- 5 weeks ago
Are psychopaths always dangerous? Can an online test tell you if you are one? Is your boss secretly a psychopath? Dr. Eric Bender dives into Reddit to separate psychopathy fact from fiction, covering the brain science, the difference between psychopaths and sociopaths, the myths that won't die, and which movie psychopaths Hollywood actually got right.
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Follow Dr. Eric Bender as he destigmatizes mental illness and explores mental health in TV, movies, and pop culture:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.ericbender
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doctor.eric.bender/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dr.ericbender/
Website: https://www.doctorericbender.com/
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TechTranscript
00:00About 20 to 40% of violent crimes are suspected to be done by psychopaths.
00:04How can you tell if someone is a psychopath?
00:09Psychopathic CEOs?
00:10Psychopaths on screen?
00:11Are psychopaths always dangerous?
00:13There's a lot of chatter and confusion about this topic.
00:15I'm a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist.
00:17Let's take a deep dive and set the record straight on psychopathy.
00:21Let's start with the big question.
00:23From the Ask Psychology subreddit, what the hell is psychopathy?
00:26Psychopathy is actually not a diagnosis.
00:28It's a collection of personality traits.
00:30A psychopath is someone who lacks remorse.
00:34They're callous.
00:35They might lie pathologically.
00:37Let's take a look at what people are saying.
00:38Here's one of the most upvoted comments.
00:40Moss 420.69 says,
00:43I don't think psychopathy is a very useful term, but ASPD is a real mental disorder.
00:47What Moss 420.69 touches upon here is true.
00:51Psychopathy is not in the DSM-5, which is a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illness.
00:56The closest we get is a diagnosis called Antisocial Personality Disorder.
01:00It's a personality disorder in which someone is often breaking rules, breaking societal laws.
01:06There's lack of concern for safety, both for oneself and for other people.
01:10Not everybody who has Antisocial Personality Disorder is a psychopath,
01:14but most people who are psychopaths do meet criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder.
01:18Over on Explain Like I'm 5, Additional Relief 385 asks,
01:22Are psychopaths always dangerous?
01:24I never really met a psychopath myself,
01:26but I always wonder if they are really that dangerous as portrayed in movies and TV shows.
01:31Psychopaths are not always dangerous.
01:33There's an association with violence, but that doesn't mean that they absolutely will be.
01:37But you're right.
01:38They almost always are portrayed that way in film and TV.
01:41One Redditor asks on the horror subreddit,
01:43In your opinion, what is the most realistic portrayal of a psychopath you've seen in film?
01:47A lot of the anti-heroes in our recent TV shows, like Mad Men, even Don Draper,
01:52might meet some psychopathic traits that are personality traits.
01:56When you consider the personality traits,
01:58you think about someone who might feel like they're a little bit superficial,
02:01but they have a charm to them.
02:03There's a lack of remorse, a lack of responsibility.
02:06They might feel like they're a little bit grandiose in terms of their self-worth.
02:10Tony Soprano might be somebody who's got psychopathic traits,
02:13both in the personality side and in the behavioral side.
02:17On the behavioral side, we think about antisocial behavior.
02:20Has there been a history of juvenile delinquency?
02:23Is there trouble with the law?
02:24Is there criminal versatility?
02:26Meaning there are a lot of different acts throughout different criminal realms.
02:30One of the best depictions in film was Anton Chigur from No Country for Old Men.
02:34He was cold.
02:35He was calculating.
02:36He moved forward in life doing what he needed to do, and he had no empathy for anyone.
02:41And his haircut didn't help.
02:43Another great depiction was Amy Dunn from Gone Girl.
02:46What's interesting about female psychopaths, the research and the literature suggests
02:50that they're not necessarily as violent as male psychopaths.
02:53Maybe they use non-aggressional means in relationships to manipulate people.
02:58She did a lot of things, though, that were violent.
03:01She also showed a lack of empathy.
03:03She didn't care about framing her boyfriend, didn't care about the impact on her husband.
03:07She had this way to charm everyone.
03:09One of the traps that Gone Girl fell into a little bit is that Hollywood trope of the
03:14evil genius psychopath.
03:16We see psychopaths so smart that everything is perfectly done.
03:20Now, I'm sure there are some people like that, and maybe Amy Dunn is an example of that.
03:23But for the most part, psychopaths with their overconfidence will end up getting caught in some way.
