Paxter Redwyne Posted January 2, 2017 Share Posted January 2, 2017 29 minutes ago, Roose on the Loose said: At least a few characters can be seen as Claudius figures. Claudius was a Roman emperor who everybody underestimated until he was Emperor and all his rivals were dead. I would credit BW with just such a strategy. Other Claudius figures may include Bronn and LF. Claudius wasn't cold calculating mastermind as far I know. He was intelligent and well-read but he was also overly trusting and easily manipulated by his wife. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OtherFromAnotherMother Posted January 2, 2017 Share Posted January 2, 2017 1 hour ago, Paxter Redwyne said: Claudius wasn't cold calculating mastermind as far I know. He was intelligent and well-read but he was also overly trusting and easily manipulated by his wife. Which wife? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damsel in Distress Posted January 2, 2017 Share Posted January 2, 2017 Big Walder could have been a better match for Arya than Elmar. I can see Arya bowing to her intellectual superior, which Big Walder would have been. Trade places between BW and Edmure and the Riverlands will be in better hands. I would love to see BW succeed Lord Walder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aegon VII Posted January 3, 2017 Author Share Posted January 3, 2017 11 hours ago, Roose on the Loose said: Here's how I see BW becoming Lord of the Crossing: Forces loyal to Stark are inevitably going to hang every Frey connected to the RW and that's a lot of Freys. The only living Frey known to be wholly innocent of the RW is BW. As long as the new order clings to ancient blood rites as a sacred value, I like his odds. That's the thing, the freys are doomed already from the red wedding. BW would have a chance of becoming lord even if he wasn't so motivated to make it happen. 4 hours ago, Damsel in Distress said: Big Walder could have been a better match for Arya than Elmar. I can see Arya bowing to her intellectual superior, which Big Walder would have been. Trade places between BW and Edmure and the Riverlands will be in better hands. I would love to see BW succeed Lord Walder. I really do think BW and Arya would be a perfect match. He'd challenge her and she'd make him a better person. I don't see it happening, but it's a nice thought Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paxter Redwyne Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 9 hours ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said: Which wife? Agrippina the Younger aka Neron's mother Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
estermonty python Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 On 12/31/2016 at 7:04 PM, Aegon VII said: I just have to say, I'm very happy you guys found this probable mistake in GRRM's writing. If nothing else I feel happy to know that my thread contributed to the spotting of an error never before found (discussed here). Not that I'm happy that GRRM made a mistake, but either way it's a notable discovery. Kudos! On 12/31/2016 at 7:40 PM, OtherFromAnotherMother said: That was all @estermonty python with that great find. I asked about this in the Small Questions thread towards the bottom of page 79 if anyone is interested to see some of the responses. I didn't find the text, that was thanks to @Aegon VII's thorough analysis, and @OtherFromAnotherMother calling further attention to it. Honestly this is how academic shit happens IRL. One person puts together a comprehensive analysis, not knowing if it will actually be useful or not, the analysis gets analyzed, and something even more interesting ultimately comes of it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OtherFromAnotherMother Posted January 3, 2017 Share Posted January 3, 2017 9 hours ago, Paxter Redwyne said: Agrippina the Younger aka Neron's mother Talk about a dysfunctional family.... Not only Nero's mother but Caligula's sister and Claudius' niece! Yes, she most likely manipulated Claudius into adopting Lucius (Nero) and naming him as his heir. I love that stuff! Sorry for the derail, but to bring it back around... Yes, I agree Claudius is probably not the best comparison to BW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OtherFromAnotherMother Posted January 6, 2017 Share Posted January 6, 2017 On 1/2/2017 at 7:24 PM, Aegon VII said: That's the thing, the freys are doomed already from the red wedding. BW would have a chance of becoming lord even if he wasn't so motivated to make it happen. While BW does have a chance to become Lord, it is an unlikely chance, IMO. What is more important to remember is that BW might be motivated to make it happen, motivated enough to kinslay his cousin. What else might he do? Who will he try to align himself with? I'm very interested to see what kind of role, if any, he will play on tWoW. ETA: I should have added that I think becoming Lord is part of BW's motivation to kill LW. I'm not convinced it was his only motivation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aegon VII Posted January 8, 2017 Author Share Posted January 8, 2017 On 1/3/2017 at 9:50 AM, estermonty python said: I didn't find the text, that was thanks to @Aegon VII's thorough analysis, and @OtherFromAnotherMother calling further attention to it. Honestly this is how academic shit happens IRL. One person puts together a comprehensive analysis, not knowing if it will actually be useful or not, the analysis gets analyzed, and something even more interesting ultimately comes of it! I completely agree. That's why I absolutely hate it when people come into threads and post negative comments, saying a theory is too crackpot, etc. Revelations can come from conversations about the most random things, we should all be encouraging discussion, not judging others and mocking their ideas. We all win when people feel safe to express their views and we have a more unrestricted flow of conversation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quirpele Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 Let me preface this by saying awesome analysis, you put together lots of clues I never noticed. If BW is manipulating the Freys and Manderleys into being at each others throats to further his own ends, that's incredibly clever, and I suspect we'll have to watch out for BW in the future. I don't know if any of you are on Reddit or saw the "decoding" that was done to a picture of GRRM's TWOW manuscript, but there's some stuff there that could be further evidence to some of your claims, or perhaps just of interest as it is (maybe) BW-related. I'm recounting from memory as I can't find the thread I saw this theory on so forgive me for any errors and a bit of vagueness... here's a different thread that at least some of the decoding was done on. Spoiler From Asha's POV we see the advancing Frey army, with (who appears to be) Hosteen behind the bannermen. There are some clues to suggest this is actually Big Walder instead: most convincingly he is wearing the same or very similar armour to what we saw BW wearing earlier in the series (a helm shaped into Frey's twin towers, armour inlaid with jewels). Of course, this doesn't hold up if the Freys have an armourer who pumps out the same armour for all, or some, Freys. Relating it back to the OP: if indeed this is BW, it means Hosteen is out of the way (killed for being a barrier in the line of succession?) and it would make some sense for BW to be at the front/in a position of some honour as he's now iirc the highest ranked or at least closest in line of succession Frey, so maybe in charge of the Frey army to some degree. Of course, it would seem to be a pretty stupid time for BW to kill Hosteen, and pretty weird for a 9 year old to be in charge, and odd that Asha could mistake a small boy for the fairly burly Hosteen. There are definitely some holes to poke, but it's interesting to ponder on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetsunray Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 Interesting OP, regarding the fact that BW appears more agreeable in his interactions, but is therefore not less callous. Regarding psychopathy or sociopathy discussion, this is quite an irrelevant debate, since we're talking about 8-10 year olds. Nobody is diagnozed a psychopath before reaching adulthood. The related disorders linked to psychopathy for children have different names. Secondly, sociopathy is the outdated term. At this moment, there are two related diagnoses, Anti-Social Personality Disorder or Psychopathy. The first is decribed in the DSM (IV and V), the latter is not but tested for with the PCL-R test formulated by Hare. There exists no testing profile at this moment that would lead to the diagnosis "sociopathy". So, how does ASPD relate to psychopathy? All psychopaths would also be diagnized as having ASPD, but not all people with ASPD would be diagnozed as psychopaths. This has to do with the profile. DSM's ASPD profile describes behavior. Hare goes furrther and actually points out intrinsic personality traits. Psychopathy is considered to be untreatable, whereas the group of people with ASPD but failing to score 30/40 on the PCL-R are considered as people where therapy might help them and their environment. That's one of the reasons the DSM does not include psychopathy, as the concept behind it is to have a manual as tool to develop therapies. Anyhow the term sociopath is used, but only for laymen speech. And within that laymen use common differences between sociopathy and psychopathy that are cited is that of the first being the result of "nurture" (environment), while the latter is the result of "nature" (genetic). When you read someone saying that, they are basically using the outdated term "socioapthy" for the group of people diagnozed with ASPD but failing the PCL-R test for psychopathy. Meanwhile it's not fully correct to say psychopathy is the result of "nature". For now it's agreed on that psychopathy has a genetic component, but a child showing some of the intrinsic personality traits are far from being given up as lost, and parenting aid and support has been developed and being used with the hope that even those personality traits might be improved through nurturing. Psychopaths are not necessarily more sadistic than a "sociopath" or a narcissist. Sadism not a trait or behavior that appears in either the PCL-R or ASPD profile, but being callous or ruthless are. When sadism is used in labeling someone with disorder, the term used for it is "malignant narcissist" (no DSM term). A malignant narcissist is either a narcissist or psychopath or ASPD who displays sadism. This means that there are sadistic people who would not be diagnozed as psychopaths. It also means that you can call a sadistic psychopath a malignant narcissist. Another matter of confusion with regards to psychopaths is that some people think that psychopaths must be violent criminals, and that a cunning corporate psychopath who never physically harmed anyone isn't a psychopath. The PCL-R test and profile it tests for include the mention of violence (not surprisingly since Hare developed the profile and the test based on his research with criminals). Hare however recognizes that there is a group of psychopaths that lack a criminal or physically violent background and has been working with other researchers to investigate them and create an ammended test for it. At the moment, the terms used to differentiate between the two are low-performing psychopaths and high-performing psychopaths, with the latter being far more motivated to control impulses to achieve a powerful status in environment where physical violence would backfire. Sometimes people try to differentiate between the low-performing and high-performing using the "sociopath" versus "psychopath" label. Do LW and BW show traits that come up in such profiles? Some, yes. They differ in low and high performance and enjoyment of inflicting pain/harm (sadism). Hope that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
estermonty python Posted January 9, 2017 Share Posted January 9, 2017 19 hours ago, Aegon VII said: I completely agree. That's why I absolutely hate it when people come into threads and post negative comments, saying a theory is too crackpot, etc. Revelations can come from conversations about the most random things, we should all be encouraging discussion, not judging others and mocking their ideas. We all win when people feel safe to express their views and we have a more unrestricted flow of conversation. For sure. Even ultimately negative conclusions come after interesting analysis. Understanding the character beats that make BW unique, for example, doesn't mean we have to accept that he's particularly important to the story, or that there's some greater meaning to him, but it makes the whole experience richer. It's much more fun to read about a character having a fuller understanding of who he is and what makes him tick than reading about a character and having to think "wait, who was that again?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
