[chatmasta]

The fact that psychopaths and Obama share certain characteristics does not prove that Obama is a psychopath. Yet people continue to suggest that he is, citing the incongruent logic that overlapping characteristics imply equality.

The fundamental problem is not people's flawed logic, but the psychological diagnostic tests. Psychologists broadly categorize most disorders because they cannot find a reliable symptom that also acts as evidence of a disorder. That is, there is no symptom that definitively allows psychologists to say "Patient exhibits Symptom X. Therefore, patient has Disorder Y."

Contrast this to "biological" diseases like viruses or cancers. They exhibit physical evidence as symptoms. Doctors can detect the physical presence of a virus or a cancer. The evidence they find serves both as a symptom and evidence of their diagnosis. Thus, medical doctors can precisely define diseases by their symptoms.

Unfortunately, psychologists are not afforded such luxury. Yet many of them act as though they are. This is how we end up with severe misdiagnoses. We need to be aware as a society of how this affects us.

[criley2]

ITT: Armchair psychologists confuse "psychopathy" and "sociopathy".

The tops of government and business exhibit the signs of sociopathy, not psychopathy.

Psychopaths generally exhibit many behaviors that makes them fundamentally unsuited for public life, such as poor behavior control.

Sociopaths, on the other hand, have just the right mix of anti-social tendencies to turn their empathy on for the crowd, and off while making decisions that affect millions negatively.

[mortehu]

If you're really a trained psychologist; in what diagnostic system do these categories even exist? Surely not ICD or DSM?

[Bluestrike2]

Outside the public consciousness, the term's only real professional use is limited mainly to some forensic psychologists because of the criminal justice system's rather peculiar requirements of psychology. Given the hoops it requires they bend through, I wouldn't look towards FP for diagnostic guidance. Robert Hare as well, but personally I tend to think of his work is sophomoric at the best of times and idiotic at the worst . He's also (in my opinion) a world-class prick, having used legal action to prevent the publishing of a critical paper that had already made it through peer review:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=critique-of...

But that's neither here nor there.

Anyhow, setting aside the lack of any diagnostic definition for either term, sociopathy has never been anything more than a synonym preferred by certain individuals. But if we're looking for some point of differentiation, one of the main reasons to prefer one synonym over another was to try and emphasize causation by social factors. Certainly not some sort of empathy switch.

Generally speaking, that confusion is part of the problem with both terms. They carry a lot of baggage and pop-psych definitions, but sorting through the muck and deriving some sort of diagnostic criteria is an exercise in futility.

[GhotiFish]

every discussion I've seen about this has inevitably come to the conclusion that psychopathy and sociopathy have entered the public consciousness, and have ceased being relevant diagnostic terms.

Every description I've seen of sociopaths and psychopaths is basically parallel.

My recommendation is to jump ship and avoid talking about psychopaths and sociopaths, and just stick to new material coming out about the spectrum of anti-social personalities.

Starting at the word psychopath or sociopath will get you to the relevant material, but those terms in and of themselves are not considered relevant anymore.

[coldtea]

>The fact that psychopaths and Obama share certain characteristics does not prove that Obama is a psychopath. Yet people continue to suggest that he is, citing the incongruent logic that overlapping characteristics imply equality

Err, you don't get to the top chair of the west by NOT being psychopath in some degree.

You think people fuck their promises, move ahead as nothing happened, overpass the wild dogs in Washington and get to the White House by being boy scouts?

[AlexeiSadeski]

Right, as soon as we can get a psychiatrist to examine him, we'll get back to you. Until then, we'll have to rely on circumstantial evidence and induction.

It does seem likely that anyone able to rise to the pinnacle of American politics would be a psychopath, so it's not as if such accusations are shots in the dark.