03:28Walter White is a good example of someone who I see as a sociopath.
03:31And we'll get into the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath in a little bit.
03:35Let's hop over to the Too Afraid to Ask subreddit for another series of questions here.
03:39KawaiHusbando says,
03:40Why are psychopaths sometimes just called psycho?
03:43Sociopaths are never just called socio.
03:44I don't particularly like the term psycho.
03:46I don't use it.
03:48It can refer to different things, but never in a nice way.
03:51Psycho can refer to psychotic, which means that someone is having a break from reality.
03:56They're actually hearing voices or maybe seeing things.
03:58They're having delusions.
04:00They might really feel like people are out to get them.
04:03There's a paranoia.
04:04There might be this idea that people are persecuting them.
04:06The voices that they hear can be very, very scary and demeaning.
04:09Very rarely do those individuals actually kill for psychotic reasons.
04:13In fact, the data shows you're more likely to be hurt or taken advantage of
04:17as someone with mental illness than you are to be violent toward other people.
04:20Someone who's psychotic is not the same as someone who's psychopathic.
04:23I use the classic example of Joker from Dark Knight.
04:26That is a psychopath.
04:28Someone who's calculated, uncaring, lacks empathy, lacks remorse.
04:32He was not psychotic having a break from reality, hearing things,
04:36seeing things, delusional, paranoid.
04:38And he didn't belong in a forensic hospital where his mental illness would be treated.
04:41So I don't like the term psycho because it's not clear what you're referring to.
04:44Let's go back to our original question.
04:45What are the signs that someone might be a psychopath?
04:48A top voted comment is from Travishing Rabbit.
04:51Pathological liars, learn that the hard way.
04:53Yes, pathological lying might be a sign that someone is a psychopath.
04:55But remember, psychopathy is a collection of personality traits.
04:59If someone is simply pathologically lying, but they lack other traits,
05:03they're not necessarily a psychopath.
05:05Let's peek at the comment Redditors deem most controversial.
05:08Eiffeltower777 says MAGA merch.
05:10I'm not touching that one.
05:11Aaron K. Clark suggests that psychopaths catch animals
05:14and dissect them to see how they work.
05:16Okay, so this is an old idea.
05:18In the 1960s, a forensic psychiatrist named J.M. McDonald came up with his triad.
05:23People who had a history of bedwetting, fire setting, and cruelty to animals
05:27were more likely to have homicidal tendencies or behaviors.
05:31There's no evidence that suggests that with these three things in someone's history,
05:36they're more likely going to be homicidal.
05:38If someone actually over age 10 is being cruel to animals,
05:42there's a two to three times more likelihood that that person is being abused.
05:46And when animal cruelty shows up, about a quarter of those individuals might have conduct disorder.
05:50It's telling you something is disturbed somewhere in this person's environment.
05:54When you see something like fire setting,
05:56you need to consider are they seeking stimulation in some way
05:59because they actually have an attention deficit disorder.
06:01When you evaluate bedwetting, that can be a sign of trauma.
06:04It can be a sign of abuse.
06:05It can be a sign of a biological issue.
06:07Certainly, there can be some people who do these things that become psychopathic
06:11or that turn out psychopathic.
06:13But this is not a predictor.
06:14This comment from Galfisk actually provides an important insight.
06:17There's this story about a doctor who looked at a brain scan and explained that this person
06:21would be a dangerous psychopath, only to learn that it was his own brain scan.
06:24The doctor that this commenter is referring to, he was a neuroscientist who wrote a book
06:28about his brain scan, in fact, matching the brain scans of psychopaths.
06:32He was not violent, but he talked about how he recognized some psychopathic traits in himself.
06:37That neuroscientist looking at imaging of his own brain and those of psychopaths
06:41did see some differences in structures and functioning in certain brain areas.
06:45There are areas that are cortical, meaning it's in the cortex, the top of the brain,
06:50that are different, and then some that are subcortical, lower in the brain.
06:53In the brains of people who have psychopathy, the prefrontal cortex and the insula,
06:59different parts of the brain, the prefrontal cortex is up here above your right eye socket,
07:03and then the insula, which is kind of inside the brain but still on the outer edge of it,
07:07those are the cortical areas that are different.
07:09The subcortical areas include the amygdala, which is where you process emotion,
07:14and also the ventral striatum, another area where you understand rewards.