three-eyed monkey Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 On 12/29/2016 at 7:24 PM, estermonty python said: At any rate, he is so far down the line of succession that I can't imagine it will ever matter. I just took a look at the Frey family tree; at the time we meet BW and LW, LW is 36th in line to the Twins, and BW is 46th. After all the Frey deaths that we know of, BW is around 35th in line to the Twins as of TWOW. He's about to make a major leap up the line though, considering the number of Freys that are likely to die in TWoW. At least 34 by the look of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aegon VII Posted January 11, 2017 Author Share Posted January 11, 2017 Psychopath and Sociopath do have a lot of misconceptions about their definition. This has been further compounded by the medical world moving away from using the terms. I still believe these were the best words to use in my application. I have already clarified numerous times what I mean by them. I think it's a distraction to get caught up on the interpretations of these words in ways that I was not using them. I'm not talking about their current medical definition or the media's image of a psychopath. Please review my post on page 2 referencing WEBMD, it has already addressed a lot of the points you bring up about the words. In that post of mine, I have highlighted in Blue and purple the aspects of the pscyhopathy and sociopathy I am talking about. One aspect of my analysis is arguing that BW has these traits, if you would like to suggest a better word for it be my guest. Quote Nobody is diagnozed a psychopath before reaching adulthood. The related disorders linked to psychopathy for children have different names. Secondly, sociopathy is the outdated term. At this moment, there are two related diagnoses, Anti-Social Personality Disorder or Psychopathy. The first is decribed in the DSM (IV and V), the latter is not but tested for with the PCL-R test formulated by Hare. There exists no testing profile at this moment that would lead to the diagnosis "sociopathy". So, how does ASPD relate to psychopathy? All psychopaths would also be diagnized as having ASPD, but not all people with ASPD would be diagnozed as psychopaths. This has to do with the profile. DSM's ASPD profile describes behavior. Hare goes furrther and actually points out intrinsic personality traits. Psychopathy is considered to be untreatable, whereas the group of people with ASPD but failing to score 30/40 on the PCL-R are considered as people where therapy might help them and their environment. That's one of the reasons the DSM does not include psychopathy, as the concept behind it is to have a manual as tool to develop therapies. Thank you for giving the medical perspective, but as you mention Psychopath and sociopath are not really used as medical terms anymore so I think giving the medical perspective of their definition will only serve to confuse things and is largely irrelevant to how I am using the words. These terms were stigmatized in the media and soon after abandoned by the medical community. That does not detract from their original meaning however, and it is this older definition of the words that I mean when I use them. You say the terms are outdated, I say only in medical world. The fact that no one is diagnosed as a psychopath is completely irrelevant, it speaks to what a pscychiatrist/ doctor is willing to label their child patient. I have no interest in this. People with pscyhopathic tendencies often show symptoms of it while children. So while the kids are not diagnosed as "pscychopaths", the symptoms can often be observed at this age. If we observe these symptoms in BW as a child, it supports him having psychopathic tendencies. Quote Anyhow the term sociopath is used, but only for laymen speech. And within that laymen use common differences between sociopathy and psychopathy that are cited is that of the first being the result of "nurture" (environment), while the latter is the result of "nature" (genetic). When you read someone saying that, they are basically using the outdated term "socioapthy" for the group of people diagnozed with ASPD but failing the PCL-R test for psychopathy. Meanwhile it's not fully correct to say psychopathy is the result of "nature". For now it's agreed on that psychopathy has a genetic component, but a child showing some of the intrinsic personality traits are far from being given up as lost, and parenting aid and support has been developed and being used with the hope that even those personality traits might be improved through nurturing. Again, you are pointing out the misconceptions about what the terms mean. I appreciate the attempt to clarify, but again your choosing to view this like a medical diagnoses and that's the last thing I want. I'm sorry I chose words that have misconceptions about their definitions but again, that does not make their actual definitions incorrect. I am well aware that both pschyopaths and sociopaths are created by a mix of both nature and nurture. Pretty much everything is. That does not mean the mix is in the same proportions. I do believe that psychopaths are caused more often by nature than nurture, or in other words, nature is the bigger determinant in what cause their condition compared to sociopaths. More often sociopaths are a product of their environment, relatively. And when it is a genetic difference from birth, there are often signs of that abnormality that can be observed while the person is still a child. BW's lack of emotion when his family dies, his duplicity, and his cold blooded murder of LW all support him having these psychopathic tendencies. Quote Psychopaths are not necessarily more sadistic than a "sociopath" or a narcissist. Sadism not a trait or behavior that appears in either the PCL-R or ASPD profile, but being callous or ruthless are. When sadism is used in labeling someone with disorder, the term used for it is "malignant narcissist" (no DSM term). A malignant narcissist is either a narcissist or psychopath or ASPD who displays sadism. This means that there are sadistic people who would not be diagnozed as psychopaths. It also means that you can call a sadistic psychopath a malignant narcissist. I'm not saying psychopaths are more sadistic than sociopaths. I'm not even saying psychopaths are necessarily more sadistic than the average person. If anything we see LW, who I view as more sociopathic, as much more sadistic than BW, who I would view as more psychopathic. Quote Another matter of confusion with regards to psychopaths is that some people think that psychopaths must be violent criminals, and that a cunning corporate psychopath who never physically harmed anyone isn't a psychopath. The PCL-R test and profile it tests for include the mention of violence (not surprisingly since Hare developed the profile and the test based on his research with criminals). Hare however recognizes that there is a group of psychopaths that lack a criminal or physically violent background and has been working with other researchers to investigate them and create an ammended test for it. At the moment, the terms used to differentiate between the two are low-performing psychopaths and high-performing psychopaths, with the latter being far more motivated to control impulses to achieve a powerful status in environment where physical violence would backfire. Sometimes people try to differentiate between the low-performing and high-performing using the "sociopath" versus "psychopath" label. Thank you for trying to clear up peoples misconceptions. I do feel I have already covered most of this in my previous post that referenced WEBMD, except the medical tests, because again, I am not using the terms in the modern medical sense whatsoever and have no interest in how they would classify the terms that they in large part no longer use. Yes I'm using language that has a vague definition in my use of "psychopath", but I have already clarified the pscyopathic traits I am referring to on the WEB MD post as well as throughout the analysis. Quote Do LW and BW show traits that come up in such profiles? Some, yes. They differ in low and high performance and enjoyment of inflicting pain/harm (sadism). Hope that helps. I would like to reiterate, I was not referring to these terms based on their application in the modern medical community. So while you've done a good analysis in this post, I don't put too much stock in it based solely on me not putting much stock into modern pscyhology overall. For anyone who would like to know what I meant by the terms, please see my post on page 2 of this thread quoting WEBMD's "Sociopath vs Psychopath" article. I have clearly highlighted the traits I mean when I use these words and I think it will do the most to clarify what I mean. 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OtherFromAnotherMother Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 On 1/9/2017 at 7:11 AM, estermonty python said: For sure. Even ultimately negative conclusions come after interesting analysis. Understanding the character beats that make BW unique, for example, doesn't mean we have to accept that he's particularly important to the story, or that there's some greater meaning to him, but it makes the whole experience richer. It's much more fun to read about a character having a fuller understanding of who he is and what makes him tick than reading about a character and having to think "wait, who was that again?" This is a great point. And if nothing else, readers of this thread will have a higher accuracy in labeling BW and LW correctly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetsunray Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 You mistook my meaning, Aegon VII. Psychopathy is stull used as a diagnostic term, and not outdated, and was never abandoned. It was however never incorporated by the DSM for the reasons I explained. That does not mean that psychiatrists and psychologists deny the existence of the term in a scientific sense. It means they recognize it to be a pathology for which no therapy exists nor can be set up and tried. It certainly is not a term that you can decide how and when to use it. The diagnoze is very much defined and tested for already with the PCL-R : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_Checklist. The claims you make about the term psychopathy, its recognition and its use are just plain wrong! Sociopathy is not a diagnostic term at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetsunray Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 So, for the traits according to the PCL-R and BW: smooth talker/glib charm: meaning they can chit-chat easily and come across as very charming. While BW shows this up to a level (chit-chat), and he's amiable enough in conversation, he's not a charmer either. He doesn't use flattery for example. So, at best he scores "1" on this and not "2" egocentrical/exaggerated sense of self: yes, we laymen could give him a "2" on that. easily bored and seeking distraction or outside stimuli: I see no sign of this, so "0" pathological lying: meaning they lie even when it's not necessary. That only would be true to some level if it was BW who hunted with Theon, and this proposal is under heavy contestation. We can only be sure that he lied at the most logical time to lie (after murdering LW), but that does not make a pathological liar. A pathological liar would say the sun is shining while it rains. So, at best he has a score of "1", though by the evidence we can be sure of, it's leaning more to a "0" Cunning and manipulative: BW is definitely described as cunning, but he does not display a lot of manipulative behavior. So, at best, again "1". Lack of remorse or guilt/ yes, so "2" Superficial affect: meaning that the display of emotion comes across more as dramatic than profound. In other words, the emotions are acted/played out for an audience. There is no evidence for this with BW, so "0". Callous and low empathy: yes, so "2" Parasitic lifestyle: no evidence for this, so "0" Low control over own behavior: meaning they are easily provoked into temper tantrums, rages, and cannot swallow criticism, and that a flare ends as soon as it can rupt. No, so "0" Random sexual behavior: too young, no applicable Behavioral issues in early youth: lying, fighting, theft, arsony and animal cruelty and bullying. He murders his cousin, and seeks confrontation up to a level, but we are not sure why he murdred his cousin (could have been self-defense) and his confrontational behavior is not out of the ordinary of boys his age, so "1" Lacking (realistic) long term goals: LW calls his long term goal unrealistic, but in light of what's happening it may be far more realistic