such positions, which grant a person power over others, strongly attract psychopaths and give them the opportunity to fully unfold their cruel abilities. Now we should pay attention to how companies with these different types of managers conduct their activities.

In the case of normal managers, the vast majority of respondents (89.3%) rated the company’s activities as socially and environmentally responsible. However, this figure drops to 66% in the presence of dysfunctional managers and to 52.5% in the case of psychopathic managers. Additionally, 85.8% of respondents rated the company’s activities as beneficial to the local community if normal managers were employed. For companies with dysfunctional managers, this figure drops to 75%, and in the case of psychopathic managers, it falls to 55.1%. Furthermore, the majority of respondents (79.6%) agreed that the company behaves loyally toward employees in the presence of normal managers, but this figure drops as low as 23.7% in the presence of psychopathic managers. This confirms that corporate psychopaths do not care at all about those who work with them or under them. It is also worth noting that in the case of normal managers, 82% of respondents felt recognition for a job well done, whereas only 24.8% of respondents stated this in the presence of psychopathic managers.

One can see how strongly parameters such as social and environmental responsibility, providing benefit to the local community, and loyalty to employees on the part of the company depend on the psychopathy of its managers. Moreover, the study we are considering assessed primary psychopathy specifically, and its manifestation, as is known, is strongly linked to a dysfunction of the violence inhibition mechanism, due to which an individual ceases to experience internal resistance and repulsion toward causing harm to other people. And the problem of “bad” companies is unlikely to be solved as long as individuals with such a pathology hold their leadership positions. It undoubtedly requires therapy and eradication from society.

What distinguishes aggressive behavior in healthy people from that in psychopathically predisposed individuals

Voluntarist, Bitarch

Not all aggressive behavior in humans can be called the result of some mental deviation, or, at least, a deviation as serious as a dysfunction of the violence inhibition mechanism and psychopathic predispositions. Some aggressive behavior, for example, self-defense, is completely natural based on ethological definitions and evolutionary data. Therefore, the question arises as to what the difference is between the aggressive behavior of ordinary people and that of psychopathic individuals

To answer this question, aggressive behavior must be divided into reactive and proactive forms. Reactive aggression manifests spontaneously or impulsively; it is not planned behavior and carries absolutely no goals other than causing harm directly within a conflict situation. Of course, it can be pathological, and sometimes it can be classified as violence from an ethological point of view. However, reactive aggression can also be completely natural non-pathological behavior, such as self-defense. In turn, proactive or instrumental aggression consists of achieving a specific result; it is the planned and motivated infliction of harm upon a victim. There is little reason to doubt the pathology and violent nature of behavior in which a person intentionally attempts to achieve something specifically by causing harm to other people.

As demonstrated by a vast number of studies, there is a strong link between a person’s level of psychopathic traits and the reactivity/proactivity of their aggressive behavior. For example, psychopathic criminals are more prone to violent attacks, and their aggressive behavior can be both proactive and reactive, whereas the crimes of non-psychopathic individuals are more reactive. This is especially true in the case of the most violent crimes, such as rape and murder. At the same time, less serious crimes, such as theft or burglary, can be committed with equal probability by both a psychopath and a non-psychopath. Similar results are shown in studies of the non-criminal population. Individuals prone to instrumental aggression are more psychopathic.

Even in the case of imprisoned murderers, higher levels of psychopathy are associated with greater proactivity or instrumentality of their crimes. In the case of clinical psychopaths, as much as 90-93% of murders are purely instrumental, without the slightest trace of reactivity. And even a criminal committing a single act of instrumental violence is already associated with an increased level of psychopathy. Furthermore, a current study of murderers sentenced to death in California demonstrates that individuals with low levels of psychopathy (less than 15% of the sample) often had no prior criminal record, repented for their deeds, and behaved according to judicial norms. Other individuals were prone to worse behavior. And five individuals (less than 1% of the sample) with the highest psychopathy scores were the most brutal criminals—serial sexual murderers.

These and many other data once again confirm that while not all aggressive behavior is a sign of a mentally unhealthy individual, the commission of violent attacks as planned and intentional behavior pursuing certain goals definitely demonstrates a dysfunction of the violence inhibition mechanism and psychopathic predispositions. Such people pose the greatest threat to every member of society, as due to their pathology, they are capable of using violence as a tool, which leaves ordinary people only the fate of the victim.