07:20When these things are different, it seems as if people don't necessarily feel the reward you
07:26would for prosocial behavior. Again, just because you have these differences,
07:30it doesn't mean you're going to be a psychopath or act in a violent way, as this doctor has shown
07:34us.
07:35Let's go down deeper into this Reddit hole. First, I want to debunk the comment here.
07:38Top comment with 221 votes from Groundhog Day Life.
07:42They get pleasure from watching others suffer.
07:44I really f***ing hate that trait in someone. A sadist.
07:47Not all psychopaths are sadists.
07:49Sadists get pleasure from watching other people suffer,
07:52but most psychopaths just are indifferent toward the suffering that they cause other people.
07:56Many people feel a real goodness when they have helped other people.
08:00There's that reward for being prosocial.
08:02In psychopathic brains, oftentimes people don't get that same reward.
08:06Some actually get a reward from doing something that does cause someone else some suffering.
08:12Let's move over to the serial killers subreddit. Why not?
08:14Do serial killers without psychopathy exist?
08:17That's a good question. They do tend to have some psychopathy,
08:21but there are different types of serial killers.
08:24Some of them have some psychotic beliefs.
08:27They actually believe that they might need to kill someone for a reason.
08:30They need to do this because this is going to save humanity.
08:33One example historically that comes to mind is the serial killer David Berkowitz,
08:37or the son of Sam killer, in the 1970s in New York.
08:40At the time of his trial, his defense team was saying that he was psychotic,
08:44and he had these stories as to why he killed.
08:46That is a plea that occurs in less than 1% of legal cases.
08:52David Berkowitz pled guilty, and later, in fact, he admitted that the story he made up
08:56was in fact something he made up.
08:58Some serial killers might enjoy the power dynamic, being able to control someone else.
09:04Going from historic records, it's believed that Ted Bundy was in fact very psychopathic.
09:09He would in fact pretend at the side of the road that he would have an injury,
09:12he would lure young women to try to help him, and then he would capture them,
09:15and he would end up killing them.
09:17Most serial killers, when the research has been done on them, they are psychopaths.
09:22But the overwhelming majority of people who do have psychopathy, they are not serial killers.
09:27If psychopaths are typically not violent, how do they function in society?
09:31Well, this thread might help paint a good picture here.
09:33Mayo with Chips asks,
09:34Is the cliché of psychopathic CEOs accurate?
09:37In fact, this is more of a cliché than a reality,
09:40although I'm sure most people out there are saying,
09:43nope, there are plenty of psychopaths where I work.
09:44When you look at the leadership qualities of people,
09:48the one that overlaps most with psychopathy is this idea of fearless leadership,
09:53or fearless dominance, even.
09:55That idea that someone has less anxiety than others, that they're going to push forward,
10:00when you pair that idea of fearless dominance and moving up the ladder
10:04with maybe more of the behavioral traits that are psychopathic,
10:07that can cause havoc in the workplace.
10:09Sometimes I even see patients who have come to me because situations at work are this awful.
10:14In other words, true psychopathy in the workplace is not good leadership.
10:17Is there a test to look at psychopathic traits?
10:20There is a test, and this thread allows us to start looking at it.
10:24ProfessionalPush147 says,
10:25Has anyone taken Robert Hare psychopathy tests?
10:28Apparently, I'm 35% more psychopathic than the general population, though not a psychopath.
10:33So the PCLR, or the psychopathy checklist, there are 20 questions on this checklist,
10:38which is used in clinical, forensic, and research settings,
10:41meaning it's not meant for you to take by yourself.
10:44It's not a self-administered test.
10:46The 20 questions are each valued at zero to two points.
10:49If your total at the end is 30 or more in North America,
10:53we say that pretty much says someone's psychopathic.
10:56In Europe, it's 25 or higher.
10:58Psychopathy affects roughly 1% of the adult population when you take the PCLR results
11:04and look at it that way.
11:06PCLR was also mostly developed on males, not females.
11:09So there are some nuances in whether or not this is actually the accurate number.
11:13There's another Redditor who took the test and reported their results.
11:16You are 78.13% sociopathic, 72.73% impulsive,
11:21which makes you 50.56% more psychopathic than the population average.
11:26IDK, what to think?
11:27If you had this done in a forensic or clinical setting, maybe you'd be concerned.
11:32If you administer this yourself, these results are not going to tell you something about yourself.