than it seems, and hardly requires BWs intervention for it. At least he has a long term goal. So, at best "1" Impulsive: no, so "0" Irresponsible behavior: meaning that he does not show any sense of responsibility or loyalty to family, friends, bosses and partners and is reckless with them or a burden to them. His interest is more to himself, but he's not overall reckless either, nor is he perceived as a burden. So, "1" Unable to recgonize personal responsibility: there's a difference between blaming someone else for a crime in order to appear innocent and the ability for the ego to deal with the idea that you're in the wrong. BW's apology to Bran is not half-assed or insensitive, nor does it appear false. So, "1". Partnerships and marriages that are short-lived: not applicable, since he's too young Youth delinquence: aside from the murder on LW, BW isn't stealing the silver ware. So "1" Breaking parole: not applicable Criminally affluent: meaning he shows criminal behavior on several levels, minor and major. Not really, but he might be. So, "1" 3 traits out of 20 were not applicable, for circumstance and age reasons. Normally the max score is 40 and a person is considered a psychopath at the mark of 30. BW has a laymen score of 15 out of 40. Even if we exclude the 3 traits that are not applicable, or immeasurable (can only be done for people in the NW), he scores 15/34, which is still less than half of the possible total than the required 3/4. So, no, using the traits profile of psychopathy, BW cannot be said to be even close to a psychopath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aegon VII Posted January 12, 2017 Author Share Posted January 12, 2017 15 hours ago, sweetsunray said: It certainly is not a term that you can decide how and when to use it. The diagnoze is very much defined and tested for already with the PCL-R : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_Checklist. Alright, well this is the exact last thing I wanted to do but I am now going to support BW being a psychopath from a medical perspective. I will clarify what aspects of psychopathy I was referring to throughout my analysis. As I said about five times in my last response, I really don't want to do this as I feel it distracts from the point. I will be heavily quoting the paper, Psychopathic Personality Bridging the Gap Between Scientific Evidence and Public Policy. I highly recommend you check it out. (everything from here not in blue is a quote, red are things I’d like to draw attention to) The PCL-R was created by a Canadian psychologist working in criminology named Robert Hare whom: ..sought to systematize the process of assessing psychopathy in incarcerated criminal samples by developing a criterion-based interview protocol, the 22-item Psychopathy Checklist (PCL; Hare, 1980). This instrument was revised and published as the 20-item PCL-R (Hare, 1991). Taking a different tack from the DSM-III and its progeny, which placed almost exclusive emphasis on overt criminal and other antisocial behavior, Hare demonstrated that it was also possible to score personality characteristics reliably. Guidelines for the PCL-R caution that users should be qualified clinicians with specific training, and the guidelines include admonitions against basing ratings on too little information (Hart, Cox, & Hare, 1995). So right off the bat you should know that we should not be using the PCL-R in this case because we do not have nearly enough info. To try to score BW using the PCL criteria would be mostly invalid. Popular portrayals of “psychopaths” are diverse and conflicting, ranging from uncommonly impulsive and violent criminal offenders to corporate figures who callously and skillfully manuever their way to the highest rungs of the social ladder. Despite this diversity of perspectives, a single well- validated measure of psychopathy, the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 1991; 2003), has come to dominate clinical and legal practice over recent years. The items of the PCL-R cover two basic content domains—an interpersonal-affective domain that encompasses core traits such as callousness and manipulativeness and an antisocial domain that entails disinhibition and chronic antisocial behavior. I believe BW shows scores highly on the interpersonal-affective domain and low on the antisocial domain. In most Western countries, the PCL-R and its derivatives are routinely applied to inform legal decisions about criminal offenders that hinge upon issues of dangerousness and treatability. The PCL-R has played an extraordinarily generative role in research and practice over the past three decades—so much so, that concerns have been raised that the measure has become equated in many minds with the psychopathy construct itself (Skeem & Cooke 2010a). Equating a measure with a construct may impede scientific progress because it disregards the basic principle that measures always imperfectly operationalize constructs and that our understanding of a construct is ever-evolving (Cronbach & Meehl, 1955). In virtually any domain, the construct-validation process is an incremental one that entails shifts in conceptualization and measurement at successive points in the process of clarifying the nature and boundaries of a hypothetical entity. Despite the predominance of the PCL-R measurement model in recent years, vigorous scientific debates have continued regarding what psychopathy is and what it is not. Should adaptive, positive-adjustment features (on one hand) and criminal and antisocial behaviors (on the other) be considered essential features of the construct? I argue that they are not both essential. PCL-R ignores the positive adjustment features and instead focuses on the antisocial aspect. I argue that BW is showing signs of the positive-adjustment features and not the antisocial features. That is why I argue PCL-R is not a valid test when determining if BW has psychopathic tendencies (among other reasons). Although these and other controversies remain unresolved, theory and research on the PCL-R and alternative measures have begun to clarify the scope and boundaries of the psychopathy construct. In the current comprehensive review, we provide an integrative descriptive framework—the triarchic model—to help the reader make sense of differing conceptualizations. The essence of this model is that alternative perspectives on psychopathy emphasize, to varying degrees, three distinct observable (phenotypic) characteristics: boldness (or fearless dominance), meanness, and disinhibition. The triarchic framework is helpful for clarifying and reconciling seemingly disparate historical conceptions, modern operationalizations, and contemporary research programs on psychopathy. Contemporary measures of psychopathy, including the PCL-R, appear to evidence no special powers in predicting violence or other crime. The PCL-R and other psychopathy measures derive most of their predictive utility from their “Factor 2” assessment of antisocial and disinhibitory tendencies; the “Factor 1” component of such measures, reflecting interpersonal and affective features more specific to psychopathy, play at best a small predictive role. A key message of our review is that classical psychopathy, whether measured by the PCL-R or other measures, is not monolithic; instead, it represents a constellation of multiple traits that may include, in varying degrees, the phenotypic domains of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition. Measures such as the PCL-R that do not directly assess features of low anxiety, fearlessness, or boldness more broadly tend to identify heterogeneous subgroups of individuals as psychopathic. As a consequence, efforts to apply one-size-fits-all public policies to psychopathic individuals may be doomed to failure. Most people think they know what a “psychopath” is—but few psychological concepts evoke simultaneously as much fascination and misunderstanding. Even within scientific circles, a good deal of uncertainty persists about what psychopathy is and is not. Across lay and professional domains, popular portrayals of psychopaths are diverse. As we will discuss, many of the controversies surrounding psychopathy stem from fundamental disagreements about its basic definition, or operationalization. The scope of phenomena encompassed by the term psychopathy has varied dramatically over time, from virtually all forms of mental disorder (psychopathy as “diseased mind”) to a distinctive disorder characterized by lack of anxiety; guiltlessness; charm; superficial social adeptness; dishonesty; and reckless, uninhibited behavior (Blackburn, 1998). Even contemporary conceptualizations of psychopathy contain puzzling contradictions. Psychopaths are often described as hostile, aggressive, and at times revenge driven (N. S. Gray, MacCulloch, Smith, Morris, & Snowden, 2003), yet they are also characterized as experiencing only superficial emotions (Karpman, 1961; McCord & McCord, 1964). They are impulsive and reckless, yet apparently capable of elaborate scheming and masterful manipulation (Hare, 1993). They can rise to high levels of achievement or status in society, attaining success in business and public life, yet present as criminals whose behavior is so poorly thought out and lacking in regard even for self-interest that they occupy bottom rungs of the social ladder. Given these contrasting depictions, it is scant wonder that some experts have concluded that the concept of psychopathy, as commonly understood, is disturbingly problematic: a “mythical entity” and “a moral judgment masquerading as a clinical diagnosis” (Blackburn, 1988, p. 511), “almost synonymous with ‘bad’” (Gunn, 1998, p. 34), “used by the media [to convey] an impression of danger, and implacable evil” (Lykken, 2006, p. 11). In the words of William and Joan McCord (McCord & McCord, 1964), two influential figures in the historic literature on psychopathy, “the proliferation of definitions, the tendency to expand the concept to include all deviant behavior, the discrepancies in judgment between different observers——these pitfalls in the history of the concept——are enough to make a systematic diagnostician weep” (p. 56). Although we appreciate these understandable concerns, our more sanguine view is that some measure of order can be reached through a systematic review of the existing scientific literature and consideration of notable empirical and conceptual advances that have been made in recent years. This measure of order, in turn, provides valuable information for improving relevant public policy, particularly in legal and treatment domains. We now turn to the substantive review of contemporary research on psychopathic personality. We begin by reviewing leading conceptualizations and measures of psychopathy. Although there are unresolved diagnostic controversies, we propose that varieties of what scholars call “psychopathy” may actually represent different confluences or configurations of particular personality dimensions. When viewed from this perspective, disagreement about the boundaries of psychopathy reflects differing emphases on a few underlying dimensions. I agree, which is why I clarified which personality dimensions I was claiming BW showed signs of in my analysis and again in the post that referenced WEBMD. I’m not claiming that he has all the aspects of psychopathy, as nowhere do I speak to the antisocial domain in my analysis. I do not believe BW would score high on Factor 2 of the PCL-R and I do not believe my analysis suggests that. Research Review What is psychopathy? A single measure—the PCL-R (Hare, 1991, 2003)—has played such a generative role that some are concerned that the measure has become essentially equated with psychopathy itself (Skeem & Cooke, 2010a). However, a PCL-R score is not equivalent to psychopathy any more than an intelligence-test score is equivalent to intelligence itself. Although operationalism is necessary to understand a construct, pseudo-operationalism (Meehl, 1978)—the conflation of measures with constructs——impedes scientific progress because it disregards the basic principle that our understanding of a construct is always evolving (Westen & Rosenthal, 2005). Like all other constructs, psychopathy is not reducible to a single indicator and is best served by multiple and incrementally evolving measures. Early and divergent origins Modern Western conceptualizations of psychopathy trace their origins to the early 1800s, with the work of Pinel (1962; manie sans delire, or “mania without delirium”) and Pritchard (1835; “moral insanity”). However, the term psychopathic was introduced only toward the end of the 19th century, by the German psychiatrist J. L. Koch (1891), who—in sharp contrast with current usage—applied it to a diverse array of chronic conditions including neuroses, mental retardation, and various character disorders. Early descriptions of what came to