The Sociopath Next Door
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As an illustration, psychiatric anthropologist Jane M. Murphy: J. Murphy, “Psychiatric Labeling in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Similar Kinds of Disturbed Behavior Appear to Be Labeled Abnormal in Diverse Cultures,” Science 191 (1976): 1019–1028.
Intriguingly, sociopathy would appear to be relatively rare in certain East Asian countries: See P. Cheung, “Adult Psychiatric Epidemiology in China in the 1980s,” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 15 (1991): 479–496; W. Compton et al., “New Methods in Cross-Cultural Psychiatry: Psychiatric Illness in Taiwan and the United States,” American Journal of Psychiatry 148 (1991): 1697–1704; H.-G. Hwu, E.-K. Yeh, and L. Change, “Prevalence of Psychiatric Disorders in Taiwan Defined by the Chinese Diagnostic Interview Schedule,” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 79 (1989): 136–147; and T. Sato and M. Takeichi, “Lifetime Prevalence of Specific Psychiatric Disorders in a General Medicine Clinic,” General Hospital Psychiatry 15 (1993): 224–233.
The 1991 Epidemiologic Catchment Area study: See L. Robins and D. Regier, eds., Psychiatric Disorders in America: The Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study (New York: Free Press, 1991), and R. Kessler et al., “Lifetime and 12-Month Prevalence of DSM-III-R Psychiatric Disorders in the United States,” Archives of General Psychiatry 51 (1994): 8–19.
Robert Hare writes: R. Hare, Without Conscience, p. 177.
Sociopaths are fearless and superior warriors: See D. Grossman, On Killing, p. 185.
Chapter 8. The Sociopath Next Door
The good news is that having social support: See T. Blass, ed., Obedience to Authority: Current Perspectives on the Milgram Paradigm.
Chapter 9. The Origins of Conscience
Since we have it on excellent authority that nature is red in tooth and claw: A. Tennyson, “In Memorium, A.H.H.,” in Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Selected Poems, ed. M. Baron (London: Phoenix Press, 2003). It is noteworthy that Tennyson wrote this poem in 1850, nine years before the publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species.
According to psychobiologist Frans de Waal: See F. de Waal, Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), and F. de Waal and P. Tyack, eds, Animal Social Complexity: Intelligence, Culture, and Individualized Societies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003).
In 1966, George C. Williams: G. Williams, Adaptation and Natural Selection (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966).
And ten years later, in 1976: R. Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976).
biologist W. D. Hamilton's notion: See W. Hamilton, “Selection of Selfish and Altruistic Behavior,” in Man and Beast: Comparative Social Behavior, eds. J. Eisenberg and W. Dillon (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971).
Naturalist Gould reexamines the evidence from paleontology: S. Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).
As evolutionist David Sloan Wilson has said: See D. Wilson and E. Sober, “Reintroducing Group Selection to the Human Behavioral Sciences,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17 (1994): 585–654.
Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget: J. Piaget, The Moral Judgment of the Child (New York: Collier Books, 1962).
psychologist and educator Lawrence Kohlberg: L. Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral Development (New York: Harper & Row, 1981).
in 1982, in a groundbreaking book by Carol Gilligan: C. Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982).
In the last twenty years, newer studies: See, for example, J. Walker, “Sex Differences in Moral Reasoning,” in Handbook of Moral Behavior and Development, eds. W. Kurtines and J. Gewirtz (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1991).
One illustration of the significance of context and culture: See J. Miller and D. Bersoff, “Development in the Context of Everyday Family Relationships: Culture, Interpersonal Morality, and Adaptation,” in Morality in Everyday Life: Developmental Perspectives, eds. M. Killen and D. Hart (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), and J. Miller, D. Bersoff, and R. Harwood, “Perceptions of Social Responsibilities in India and in the United States: Moral Imperatives or Personal Decisions?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58 (1990): 33–47.
An overall perception of good and evil as a duality in human life: For additional findings and theories concerning this ubiquitous feature of human relations, see J. Crocker and A. Miller, eds., The Social Psychology of Good and Evil (New York: Guilford Press, 2004).