11:37One very interesting part of this is the way the person uses the word sociopathic.
11:41We should talk about the difference between sociopath and psychopath.
11:44Let's jump over to the Ask subreddit.
11:46MonkLoveBanana asks,
11:47What's the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath?
11:50Sociopathy and psychopathy have different meanings originally.
11:53The idea of psychopathy, someone is innately this way.
11:56They're born this way.
11:58Sociopathy implies that society or the environment
12:02has actually created in someone this psychopathic tendency.
12:07Let's go down deeper into this Reddit hole.
12:08These two commenters seem to be at odds.
12:11MintFootSpace says,
12:12Psychopath is sick in the psycho, the mind.
12:14Sociopath is sick in the social interaction part.
12:16And the response from MajesticLove9312,
12:19And completely wrong.
12:20Psychopaths are born, as they're born without the capacity for empathy.
12:24Sociopaths are made through childhood trauma, abuse, etc.
12:26I side a little bit more here with MajesticLove9312 for an upvote.
12:30The idea was that sociopathy was created by society,
12:34meaning that psychopathic traits were kind of developed or nurtured in this individual.
12:40A psychopath, the idea is that they were innately born this way.
12:43There are some nuances to it as well.
12:45Psychopaths reportedly are very calculating.
12:48They've planned things.
12:50Sociopaths might be more spontaneous in their actions.
12:53They might be more disorganized.
12:55Sociopaths might actually have the ability to show some empathy at some point,
13:00whereas psychopaths tend not to.
13:02Walter White, I mentioned earlier as an example of someone who's a sociopath on TV,
13:06and depicted well in that form.
13:08He starts out as this mild-mannered teacher and then becomes this way.
13:12He develops this whole meth lab and meth empire.
13:16At the same time, you might argue, well, wait a minute.
13:18Maybe he had this innately in him and something revealed it.
13:22Yes, that is possible.
13:23And this is one reason that sociopath and psychopath are used interchangeably,
13:26because we're saying, are there really these distinctions?
13:29Now let's jump over to No Stupid Questions, where one Reddit user asks,
13:33does a psychopath know they are one?
13:35I understand that narcissists don't recognize that trait in themselves,
13:38but what about psychopaths?
13:40Are they oblivious?
13:41There's a lot in this Reddit post.
13:42Narcissistic personality disorder is another personality disorder.
13:45In narcissism, someone might have a grandiose sense of self-importance.
13:50They might demand respect from lots of people.
13:52They also might lack remorse.
13:54In the more extreme cases, that's heading and trending towards psychopathy.
13:58But not all narcissists are this way.
14:01Narcissism is a spectrum.
14:02Let's take a look at one of the most downvoted comments in the thread.
14:05One Reddit user posts,
14:06We'll keep you posted working on that right now with my psychiatrist, lol.
14:10Narcissists and psychopaths both know what they're doing.
14:13They choose to be assholes that they are.
14:15Narcissists don't necessarily recognize the traits in themselves.
14:18Some people who are narcissists are incredibly vulnerable.
14:21They actually call it vulnerable narcissism.
14:23And there is a sadness inside or a feeling of not being good.
14:28Anytime someone pushes the buttons of a narcissist in a way that makes that sadness or that lack of
14:33confidence come up, they really get upset.
14:35And you might feel a narcissistic wrath or they might feel their ego is bruised and they do things
14:40that make other people uncomfortable.
14:42It's actually incredibly sad when you think about it that someone would feel that badly about themselves.
14:46A psychopath might not have an understanding of what's going on inside of them.
14:50But it's really more about the indifference.
14:52That they don't care about how it affects other people.
14:55In one research study, psychopaths rated themselves and other people rated their behaviors.
14:59And they pretty much matched.
15:01In another research study, psychopaths actually rated their own behaviors and rated them higher than other people thought.
15:06There are psychopaths who recognize the way I function is different than other people.
15:10And they learn what is acceptable and what is not acceptable.
15:14And they can follow those guidelines.
15:15But that doesn't mean that they've learned empathy or that they have learned how to care for other people.
15:20Some make the argument that evolutionarily, psychopaths exist in our culture because it allows us to be on our toes.
15:26It allows us to thrive because we're aware of our environment and how someone might take advantage of us.
15:32So is it Darwinism at work?
15:34That's up to you.
15:35That's enough Reddit for me today.
15:36Thanks for joining me down the rabbit hole.