be known as psychopathy were diverse, variously emphasizing intact mental faculties coupled with reckless, explosive, behavior (Prichard, 1835); charm, self-assurance, social dominance, attention seeking, persuasiveness, and shallow affectivity (Kraepelin, 1904, 1915; Schneider, 1950/1958); and brutality, emotional coldness, and callous exploitation of others (Pinel, 1806/1962; Schneider, 1950/1958). These disparate early conceptualizations foreshadowed——and perhaps fueled—modern controversies about the definition of psychopathy. Beginning with Koch’s application of the term to a broad array of chronic conditions (e.g., mental retardation, character disorders), “psychopathic” referred to early-emerging disorders assumed to have an underlying constitutional or genetic basis. Subsequently, the term sociopathy, conveying the idea of antisocial behavior as largely social in origin, was advanced by Birnbaum (1909) as a challenge to the idea that such disorders were fundamentally genetic. Notwithstanding recent empirical efforts to address this question, the relative contributions of constitutional and environmental influences to psychopathy remain uncertain. Modern conceptions of psychopathy derive most directly from American psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley’s classic monograph, The Mask of Sanity (1976). Indeed, perhaps no major psychological disorder is so clearly identified as originating from the work of one scholar as is psychopathy. Cleckley drew on extensive experience with psychiatric patients at Georgia’s University Hospital to clarify and circumscribe the disorder. The “mask” in the title of Cleckley’s book refers to the tendency of psychopaths to present initially as confident, personable, and well adjusted in comparison with most psychiatric patients but to reveal severe underlying pathology through their actions and attitudes over time. Cleckley formulated 16 criteria to help operationalize the disorder. Notably, Cleckley did not characterize psychopaths as explosively violent, dangerous, predatory, or cruel. Instead, the harm they caused others was a secondary consequence of their shallow and feckless nature; although “not deeply vicious,” the psychopath “carries disaster lightly in each hand” (1955, p. 33). Cleckley’s richly descriptive work inspired both early research and the DSM-II diagnosis of “Personality Disorder, Antisocial Type” (APA, 1968). Nevertheless, like other descriptions of personality disorders in DSM-II, the characterization of individuals meeting this diagnosis (e.g., as “grossly selfish, callous, irresponsible, impulsive and unable to feel guilt . . .”; APA, 1968, p. 43) was vague and required considerable clinical judgment, creating concerns about inter-rater reliability. The modern association of psychopathy with serious and repetitive law breaking owes less to Cleckley than to McCord and McCord (1964) and Robins (1966, 1978), influential contemporaries of Cleckley who worked with criminal offenders rather than psychiatric patients. The McCords’ conception of psychopathy is of a more disturbed, maladjusted personality, with more prominent features of hostile alienation from others, aggression, callousness, impulsivity, and parasitic exploitation, but sharing with Cleckley’s conception a presentation of no more than fleeting, surface emotions along with behavior lacking in apparent motivation. Although McCord and McCord viewed frequent, serious, and diverse criminal behavior as common among individuals exhibiting these clinical features, they did not consider such behavior inevitable (Hervé, 2007). Sociologist Lee Robins’ work on the development of objective behavioral indicators of psychopathy—drawing on findings of adult follow-up studies of conduct-disordered children—served as the cornerstone for the DSM-III conception of ASPD (APA, 1980). As a remedy for the subjectivity of the DSM-II ASPD criteria, the criteria in DSM-III emphasized overt and easily measured antisocial behavior during childhood—such as truanting, aggression, and lying—that persisted into adulthood (e.g., in criminal acts, deception, and irresponsibility). This emphasis was carried over into DSM-IV (APA, 2000). Although the use of explicit behavioral criteria achieved the goal of reliability, many have argued that validity was sacrificed in the process (Lilienfeld, 1994; Lykken, 1995). What had previously been regarded as a constellation of distinct dispositional features (psychopathy) instead became codified as chronic criminal or other antisocial behavior. Most people who meet DSM-III or IV diagnostic criteria for ASPD fail to exhibit the distinct personality features of psychopathy emphasized by Cleckley (e.g., superficial charm, deficient anxiety, lack of remorse and empathy, and general poverty of affect) or by others, such as the McCords (e.g., persistent cruelty, ruthlessness, emotional coldness). Modern operationalizations These historical definitions bear some relation to leading, modern measures of psychopathy, which grossly consist of clinician rating scales and self-report scales. Clinician rating scales: The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) and its derivatives Taking a different tack from the DSM-III and its progeny, which placed almost exclusive emphasis on overt criminal and other antisocial behavior, Hare demonstrated that it was also possible to score personality characteristics reliably. The PCL-R has been “fine-tuned” (Hare, 2003, p. 198) since it was made available to researchers in 1985, and it is now the most widely used and extensively validated measure of psychopathy. Although Hare’s starting point in developing items for the PCL-R was Cleckley’s criteria, he drew on other sources, including his own experience (Hare & Neumann, 2008), in assembling a candidate pool of items. He then used such standard psychometric methods as corrected item–total correlations to refine the item set. Item–total correlations evaluate the strength of the statistical relationship between an item and the total score from the scale’s set of items. Typically, items with low item–total correlations are discarded. Thus, in the test-development process, Hare eliminated Cleckley’s (1941, 1988) positive-adjustment features of psychopathy (see Table 2; see also “Unresolved Controversies” below), which tend not to relate highly to the other features of the condition. By forming the test in this way, Hare is only testing for the traits of psychopathy that are highly correlated. I argue that this test is conflating people with ASPD and psychopaths. The reason positive-adjustment does not correlate highly with the other traits is because there are a ton of people with ASPD that do not have the positive adjustment trait. That in no way means that it is any less valid of an indicator for psychopathy, just more difficult to see in studies. This positive-adjustment feature of Cleckleys definition of pscyopathy is one of the traits I argue BW has shown, yet the PCL-R is not testing for it. Futhermore, as this piece mentioned earlier, “The PCL-R and other psychopathy measures derive most of their predictive utility from their “Factor 2” assessment of antisocial and disinhibitory tendencies; the “Factor 1” component of such measures, reflecting interpersonal and affective features more specific to psychopathy, play at best a small predictive role.” So, Hare has completely removed one of the defining traits of psychopathy. Of the remaining two, it is Factor 2 that has the more predictive power. In effect Hare has made a test for antisocial tendencies that also includes questions regarding an aspect of psychopathy. I do not believe BW shows has these antisocial tendencies, so this test is not suitable for our purposes. High overall scores on the PCL-R show positive associations with measures of impulsivity and aggression, Machiavellianism (a personality trait marked by ruthlessly pragmatic and cynical attitudes), and persistent criminal behavior and negative relations with measures of empathy and affiliation (Hare, 1991, 2003). Probably because the PCL-R was developed with and for criminal samples, and because positive-adjustment indicators were omitted as criteria, this pattern of external correlates appears more in line with McCord and McCord’s (1964) conception of criminal psychopathy, which emphasizes cruelty and impulsive-aggressive behavior, than with Cleckley’s portrayal of psychopathy as a masked disturbance blending behavioral dyscontrol with emotional stability and social efficacy. Despite being developed to index psychopathy as a unitary construct (Hare & Neumann, 2008), the PCL-R contains distinctive subscales or item subsets, conventionally referred to as “factors” in the psychopathy literature (Harpur, Hare, & Hakstian, 1989; Hare et al., 1990): an interpersonal-affective factor (Factor 1; further divisible into interpersonal and affective facets; cf., Cooke & Michie, 2001; Hare, 2003), and an antisocial factor (Factor 2; further divisible into impulsive-irresponsible lifestyle and antisocial behavior facets; cf., Hare, 2003). The two factors and their constituent facets exhibit moderate correlations with one another. The interpersonal-affective factor is associated with narcissism and low empathy (Hare, 2003). In contrast, the antisocial factor is associated mainly with maladaptive characteristics and behaviors, including impulsivity; general sensation seeking; alcohol and drug problems; early and persistent criminal behavior; and aggression, particularly reactive aggression (i.e., aggression that entails an angry response to perceived provocation; Hare, 2003; Patrick, Hicks, Krueger, & Lang, 2005; Patrick & Zempolich, 1998; Porter & Woodworth, 2006). As you can see, BW has all the traits of Factor 1 and really none of the traits in Factor 2. It is these factor 1 traits that I meant in my use of “psychopath” in the analysis. The PCL-R/SV manuals specify suggested cutoff scores when the instruments are used to make categorical “diagnoses” (psychopath/nonpsychopath). For the PCL-R, 30 out of a maximum score of 40 is recommended as the cutoff for a diagnosis of psychopathy (Hare, 2003), and for the PCL:SV the corresponding score is 18 (Hart et al., 1995). However, for research purposes, lower cutoff scores are sometimes used (e.g., PCL-R score of 25). Although these PCL-R/SV cutoff scores are sometimes applied as though they definitively indicate when an individual is or is not a “psychopath,” this practice rests on little or no research support. First, as suggested earlier, there is no consensus definition of symptom criteria for a formal diagnosis of psychopathy. Second, the weight of evidence using taxonometric techniques (e.g., Meehl & Golden, 1982) suggests that psychopathy is a dimensional trait or configuration of traits rather than a discrete category (or taxon) that exists in nature rather than merely in the minds of clinicians (Edens, Marcus, Lilienfeld, & Poythress, 2006; Marcus, John, & Edens, 2004; Murrie et al., 2007; cf., Harris, Rice, & Quinsey, 1994; Vasey, Kotov, Frick, & Loney, 2005). Although studies addressing this issue to date have focused on leading interview-based and self-report measures of psychopathy—leaving open the possibility that analysis of emotional, cognitive, or other laboratory measures may yet reveal a taxon—the few studies that purportedly have identified psychopathic taxons suffer from salient methodological problems (for a review, see Walters, Marcus, Edens, Knight, & Sanford, 2011). That is, despite the routine use of PCL-R cutoff scores for diagnosing psychopathy, available data indicate that psychopathic individuals differ from other people in degree rather than in kind. Such individuals are not psychopaths per se, but instead are relatively “psychopathic” (Edens et al., 2006). Still, such vital distinctions rarely are observed in practice, where the PCL-R and closely affiliated instruments currently dominate the field. Although a number of self-report measures of psychopathy have been developed over the years (see next section), no major external-rating instruments for assessing psychopathy in adults have emerged as alternatives to the PCL-R. Arguably, this is an unusual circumstance for a psychological construct of such theoretical and practical importance. For example, it would strike readers as odd if only a single performance- or interview-based measure existed for assessing intelligence, extraversion, or clinical depression. As a consequence of the PCL-R’s dominance in the field, there is a substantial body of research on this specific instrument and its descendants, including the PCL:SV, the PCL:Youth Version (PCL:YV; Forth, Kosson, & Hare, 2003) and various other inventories for assessing psychopathy in children and adolescents derived directly from the PCL-R. Consequently, we know a great deal “about the psychopathic offender as defined by the PCL-R” (MacDonald & Iacono, 2006, p. 383) but not necessarily about the nature and boundaries of the psychopathy construct. The PCL-R is popular not merely in the academic and clinical world. It has recently acquired a kind of cult-like popular-psychology status with the publication of journalist Jon Ronson’s (2011b) bestselling book, The Psychopath Test, which adopts the PCL-R as its core organizing framework. In discussing the book, Ronson (2011a) wrote that "The Hare Checklist is brilliant at anatomizing the barely noticeable character traits evident in psychopaths” (p. 232). Over the past quarter century, the PCL-R has firmly and justifiably established itself in the history of research on personality disorder and in the armamentarium of forensic practitioners. It has facilitated comparison of results across studies and clarified communication among practitioners and researchers. In this respect, it has undeniably advanced practice and research on psychopathy. However, as noted earlier, concerns have been expressed that the measure has, effectively, usurped the construct (Skeem & Cooke, 2010a) and contributed to mono-operation bias—that is, the error of operationalizing a construct in only one way (Cook & Campbell, 1979). Although the PCL-R is clearly the most extensively validated measure of psychopathy, referring to it as “gold standard,” as some authors in the psychopathy literature have taken to doing (e.g., Fulero, 1995; Vitacco, Neumann, & Jackson, 2005; Westen & Weinberger, 2004), is highly problematic. Because all measures of constructs are by definition fallible (Cronbach & Meehl, 1955), inferences about psychopathy solely on the basis of one measure and its descendants may well be incomplete or misleading. Fortunately, alternative measures of psychopathy have also been intensively studied in recent years. Self-report scales: The Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) In contrast to the PCL-R, the PPI was developed to comprehensively index trait dispositions represented in Cleckley’s model and related personality-based conceptualizations of psychopathy in nonclinical (e.g., undergraduate) samples. Scores on the PPI-I are associated with emotional stability and social efficacy (e.g., higher well-being, higher interpersonal assertiveness, lower anxiousness and depression), higher narcissism and thrill-seeking behavior, and reduced empathy (Benning, Patrick, Blonigen, et al., 2005; Benning, Patrick, Salekin, & Leistico, 2005; Blonigen, Hicks, Krueger, Patrick, & Iacono, 2005; Douglas et al., 2008; Patrick, Edens, Poythress, Lilienfeld, & Benning, 2006; S. R. Ross et al., 2009). As with the antisocial scale or Factor 2 of the PCL-R, scores on PPI-II are more indicative of maladaptive dispositional and behavioral tendencies—including impulsivity and aggressiveness, child and adult antisocial behavior, substance problems, dysphoria and distress (negative affect), and suicidal ideation. Similar to the PCL-R, the PPI is split into two parts. Once again, it is all the traits in the first part PPI-I that I am saying BW has, and none of the traits in PPI-II. To summarize, in contrast to the PCL-R/SV, the PPI-R (a) is a self-report measure that was (b) developed originally with undergraduate students rather than criminals and therefore (c) contains no items explicitly referring to criminal or other antisocial behavior but (d) does include subscales that capture Cleckley’s positive-adjustment-related features (stress immunity, social potency) and (e) indexes psychopathy in terms of higher-order factors that are clearly differentiated rather than moderately interrelated. Given these points of divergence, scores on the PPI would not be expected to correlate more than moderately with scores on the PCL-R (cf., Blonigen et al., 2010). Nonetheless, the PPI as a whole and its distinctive factors do show relations with psychopathy-relevant criterion measures of various types that parallel those for the PCL-R and its factors (N. G. Poythress, Lilienfeld, et al., 2010). Thus, the PPI measurement model provides a potentially useful alternative to the PCL-R for assessing psychopathy through self-report in populations of differing types, including community participants and nonforensic patients as well as incarcerated offenders and forensic patients. Unresolved controversies in defining psychopathy There is a striking degree of continuing debate among contemporary scholars about the nature and scope of the psychopathy construct. Unresolved controversies include (a) what clinical features are, and are not, intrinsic to psychopathy (i.e., essential or core elements of psychopathy as opposed to concomitants or sequelae); and (b) whether psychopathy should be viewed as a single homogeneous entity or as encompassing subgroups of individuals with distinguishable clinical characteristics. These two areas of debate—feature centered and person centered—overlap; as a broader array of features is used to define psychopathy, a more heterogeneous array of individuals with different feature combinations will qualify as psychopathic. Because scholars may apply the term “psychopathy” to different feature constellations and label differing sets of individuals as “psychopathic,” we highlight key unresolved issues at this point to provide a frame of reference for material that follows and for integrating differing perspectives. Do adaptive features belong in the definition? Cleckley’s (1976) Mask of Sanity suggests that the essence of psychopathy entails a salient paradox. Specifically, psychopaths as described by Cleckley are marked by an outward appearance of positive adjustment—including social facility and immunity to stress. However, these features occur hand in hand with persistent maladaptive behavior. People with this paradoxical configuration of tendencies are said to occupy niches at various levels of society—from successful politicians, business leaders, and lawyers to chronic criminals and shiftless n’er-do-wells. Indeed, Cleckley (1941, 1988) referred explicitly to psychopaths’ characteristic “free[dom] from social or emotional impediments” (p. 338), tendency to “make a distinctly positive impression when he is first encountered” (p. 339), “relatively immunity to such anxiety and worry as to be judged normal or appropriate in disturbing situations” (pp. 339–340), and “extraordinary poise” (p. 340) in social situations. These and other quotations (see Lilienfeld et al., in press) offer ample evidence that Cleckley viewed such adaptive features (encapsulated by the construct of boldness; see below) as one key component of psychopathy. Other prominent scholars have made similar observations. For example, McCord and McCord (1964) wrote that “the psychopath is almost the antithesis of neurosis” (p. 47); Lykken (1982) wrote that individuals predisposed to psychopathy are marked by “boldness, aggressiveness, and charm” (p. 28); and Hare (1993) wrote that psychopaths “can be very effective at presenting themselves well and can be very likeable and charming” (pp. 34–35). More recently, Babiak and Hare (2006) wrote that several abilities—skills, actually—make it difficult to see psychopaths for who they are. First, they are motivated to, and have a talent for, “reading people” and for sizing them up quickly . . . many psychopaths come across as having excellent oral communication skills . . . their insight into the psyche of others combined with a superficial—but convincing—verbal fluency allows them to change their personas skillfully as it suits the situation and their game plan. . . . Like chameleons, psychopaths can hide who they really are and mask their true intentions from their victims for extended periods. The psychopath is a near-perfect invisible human predator. (pp. 37–39) In notable contrast with the foregoing, Hare’s PCL-R/SV largely omits positive-adjustment indicators (see Patrick, 2006). Indeed, Hare and Neumann (2010) regarded such items as “of doubtful relevance to the psychopathy construct” (p. 450). Their perspective appears to be that adaptive psychological features—or those described by Cleckley, at least—represent concomitants rather than core features of psychopathy, affiliated in some cases with, but not essential to, the disorder. In contrast, other writers (e.g., Fowles & Dindo, 2009; Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005; Lykken, 1995; Patrick, 2006) identify characteristics such as fearlessness, stress immunity, and social facility as essential elements of psychopathy. Thus, disagreement remains as to whether positive adjustment features are essential to the disorder. So the test you are referring to has rejected the main tenent of Cleckley’s definition of pscyhopathy (his book is named after it) because it did not correlate with other traits. They also say that them doing so is of “doubtful relevance”. BS, they are completely missing one of the biggest traits of pscyopathy. Does antisocial behavior belong in the definition? Psychopathy research relies heavily on criminal-offender samples, and the PCL-R, which was designed for use with samples of this kind, includes offense-specific items (e.g., criminal versatility, juvenile delinquency, violation of conditional release) and references criminal acts in the scoring of other items (e.g., conning/manipulation, early behavior problems, poor behavioral controls). This strong reliance on criminal behavior in defining psychopathy tends to foster the impression that psychopathic individuals invariably commit crimes. Criminal behavior forms part of a broader category of antisocial behavior that does not necessarily entail law breaking. Recent debate (e.g., Hare & Neumann, 2010; Skeem & Cooke, 2010a, 2010b) has established agreement that psychopathy’s distinctive personality characteristics are associated with antisocial behavior and that some psychopaths cause social harm without breaking the law (e.g., by lying, manipulating others, acting without regard for the feelings of others). There may also be agreement that criminal behavior is not a core or essential feature of psychopathy, notwithstanding the PCL-R’s heavy emphasis on such behavior. However, there is dispute about whether antisocial behavior represents an inherent part of the construct or instead a nonessential correlate or consequence of it. The antisocial facet of PCL-R Factor 2 in particular contains items that primarily emphasize antisocial behavior (e.g., poor behavioral controls, early behavior problems, criminal versatility) rather than personality traits. Cooke, Michie, and Hart (2006) have argued from their analyses that these items, especially the antisocial-facet items—which quite prominently feature criminal behavior (see Table 2)—are merely a consequence of central psychopathic traits. By contrast, Hare and Neumann (2005) maintain that such arguments “are inconsistent with the structural properties of the PCL-R and with evidence that the development of traits and actions are interactive and reciprocal” (p. 58). With respect to this latter point, Hare and colleagues are plausibly suggesting that, rather than conceptualizing behavioral repertoires and traits as static entities, with traits preceding the development of behavior, we should consider the likelihood that the two influence each other continuously over the course of development. For example, involvement in criminal behavior early in life may lead to desensitization and increased callousness, in much the same way that social- cognitive theorists propose that playing violent video games results in long-term changes to personality characteristics (Anderson et al., 2010). So Factor 2, the factor with more predictive utility in PCL-R, speaks more to the behavior that psychopaths exhibit rather than the traits themselves. It does this because behaviors are more easily measured. I do not think this aspect is an integral pscyopathic tendency. Is psychopathy a unitary or a multifarious construct? The foregoing points of contention—about whether antisocial behavior or adaptive features are essential to psychopathy—relate to a broader dispute about psychopathy: Is it a unitary condition or one with distinguishable variations marked by differing configurations of features? Although some writers view psychopathy as a configural construct, entailing the co-occurrence of distinctive but synergistic components (e.g., Lilienfeld & Fowler, 2006; see also: Cleckley, 1976; Kraepelin, 1904, 1915; Schneider, 1950/1958), others argue that it is a unitary entity reflecting a single underlying etiology (e.g., Neumann, Hare, & Newman, 2007). The relative utility of one perspective over another has not yet been directly tested. The complexity of this issue is illustrated by the PCL-R’s approach to diagnosing psychopathy. Although intended to index psychopathy as a unitary construct, the PCL-R nonetheless contains two moderately correlated scales or factors that show diverging relations with many