Chapter 10. Bernie's Choice: Why Conscience Is Better
virtually identical Y chromosomes are carried by almost 8 percent: T. Zerjal et al., “The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols,” American Journal of Human Genetics 72 (2003): 717–721.
Laboratory experiments using electric shocks and loud noises: See, for example, J. Ogloff and S. Wong, “Electrodermal and Cardiovascular Evidence of a Coping Response in Psychopaths,” Criminal Justice and Behavior 17 (1990): 231–245. See also A. Raine and P. Venables, “Skin Conductance Responsivity in Psychopaths to Orienting, Defensive, and Consonant Vowel Stimuli,” Journal of Psychophysiology 2 (1988), 221–225.
A major comorbidity study published in 1990: D. Regier et al., “Comorbidity of Mental Disorders with Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse: Results from the Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study,” Journal of the American Medical Association 264 (1990): 2511–2518.
Another study, published in 1993: R. Brooner, L. Greenfield, C. Schmidt, and G. Bigelow, “Antisocial Personality Disorder and HIV Infection Among Intravenous Drug Abusers,” American Journal of Psychiatry 150 (1993): 53–58.
lives in a torment of hypochondriacal reactions: See Guze, R. Woodruff, and P. Clayton, “Hysteria and Antisocial Behavior: Further Evidence of an Association,” American Journal of Psychiatry 127 (1971): 957–960, and L. Robins, Deviant Children Grown Up: A Sociological and Psychiatric Study of Sociopathic Personality.
Perhaps the most famous historical example: For one account, see L. Heston and R. Heston, Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler: His Illnesses, Doctors, and Drugs (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000).
In a systematic study of such people: See A. Colby and W. Damon, Some Do Care: Contemporary Lives of Moral Commitment (New York: Free Press, 1992), p. 262, and A. Colby and W. Damon, “The Development of Extraordinary Moral Commitment,” in Morality in Everyday Life: Development Perspectives, eds. M. Killen and D. Hart, p. 364.
Chapter 11. Groundhog Day
Tillie is someone personality theorist Theodore Millon would call: See T. Millon and R. Davis, “Ten Subtypes of Psychopathy,” in Psychopathy: Antisocial, Criminal, and Violent Behavior, eds. T. Millon et al., and the first note for chapter 4, which concerns Millon's subtypes.
Chapter 12. Conscience in Its Purest Form: Science Votes for Morality
Vietnamese Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh: T. Hanh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life (New York: Bantam Books, 1992).
Jewish theologian and philosopher Martin Buber: M. Buber, Between Man and Man (New York: Collier Books, 1965), p. 117.
psychologist Daniel Goleman and His Holiness the Dalai Lama: D. Goleman (Narrator), Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama (New York: Bantam Dell, 2003), p. 12.
More specifically, the Dalai Lama said: Mind and Life Institute, Investigating the Mind: Exchanges between Buddhism and the Biobehavioral Sciences on How the Mind Works, sound recording (Berkeley, CA: Conference Recording Service, Inc., 2003).
As ways to increase life satisfaction: See M. Seligman's groundbreaking book on positive psychology, Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment (New York: Free Press, 2002).
“The Wise Woman's Stone”: A version of this parable can be found in A. Lenehan, ed., The Best of Bits and Pieces (Fairfield, NJ: Economics Press, 1994), p. 73.
Conscience is the still small voice: I would like to thank the eminent interna
tional relations scholar James A. Nathan for pointing out to me (personal communication) that the transliterated Hebrew phrase kol demama dakah (that still small voice within) derives from a story about the prophet Elijah, “who experienced fires, earthquakes, and assorted terrors, and then the still small voice of God and conscience.”
about the author
MARTHA STOUT, Ph.D., was trained at the famous McLean Psychiatric Hospital and is a practicing psychologist and a clinical instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She is the author of The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness and has been featured on Fox News, National Public Radio, KABC, and many other broadcasts. She lives on Cape Ann, Massachusetts.
THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR. Copyright © 2005 by Martha Stout. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stout, Martha, 1953–
The sociopath next door : the ruthless versus the rest of us /
Martha Stout—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Psychopaths. 2. Antisocial personality disorders. I. Title.
RC555.S76 2004
616.85'82—dc22
2004051874
eISBN 0-7679-2020-1
v1.0