War Crimes and Psychopathy

Voluntarist, Bitarch

It will be quite obvious that extremely cruel people who commit violence both privately and by official order—for example, while serving in the police or armed forces—are psychopathic individuals with problems in the inhibition of violence. While a large number of studies compare the distribution of psychopathic traits between private criminals and the general population, there is very little such data regarding war criminals. However, there is one study examining men who served in the police or armed forces in Chile under the regime of dictator Augusto Pinochet and committed crimes against humanity, such as mass arrests, torture, murder, and the “disappearances” of people unwelcome to the regime.

The average psychopathy level according to the PCL-R test (scale from 0 to 40) for a sample of Chilean men who were not criminals was 5.21. Chilean men who were criminals demonstrated an average psychopathy level 4 times higher—20.93. This result is consistent with other studies conducting similar comparisons between samples of violent criminals and the rest of the population in various countries.

But far more interesting results are shown by Chilean men who committed crimes against humanity. Their average psychopathy level was 21.06, almost the same as that of ordinary criminals. It would seem there is no difference between them. But let us move to the comparison of different components of psychopathy. For each of the 20 items of the PCL-R test, a person can receive 0, 1, or 2 points, depending on the absence, partial presence, or full presence of a certain psychopathic trait. These items are divided into 4 categories representing the assessment of manipulation in interpersonal relationships (tendency toward lying and deception), affective psychopathy (lack of empathy and guilt), an impulsive lifestyle, and antisocial behavior. In the first two categories, the average scores for these criminals were much higher (1.43 and 1.64) than the scores of ordinary criminals (0.91 and 1.19) and the rest of the population (0.31 and 0.37). Meanwhile, in the last two categories, their scores (1.00 and 0.51) were much higher than those of the rest of the population (0.24 and 0.16), but lower than those of ordinary criminals (1.28 and 0.99).

The commission of cruel and mass crimes against humanity is associated with extremely pronounced manipulativeness and deceitfulness, as well as insensitivity and ruthlessness, even when compared to the commission of ordinary private acts of violence. At the same time, the perpetrators of such crimes appear much more normal than ordinary criminals in their lifestyle; they are not as impulsive or antisocial.

It should be noted that the second category of PCL-R test items, responsible for affective psychopathy, can be most directly correlated with the mechanism of violence inhibition. A malfunction of this mechanism in a person primarily leads precisely to the absence of internal rejection and resistance to causing harm to others, whereas the other categories rather reflect traits that often accompany such ruthlessness. Based on this, it can be concluded that in those who commit crimes against humanity, the malfunction of the violence inhibitor is far more severe than in private violent criminals. At the same time, they are well able to restrain themselves in situations where it is rationally beneficial, for example, in everyday life. This may be linked to a sufficiently high level of intelligence in these individuals, which allowed them, among other things, to successfully enter police or military service and be honored with the dictator’s order to destroy people unwelcome to him.

Justification and normalization of violence are signs of psychopathy

Voluntarist, Bitarch

When discussing the topic of violence, you may encounter people who see nothing wrong with this phenomenon. Of course, they will most likely condemn certain forms of violence, but at the same time, they will call it an absolutely normal tool—for example, like a knife, which can be used for good in the kitchen or for harm in an attack on a person. Just as a knife does not become “bad” because of how it is used, they claim the same is true for violence. For example, they may often justify state violence, reprisals for violations of norms that are important to the interlocutor, or someone may justify violent “punishments” toward children for “disobedience” and other forms of violence that seem rationally beneficial or necessary to some people.

If a person resorts to such argumentation, it is worth asking them whether they themselves could commit violence in the same situations where they justify its use, and whether they would consider such an act justified and rational. The fact is that at least two items from different versions of Robert Hare’s “Psychopathy Checklist” examine the issue of justifying violence. One assesses the lack of remorse and guilt regarding causing pain and suffering to others, as well as the tendency to believe that the victim of violence deserves it. The second assesses the unwillingness to take responsibility for causing harm, shifting it onto the victim or circumstances, the rationalization of violence, and the denial of the seriousness of its consequences for the victim. Both items also belong to the affective component of psychopathy, which is directly linked to the dysfunction of the violence inhibition mechanism in a person.

Furthermore, it should be noted that in people with low levels of psychopathic traits, aggressive behavior, if present, is reactive in nature. Such behavior depends on a specific situation (for example, provocation, conflict, or threat), is not planned in advance, and does not involve the intentional pursuit of a goal. At the same time, the aggressive behavior of people with high levels of psychopathy is more proactive—meaning planned, intentional, and purposeful. But as research demonstrates, these people tend to present their proactive aggressive acts as reactive, and the victim as the culprit who provoked the act of violence (this behavior is better known as “victim blaming”). Additionally, specifically in men, high levels of affective psychopathy (but not other components) are associated with a tendency to believe that in the case of rape, the woman may be to blame herself and that there is not that much harm to the victim in such an act. Again, people who justify violence tend to blame the victim.