different criterion variables across domains of self-report, behavioral response, and physiological reactivity (Hare, 2003; Patrick, 2007b; Patrick & Bernat, 2010), and its lower-level facets show further evidence of such variegation (Hall, Benning, & Patrick, 2004). In fact, in a number of cases, the PCL-R’s two major factors are correlated in opposing directions with external variables. For example, the interpersonal-affective factor tends to be negatively associated with trait anxiety, whereas the antisocial factor tends to be positively associated with trait anxiety (Harpur et al., 1989; Hicks & Patrick, 2006). Results of this kind appear more consistent with a configural than a unitary perspective, but nonetheless there remains substantial debate on this topic. I agree that it is configural, “entailing the co-occurrence of distinctive but synergistic components” For BW, these components are the ones found in Factor 1 of the PCL-R as well as Cleckleys Positive adjustment traits. Also Boldness and Meanness in the Triarchic model. Integrating definitions, making sense of controversies: The triarchic model An organizing framework may help to make sense of the contrasting definitions and perspectives that reflect the current state of theory and research on psychopathy. Toward this end, Patrick, Fowles, and Krueger (2009) formulated the triarchic model of psychopathy as a framework for reconciling competing and in some cases contradictory perspectives. The model provides an integrative account of what psychopathy is phenotypically—that is, how it has been characterized historically and contemporaneously. It is not intended as a direct template for conceptions of etiology. The triarchic model proposes that psychopathy can be conceptualized in terms of three distinct but intersecting phenotypic constructs: disinhibition, boldness, and meanness. These constructs are proposed not as elements of a unitary higher-order psychopathy construct but rather as configural building blocks for alternative conceptualizations of psychopathy described by historical and contemporary writers and tapped by measurement tools like the PCL-R and PPI. Although the triarchic model emerged from efforts to integrate historical and contemporary conceptualizations of psychopathy (Patrick, 2010; Patrick et al., 2009), it also incorporates concepts and findings from the broader personality, psychopathology, and neurobiological literatures. The next section describes the three distinctive constructs of the model and identifies empirical referents for each. Triarchic building blocks: disinhibition, boldness, and meanness Disinhibition entails proneness toward impulse-control problems, including lack of planfulness and foresight, impaired regulation of affect and urges, insistence on immediate gratification, and deficient behavioral restraint. Related concepts include externalizing behavior (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1978; Krueger et al., 2002), disinhibitory psychopathology (Gorenstein & Newman, 1980; Sher & Trull, 1994), and low inhibitory control (Kochanska, Murray, & Coy, 1997). In personality terms, disinhibition represents the nexus of impulsivity and negative emotionality (Krueger, 1999a; Sher & Trull, 1994), and it shows up behaviorally as irresponsibility, impatience, rapid action with negative consequences, alienation and distrust, volatile emotional displays including reactive aggression, untrustworthiness, proneness to drug and alcohol problems, and illicit and other norm-violating activities (Krueger, Markon, Patrick, Benning, & Kramer, 2007). Research suggests that disinhibition substantially underlies the distinctive variance in PCL-R antisocial scale or Factor 2 (see Patrick et al., 2005) and the analogous impulsive antisociality factor of the PPI (PPI-II; Blonigen et al., 2005). However, contemporary researchers do not view disinhibition as equivalent to psychopathy. In particular, disinhibition is associated with heightened negative emotionality, including anxiety proneness, mood disorders, and suicidal behavior (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1978; Krueger, 1999b; Verona & Patrick, 2000; Verona, Sachs-Ericsson, & Joiner, 2004). As discussed earlier, features of this type seem incompatible with such trademark symptoms of psychopathy as affective shallowness, imperturbability, and low anxiousness (Cleckley, 1976; Lykken, 1995; McCord & McCord, 1964; Patrick, Bradley, & Lang, 1993). It is important to underscore that although the construct of disinhibition constitutes part of what conceptualizations and measures of psychopathy reflect, it also intersects with problem domains not considered essentially psychopathic—for example, reactive aggression (Patrick, 2008; Patrick & Zempolich, 1998), substance dependence (Krueger et al., 2002; Patrick et al., 2005), and suicide (Verona, Hicks, & Patrick, 2005; Verona & Patrick, 2000). While disinhibitory tendencies are emphasized in many definitions and measures of psychopathy, it must be borne in mind that people who exhibit high levels of disinhibition are not necessarily psychopathic and that disinhibition occurring in the context of psychopathy may have a distinctive appearance and perhaps arise from different sources, compared to disinhibition per se (cf., Baskin-Sommers, Wallace, MacCoon, Curtin, & Newman, 2010); Frick & Marsee, 2006). This is aspect associated with Factor 2 of the PCL-R and PPI-II, the sections that deal with antisocial behavior and disinhibition. This is the aspect I am not arguing BW has. Boldness encompasses the capacity to remain calm and focused in pressured or threatening situations, rapid recovery from stressful events, high self-assurance and social efficacy, and a tolerance for unfamiliarity and danger. Terms related to boldness include fearless dominance (Benning, Patrick, Blonigen, et al., 2005), daringness, audacity, indomitability, resiliency (Block & Block, 1980), surgency (Cattell, 1947), and hardiness (Kobasa, 1979). In personality terms, boldness is the nexus of social dominance, low stress reactivity, and thrill/adventure seeking (Benning et al., 2003, Benning, Patrick, Blonigen, et al., 2005). Boldness manifests behaviorally as imperturbability, social poise, assertiveness, persuasiveness, bravery, and venturesomeness. Although it includes features that are essentially adaptive, boldness is also associated empirically (see below) with certain maladaptive proclivities (e.g., narcissism, thrill seeking, lack of empathy; Benning, Patrick, Blonigen, et al., 2005; Miller, Watts, & Jones, 2011). Boldness, represented in Cleckley’s characterization of psychopathy by social poise and persuasiveness, diminished emotional sensitivity, and imperviousness to punishment, is indexed by the PPI’s first, fearless dominance, factor, which is largely independent of its second (impulsive-antisociality, Benning, Patrick, Blonigen, et al., 2005, or self-centered impulsivity, Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005) factor. Meanness describes a constellation of attributes including deficient empathy, disdain for and lack of close attachments with others, rebelliousness, excitement seeking, exploitativeness, and empowerment through cruelty. Related terms connected to specific operational measures include callousness (Frick, O’Brien, Wooton, & McBurnett, 1994), coldheartedness (Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005), and antagonism (Lynam & Derefinko, 2006). In personality terms, meanness resides midway between (high) dominance and (low) affiliation (Blackburn, 2006; Harpur et al., 1989). From this perspective, meanness can be viewed as agentic disaffiliation: a style in which individuals actively pursue valued goals without regard for the impact their actions have on others, or perhaps even with the explicit intent to cause harm. Meanness can be expressed in terms of arrogance, verbal derisiveness, defiance of authority, an absence of close personal relationships, aggressive competitiveness, physical cruelty toward people and animals, strategic aggression and exploitation of others, and destructive excitement seeking. I argue that BW shows us signs of Boldness and Meanness. Accommodating multiple definitions of psychopathy Although the triarchic model does not resolve ongoing debates regarding what features are essential to psychopathy and which individuals should be considered psychopathic, it does bring order to the varied and contentious perspectives on what psychopathy is and provides a coherent framework for considering what each has to offer and for identifying potential avenues for resolution of debates. So to recap, the aspects of Pscyopathy that I am arguing BW shows signs of are Factor 1 in the PCL-R, part I of the PPI, the positive adjustment traits that Cleckley focuses on in “the mask of sanity”, and Boldness and Meanness in the Triarchic model. I do not believe he shows signs of disinhibition and very few signs of antisocial tendencies. These are the traits that Factor 2 of the PCL-R, part II of the PPI, and the disinhibition aspect of the triarchic model. This is why I did not want to get into medical terms and into a clinical diagnoses of a nine year old. This was a hell of a lot of work for me to explain that the definition of the term pschyopath is far more complex than the PCL-R would lead you to believe. You seem interested (or at least knowledgable) in this field, I highly recommend you look up the thesis I’ve been quoting from, Psychopathic Personality Bridging the Gap Between Scientific Evidence and Public Policy I really hope this doesn’t derail this thread lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweetsunray Posted January 12, 2017 Share Posted January 12, 2017 4 hours ago, Aegon VII said: So right off the bat you should know that we should not be using the PCL-R in this case because we do not have nearly enough info. To try to score BW using the PCL criteria would be mostly invalid. Then right of the bat you should know that you do not have the infromation to make any assessment, especially since you're talking about a child. 4 hours ago, Aegon VII said: I believe BW shows scores highly on the interpersonal-affective domain and low on the antisocial domain. He has the callousness, but there is little to no evidence for manipulativeness. 4 hours ago, Aegon VII said: I argue that they are not both essential. PCL-R ignores the positive adjustment features and instead focuses on the antisocial aspect. I argue that BW is showing signs of the positive-adjustment features and not the antisocial features. That is why I argue PCL-R is not a valid test when determining if BW has psychopathic tendencies (among other reasons). Well, the PCL-R recognizes the first good impression that psychopaths make and the low level of anxiety they have. It features the glib charm and it features the risk taking, the need for stimuli (the boredom). So, I disagree with the claim that Factor 1 and Factor 2 exclude the positive adjustment features. 4 hours ago, Aegon VII said: By forming the test in this way, Hare is only testing for the traits of psychopathy that are highly correlated. I argue that this test is conflating people with ASPD and psychopaths. It doesn't. The ASPD profile and testing leads to about 80% of incarcerated criminals to be diagnozed as ASPD, while the PCL-R leads to 20% of the same group to be diagnozed as Psychopath, and Hare himself is an advocate of regarding it as a different disorder. 4 hours ago, Aegon VII said: As you can see, BW has all the traits of Factor 1 and really none of the traits in Factor 2. It is these factor 1 traits that I meant in my use of “psychopath” in the analysis. Check out Narcissism and you will find that you can then see that Factor 1 of psychopathy overlaps with the criteria of the narcissism diagnosis. And I disagree that BW displays a full set of Factor 1. Egocentrism and callousness alone is not enough. It also includes evidence of manipulation the level we see with Littlefinger and Cersei, and the internal impossibility of recognizing responsibility of failure or harm (such as victim blaming). As for Factor 2, George tends to hint at this with both Cersei and LF for example, in that Catelyn remembers how LF always apologized after being naughty, promised to never do it again, but then turned around and did it again. George givves us a tidbit of information that LF was a mischievous child, who liked mischief and was very good in playing the remorseful one, but that remorse were words in the wind, and not real, since he would do it again. Cersei also displays a type of mischievousness. Those are indeed Factor 2 elements. Though they are both highly adapted individuals. One can recognize whether contriteness is real or feigned, by checking the words against the actions afterwards, but also in the formulaic words as well. The apology will be exaggerated with the use of words such as "never" and denying responsibility by saying "I never meant to...". The psychopath will try to make the victim feel as if they exaggerated, guilty and ashamed of their response, and expects everthing to be forgiven and forgotten the moment they apologized. LF's apology to Catelyn for taking her to a brothel is rather a classic example of this all. We have BW apologize for his and his cousin's behavior to Bran and Hodor. And while Bran does end up feeling somewhat ashamed of his own response, this is more because of Luwin's lecture than because of BW's apology. While BW explains it was meant as banter, he does not deny the harmful consequence that banter had, nor does he deny Bran and Hodor the right to feel upset about it. And more importantly, he never engages in the same behavior again. That is why we conclude there is no anti-social behavior apparent in BW. 4 hours ago, Aegon VII said: Although these PCL-R/SV cutoff scores are sometimes applied as though they definitively indicate when an individual is or is not a “psychopath,” this practice rests on little or no research support. It is based on percentile. The 30/40 is the 1% cutoff of incidence in the general population. In order for a personality disorder to be pervasively pathological it has to be rare. And there is some research support for this, because someone diagnozed with ASPD or narcissism for example may not show any neurologically different working brain in relation to certain impulses, whereas someone diagnozed as psychopath does have a very distinctly different working brain. So, Hare's choice for the 1% cut-off has been backed by later neurological research. It also shows up with card tests. For example you have 3 stacks of cards. When you draw certain cards you get positive points. When you draw other cards you get negative points. Some stack will have been laced with negative cards, while others have been laced with positive cards. So, one stack is bad for you, the other is good for you. The goal is to find the good stack ASAP. On average an individual will require less than ten cards picked from the 3 stacks to show neurological signs of apprehension when they reach for the "bad" stack and a relaxedness when they reach for the "good" stack. Individuals will continue to pick a few more cards before they vocally affirm what their body already showsed they suspected at a subconscious level. Guess who fails this test, shows no signs of apprehension, and keeps picking cards from the bad stack? It's not that they're blind or lacking comprehension. But at some level their ego is so grand and so confident that their brain functions in a manner that they truly believe that if they will something it will come to pass, despite the contrary evidence. This is actually correlated to their pathological lying behavior, which serves less to hide their wrong doing than it betrays a belief that their will makes reality around them. Another neurological find is that PCL-R psychopaths have a malfunction with the bonding hormone oxytocin - they produce the hormone but the receptors don't work properly. So, they don't form emotional empathic bonds, which betrays itself in their romantic and sexual life. Moreover, the 30/40 cut-off allows for a psychopath to score 2 on 15 of the 20 features AND 0 on the other 5. 5 of those are easily the severe anti-social criminal features such as evading parole, youth delinquence, criminal versality, lacking realistic long term goals. A highly adapted psychopath can still be picked out. All humans may display to a lesser degree a trait described in a pathology as a reaction to a specific situation. We all write typos, or make a spelling mistake once in a while. And when we were 4 or 5 many people wrote the E the wrong way round. That does not make us all dyslexic. But some people, a small minority, show a pattern of misspelling, and forever maintain issues with it, no matter how much they apply themselves to it. The same is true for setting up a definition of pyshopathy. Empathy for example appears on a scale, and is not just a 0-1 trait. Then there is a difference between cognitive empathy and affective empathy. Psychopaths and narcissists can score high on cognitive empathy, but very low on affective empathy. In other words, they know and can deduce that they hurt someone, but they don't care or care little that they do. Cognitive empathy is empathy based on learning and experience. The affective empathy is pretty much the 0-1 trait. This means that people are not born with fully developed cognitive empathy, but develop this as they grow up. A child for example cannot be expected to have a fully developed cognitive empathy. Development research shows that on average we cannot expect a child to show high cognitive empathy until about the age 12. The affective empathy is the one hypotheized to be linked to mirror neurons. When we see someone being pricked with a giant needle, we cringe or close our eyes. Our brain shows activity in the same location as if we are indeed pricked ourselves. Still, up to some level, even those with a high degree of affective empathy can choose to halt an affective empathy process - by looking away, by considering certain targets as beings with lesser feelings (including whole cultures believing that certain humans feel less pain, or animals feel less pain because that culture exploits them). We can adapt and learn to think and be callous about harm done to certain people. It is therefore impossible even to conclude at this moment why BW is callous. He has'nt reached age 12 yet, and cannot be expected to have a fully developed cognitive empathy to completely refrain from bullying behavior. And until WF he grew up in a family environment that has little to no regard about this Frey or that Frey. Apart from the majority of the Rosby Freys we have seen little to no Freys show affective empathy to the death of someone or plans to kill someone. The fact that he adapts in WF is not evidence that he's a positively adapted psychopath. It's solely evidence that he can adapt, and we all adapt. The fact that this is not just to blend in, is shown by his effort to avoid Ramsay's games on his own initiative. If this was purely a chameleon-like blending then BW would voluntarily participate, even if he has no pleasure in it, rather than align himself more or less with Reek, the pariah of Ramsay's culture. I'm guessing that you consider the risk-taking, thrill seeking and impulsivty as an anti-social maladaptive trait. It can be, but isn't necessarily so. But consider the inner world of a psychopath: low and shallow emotions and no anxiety/fears. What makes life so rich to most people? The internal emotional life. Even if nothing big happens in our lives, we can have a rich inner emotional life thinking about certain people we bonded with, memories, seeing a certain beautiful hued sky or clouds, picking up an object that was given to us by someone or bought on a memorable trip. Heck, we bond with fictional characters in a book story. We can sit all day in a rocking chair on a porch sipping ice lemon water and reminisce, feel, marvel and wonder. Now, imagine that you don't have that rich inner emotional life, that memories are just pictures that evoke nothing in you, that your partner could just be as important to you as the stranger you cross 5 mins later on the street. No matter who you meet or what you do, it doesn't linger nor affect you profoundly. How do you feel then? Bored. Our emotions are our inner stimuli. A psychopath barely or doesn't have inner stimuli. So, what is he or she bound to do? They seek outer stimuli, constantly, somehow, someway. How this manifests itself can vary. Some seek it in substance abuse (drugs can at least create a fascimile inner sensation), others in high risk occupations, or in playing games and fooling people with their charm. In making crazy plans and suddenly having to chip the ice from the fridge and break it. Since nothing happens on the inside, something must happen outside. That doesn't mean the psychopath can't adapt an sit still in an office, pretending to be reading reports. The colleagues and bosses may not know how bored he or she is. But it will rear its head in any situation where he or she can get away with it. The office party or the survival team building weekend, an affair, etc. It's likely that his or her partner can count the peaceful, quiet evenings in the couch on one hand. 4 hours ago, Aegon VII said: You seem interested (or at least knowledgable) in this field, I highly recommend you look up the thesis I’ve been quoting from, I had a relationshit of 2 years with one, and have been a member of several survivor communities. No psychopath is the same. They look different and they harm hundreds of people in various ways with different methods on the surface. Reading thousands concrete example stories of fellow survivors and reading up on the various personality disorders and the related research on it has given me certain knowledge to discuss the misunderstandings about it. And it has made clear that even when wearing different suits, the correlated features manifest themselves consistently and pervasively if you know what to look for in their behavior, their words (word salad), their argumentation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aegon VII Posted January 26, 2017 Author Share Posted January 26, 2017 I will put quotes from "Psychopathic Personality" in blue and quotes from my OP in red for this post. On 1/12/2017 at 3:33 AM, sweetsunray said: Then right of the bat you should know that you do not have the infromation to make any assessment, especially since you're talking about a child. False! I said we should not be using the PCL-R because: Guidelines for the PCL-R caution that users should be qualified clinicians with specific training, and the guidelines include admonitions against basing ratings on too little information (Hart, Cox, & Hare, 1995). You are trying to evaluate whether BW is a pscyopath based on a test that specifically warns against trying to use it with too little information. We see BW like 5-10 times so far in all of asoiaf, most of which I quoted in my analysis. Not nearly enough to apply PCL-R. Now, does this mean that no one is capable of examining whether BW is a psychopath? Absolutely not! Every person is entitled to their judgements. I'll make my assessment and you'll make yours. The difference is, your assessments seems to be based on a test that I view as invalid, especially given our lack of information. This lack of information, coupled with the fact that the test explicitly warns against being used with too little information. Quote He has the callousness, but there is little to no evidence for manipulativeness. Evidence of manipulativeness: “After that, oddly, Rickon decided he liked the Walders “ I argue that BW is the reason Rickon liked the Walders and that he was not being genuine, this is supported by him volunteering to hunt them down when the castle is taken. If the Walders were actually friends with Rickon there's little chance either one would volunteer to hunt them. "I am sorry if we offended Prince Bran. We only meant to be amusing." He at least had the grace to look abashed. Again, BW does what he needs to to please others, knowing in the end it suits him. Not genuine. "He never said, my lord. Only that he won the coin at dice." The Frey boy hesitated. "It was some White Harbor men who taught dice. I couldn't say which ones, but it was them." His words result in the Frey Manderly bash, as well as the Boltons now sending the Freys out first. Advancing his plans to become lord. This is the biggest example of direct manipulation by BW. It stands as evidence of BW's manipulation alone, as I have a feeling you will discount the other 3 examples. Theon dared not admit defeat. “We’ll return to the brook. Search again. This time we’ll go as far as we must.” " We won't find them," the Frey boy said suddenly, "not so long as the frogeaters are with them. BW gets the entire hunting party to call it a day, just when he finds out he's about to have to keep searching for a lot longer. You can say you disagree that this was BW and not LW and we can certainly have that discussion, but when examining whether my phrasing was correct I'm going to draw on all aspects of my analysis for support. Quote Well, the PCL-R recognizes the first good impression that psychopaths make and the low level of anxiety they have. It features the glib charm and it features the risk taking, the need for stimuli (the boredom). So, I disagree with the claim that Factor 1 and Factor 2 exclude the positive adjustment features. Thus, in the test-development process, Hare eliminated Cleckley’s (1941, 1988) positive-adjustment features of psychopathy (see Table 2; see also “Unresolved Controversies” below), which tend not to relate highly to the other features of the