Of course, not everyone who justifies violence is actually a psychopathic personality with a dysfunction of the violence inhibitor. However, resorting to such argumentation significantly increases the risk that you are speaking with exactly such a person. And there is no point in talking to mentally ill violent individuals and taking their arguments even slightly seriously—they are formed due to a distortion of perception created by the disorder they suffer from. Always remind them that a position justifying violence is very similar to how a psychopath would express it, especially if the person has also expressed their own ability and willingness to commit an act of “justified” violence. This can leave a proponent of violence bewildered and discredit them in the eyes of others. And do not fear that such an argument resembles an appeal to the person (ad hominem), because in this case, it is based not on a logical trick, but on the statement of a scientifically proven fact about the link between a person’s psychopathy and their tendency to justify violent acts.

How common are psychopathic traits and how strongly are they linked to the capacity to commit violence

Voluntarist, Bitarch

It is known that a high level of psychopathic traits in a person is associated with a risk of violent behavior. This is not surprising, as psychopathy is expressed by a decrease, or even a complete suppression, of a person’s natural internal resistance to causing harm to others. However, few know how psychopathic traits are distributed in the general population and how strong the link is between them and the capacity to commit acts of violence. Some may be surprised, but as numerous studies demonstrate, the majority of people do not possess even the slightest psychopathic traits.

A study of 638 individuals from England, Wales, and Scotland demonstrated that 70.8% of them exhibited a zero level of psychopathy according to the PCL:SV test (scale from 0 to 24). The average psychopathy value was 1.52 for men and 0.63 for women. Only 2.3% of people had a psychopathy level of 11 and above, and only 0.6% had 13 and above, which indicates potential or subclinical psychopathy. However, a level of 18 would be a trait of definitive psychopathy, which only one person in the entire sample reached. A semi-normal distribution of psychopathic traits for the general population can be observed, in which a zero score is the mean for the distribution [1].

A similar American study examining 514 people living in the same county demonstrated that more than half of the people had a level of 0 or 1, and two-thirds had 0, 1, or 2. The average level was 2.67 (3.53 for men, 2.16 for women, 1.70 for whites, and 3.86 for African Americans). A level of 13 and above was obtained by only 1.2% of people (1% of men, 1.2% of women, 1.9% of African Americans, and about 1% of whites) [2]. Among American managers and company executives (sample of 203 people), the vast majority (80%) had a level from 0 to 3 on the PCL-R test (scale from 0 to 40). Only 9 people (4.4%) had a level of 25 and above (potential psychopathy), 8 of whom (3.9%) had a level of 30 and above (definitive psychopathy). The average level was 3.64 [3].

A completely different situation is observed among violent people. In one study, 98 men undergoing forensic psychiatric examination and accused of violent crimes showed an average level of psychopathic traits on the PCL-R equal to 21.4. And only 9 people (9.2%) had a psychopathy level below 10 [4]. A similar Swedish study with 43 men, 74.4% of whom were accused of violent crimes, demonstrated an average psychopathy level equal to 23.08 [5]. There is also a current study of murderers sentenced to death in California. For them, the average psychopathy level was 23.31. Only 15% of the individuals considered had a level of 10 and below. Among them were those who had not committed crimes previously, repented for their actions, and behaved in accordance with judicial norms. Individuals with higher psychopathy scores behaved much worse. And 5 people who scored a maximum of 40 points were the most brutal criminals—serial sexual murderers [6].

Additionally, one study provides a meta-analysis of 22 studies with 29 unique samples of murderers from 6 countries: USA, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Brazil. It determined that the average level of psychopathic traits in murderers according to the PCL-R test is 21.1. At the same time, it is noted that for people who do not commit crimes, it is only 5.1 [7].

As the authors of the studies note, in the vast majority of people, psychopathic traits are completely absent or expressed to a small degree. Violence and murder have a strong link to them, and the higher the level of these traits, the more brutal violence can be expected from a person. This once again confirms that the commission of acts of violence is pathological behavior, the result of a failure in the correct functioning of the violence inhibition mechanism, which leads to the emergence of psychopathic traits. Everyone should understand that violence is a disease.