condition. Probably because the PCL-R was developed with and for criminal samples, and because positive-adjustment indicators were omitted as criteria, this pattern of external correlates appears more in line with McCord and McCord’s (1964) conception of criminal psychopathy, which emphasizes cruelty and impulsive-aggressive behavior, than with Cleckley’s portrayal of psychopathy as a masked disturbance blending behavioral dyscontrol with emotional stability and social efficacy. In notable contrast with the foregoing, Hare’s PCL-R/SV largely omits positive-adjustment indicators (see Patrick, 2006). Indeed, Hare and Neumann (2010) regarded such items as “of doubtful relevance to the psychopathy construct” (p. 450). Their perspective appears to be that adaptive psychological features—or those described by Cleckley, at least—represent concomitants rather than core features of psychopathy, affiliated in some cases with, but not essential to, the disorder. So we have a lot of text from your former relation's article supporting my point. If you prefer I say "largely omits" rather than "ignores" I'd be happy to meet you half way. Quote It doesn't. The ASPD profile and testing leads to about 80% of incarcerated criminals to be diagnozed as ASPD, while the PCL-R leads to 20% of the same group to be diagnozed as Psychopath, and Hare himself is an advocate of regarding it as a different disorder. Those numbers don't tell us anything about whether the PCL-R conflates ASPD with it's diagnoses of psychopath. And of course Hare is an advocate of classifying them differently, if he wasn't he would be agreeing with my criticism of his test. Quote Check out Narcissism and you will find that you can then see that Factor 1 of psychopathy overlaps with the criteria of the narcissism diagnosis. And I disagree that BW displays a full set of Factor 1. Egocentrism and callousness alone is not enough. It also includes evidence of manipulation the level we see with Littlefinger and Cersei, and the internal impossibility of recognizing responsibility of failure or harm (such as victim blaming). I'll reference my previous text supporting BW showing signs of manipulativeness. Even if he didn't though, I think your missing the point. My analysis said that BW had psychopathic tendencies, not every single pscyopathic tendency. Quote As for Factor 2, George tends to hint at this with both Cersei and LF for example, in that Catelyn remembers how LF always apologized after being naughty, promised to never do it again, but then turned around and did it again. George givves us a tidbit of information that LF was a mischievous child, who liked mischief and was very good in playing the remorseful one, but that remorse were words in the wind, and not real, since he would do it again. Cersei also displays a type of mischievousness. Those are indeed Factor 2 elements. Though they are both highly adapted individuals. One can recognize whether contriteness is real or feigned, by checking the words against the actions afterwards, but also in the formulaic words as well. The apology will be exaggerated with the use of words such as "never" and denying responsibility by saying "I never meant to...". The psychopath will try to make the victim feel as if they exaggerated, guilty and ashamed of their response, and expects everthing to be forgiven and forgotten the moment they apologized. LF's apology to Catelyn for taking her to a brothel is rather a classic example of this all. We have BW apologize for his and his cousin's behavior to Bran and Hodor. And while Bran does end up feeling somewhat ashamed of his own response, this is more because of Luwin's lecture than because of BW's apology. While BW explains it was meant as banter, he does not deny the harmful consequence that banter had, nor does he deny Bran and Hodor the right to feel upset about it. And more importantly, he never engages in the same behavior again. That is why we conclude there is no anti-social behavior apparent in BW. I am not arguing that BW has antisocial behavior. I am arguing he has the other aspects of psycopathy found in factor 1 of PCL-R and PPI. So lets not waste time agreeing. Quote It is based on percentile. The 30/40 is the 1% cutoff of incidence in the general population. In order for a personality disorder to be pervasively pathological it has to be rare. And there is some research support for this, because someone diagnozed with ASPD or narcissism for example may not show any neurologically different working brain in relation to certain impulses, whereas someone diagnozed as psychopath does have a very distinctly different working brain. So, Hare's choice for the 1% cut-off has been backed by later neurological research. It also shows up with card tests. For example you have 3 stacks of cards. When you draw certain cards you get positive points. When you draw other cards you get negative points. Some stack will have been laced with negative cards, while others have been laced with positive cards. So, one stack is bad for you, the other is good for you. The goal is to find the good stack ASAP. On average an individual will require less than ten cards picked from the 3 stacks to show neurological signs of apprehension when they reach for the "bad" stack and a relaxedness when they reach for the "good" stack. Individuals will continue to pick a few more cards before they vocally affirm what their body already showsed they suspected at a subconscious level. Guess who fails this test, shows no signs of apprehension, and keeps picking cards from the bad stack? It's not that they're blind or lacking comprehension. But at some level their ego is so grand and so confident that their brain functions in a manner that they truly believe that if they will something it will come to pass, despite the contrary evidence. This is actually correlated to their pathological lying behavior, which serves less to hide their wrong doing than it betrays a belief that their will makes reality around them. Another neurological find is that PCL-R psychopaths have a malfunction with the bonding hormone oxytocin - they produce the hormone but the receptors don't work properly. So, they don't form emotional empathic bonds, which betrays itself in their romantic and sexual life. I understand how testing metrics work. I understand other tests exist and use similar metrics. This in no way changes the passage from the article or the truth it represents. Although these PCL-R/SV cutoff scores are sometimes applied as though they definitively indicate when an individual is or is not a “psychopath,” this practice rests on little or no research support. First, as suggested earlier, there is no consensus definition of symptom criteria for a formal diagnosis of psychopathy. Second, the weight of evidence using taxonometric techniques (e.g., Meehl & Golden, 1982) suggests that psychopathy is a dimensional trait or configuration of traits rather than a discrete category (or taxon) that exists in nature rather than merely in the minds of clinicians You are combining the test with definition of the thing it is testing for. This is the heart of our argument, which is unfortunate as it has nothing to do with BW. It has to do with your definition of what a psychopath is, something no one is interested in but you. Quote Moreover, the 30/40 cut-off allows for a psychopath to score 2 on 15 of the 20 features AND 0 on the other 5. 5 of those are easily the severe anti-social criminal features such as evading parole, youth delinquence, criminal versality, lacking realistic long term goals. A highly adapted psychopath can still be picked out. The PCL-R and other psychopathy measures derive most of their predictive utility from their “Factor 2” assessment of antisocial and disinhibitory tendencies; the “Factor 1” component of such measures, reflecting interpersonal and affective features more specific to psychopathy, play at best a small predictive role. Quote I had a relationshit of 2 years with one, and have been a member of several survivor communities. No psychopath is the same. They look different and they harm hundreds of people in various ways with different methods on the surface. Reading thousands concrete example stories of fellow survivors and reading up on the various personality disorders and the related research on it has given me certain knowledge to discuss the misunderstandings about it. And it has made clear that even when wearing different suits, the correlated features manifest themselves consistently and pervasively if you know what to look for in their behavior, their words (word salad), their argumentation. Is psychopathy a unitary or a multifarious construct? The foregoing points of contention—about whether antisocial behavior or adaptive features are essential to psychopathy—relate to a broader dispute about psychopathy: Is it a unitary condition or one with distinguishable variations marked by differing configurations of features? Although some writers view psychopathy as a configural construct, entailing the co-occurrence of distinctive but synergistic components (e.g., Lilienfeld & Fowler, 2006; see also: Cleckley, 1976; Kraepelin, 1904, 1915; Schneider, 1950/1958), others argue that it is a unitary entity reflecting a single underlying etiology (e.g., Neumann, Hare, & Newman, 2007). The relative utility of one perspective over another has not yet been directly tested. The complexity of this issue is illustrated by the PCL-R’s approach to diagnosing psychopathy. Although intended to index psychopathy as a unitary construct, the PCL-R nonetheless contains two moderately correlated scales or factors that show diverging relations with many different criterion variables across domains of self-report, behavioral response, and physiological reactivity (Hare, 2003; Patrick, 2007b; Patrick & Bernat, 2010), and its lower-level facets show further evidence of such variegation (Hall, Benning, & Patrick, 2004). In fact, in a number of cases, the PCL-R’s two major factors are correlated in opposing directions with external variables. For example, the interpersonal-affective factor tends to be negatively associated with trait anxiety, whereas the antisocial factor tends to be positively associated with trait anxiety (Harpur et al., 1989; Hicks & Patrick, 2006). Results of this kind appear more consistent with a configural than a unitary perspective, but nonetheless there remains substantial debate on this topic. and the weight of evidence using taxonometric techniques (e.g., Meehl & Golden, 1982) suggests that psychopathy is a dimensional trait or configuration of traits rather than a discrete category (or taxon) that exists in nature rather than merely in the minds of clinicians In the end, my argument was that BW displays psychopathic tendencies. I have laid out my argument for which of these pscyhopathic tendencies I believe he displays. If you would like to argue whether or not he displays these traits, I'm all game. But I have no wish to debate whether the sum of these traits constitutes a psychopath. As we can see from the above text, it is something that is still largely debated. I have laid out supporting evidence showing how difficult psychopathy is to define as a construct. I think the following passage from your friends work sums it up well: What is psychopathy? A single measure—the PCL-R (Hare, 1991, 2003)—has played such a generative role that some are concerned that the measure has become essentially equated with psychopathy itself (Skeem & Cooke, 2010a). However, a PCL-R score is not equivalent to psychopathy any more than an intelligence-test score is equivalent to intelligence itself. Although operationalism is necessary to understand a construct, pseudo-operationalism (Meehl, 1978)—the conflation of measures with constructs——impedes scientific progress because it disregards the basic principle that our understanding of a construct is always evolving (Westen & Rosenthal, 2005). Like all other constructs, psychopathy is not reducible to a single indicator and is best served by multiple and incrementally evolving measures. I accuse you of being guilty of Pseudo-operationalism. You conflate the construct of psychopathy with what we use to test for it, specifically through the PCL-R. I view psychopathy as a much more intangible multifaceted construct that is not so black and white. We do the best we can to understand what traits are thought of as pschyopathic, and then judge people on having those traits. Let's bypass the term psychopath and instead strictly discuss the traits. Can you accept that there are aspects of psychopathy that BW displays? The point is what those aspects are, not whether their combination constitutes a psychopath. I really do not wish to further discuss what constitutes a psychopath, as feared it has completely derailed this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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