Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom Never told You from how Supports
Speaker 1: dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Caroline
Speaker 1: and I'm Kristin, And today Kristen and I are are
Speaker 1: jumping on a pop culture train. We are going to
Speaker 1: talk about sociopaths today because the movie Gone Girl is
Speaker 1: hitting theaters October three, and spoiler alert listeners, one of
Speaker 1: the main characters in that movie, well also in the book,
Speaker 1: can be considered a sociopath. And so this led us
Speaker 1: to read all sorts of fascinating things about sociopathy, but
Speaker 1: also sociopathy gender and our fascination with women who are
Speaker 1: called sociopaths. That's right, So all aboard the sociopathy express everybody,
Speaker 1: and the trains pulling out of the station. But it
Speaker 1: is pulling out the station in the nineteen fifties, how
Speaker 1: about that for a smooth transportation related transition to nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty two, when the first d s M or Diagnostic
Speaker 1: Statistical Manual, the so called psychologist Psychiatrist Bible, comes out
Speaker 1: and it mentions personality disorders and personality disorders were generally
Speaker 1: viewed as deficit conditions reflecting partial developmental arrests or distortions
Speaker 1: in development secondary to inadequate or pathological early caretaking. How
Speaker 1: about that for some jargon ey jargon jargon, right, And
Speaker 1: what's interesting about the earliest definition of personality disorders and
Speaker 1: sociopathy is that it's very fluid. We are definition of
Speaker 1: sociopathy has changed to the point where really today's psychologists
Speaker 1: and psychiatrists don't rely too heavily on that term at all.
Speaker 1: Sociopathy and psychopathy both fall under these things called personality
Speaker 1: disorders UM and sociopathic Personality disturbance was in the n
Speaker 1: D s M one of three personality disorder subtypes, and
Speaker 1: it reflected what at the time were considered different types
Speaker 1: of social deviance, which definitely don't apply anymore. Things like
Speaker 1: just sexual deviation you were considered a sociopath. Addiction you
Speaker 1: were also considered a sociopath, and then that was further
Speaker 1: subcategorized into alcoholism and drug addiction. And we have completely
Speaker 1: moved away from that definition and those subcategories in particular,
Speaker 1: but the whole tie into early caregiving triggers for sociopathy
Speaker 1: that is still sort of part of the general definition. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that caregiving trigger is a really important distinction between sociopathy
Speaker 1: and psychopathy because today it's Caroline mentioned clinicians don't necessarily
Speaker 1: lay bull many people as sociopaths, but rather, according to
Speaker 1: the terms of the d s M five would talk
Speaker 1: more about people having antisocial personality disorders. And while there's
Speaker 1: still a lot of disagreement about what the distinct differences
Speaker 1: or if there are in fact distinct differences between psychopaths
Speaker 1: and sociopaths, some think that sociopaths are the product of
Speaker 1: nurture i e. Those caregiving triggers, whereas psychopaths are more
Speaker 1: the product of nature, of being born with that kind
Speaker 1: of deviance, right exactly, which is pretty scary to think
Speaker 1: about either way. Um So, Donald Black, who's a psychiatry
Speaker 1: professor and author of the book Bad Boys, Bad Men
Speaker 1: Confronting Antisocial Personality Disorder parentheses, sociopathy calls anti social personality
Speaker 1: disorders recurrent and serial patterns of misbeah behavior that involves
Speaker 1: significant facets of life, and it's marked by violation of
Speaker 1: social norms and regulations that occur over time, and it
Speaker 1: can range, he says, from things like just lying, pathological
Speaker 1: lying all the way up to petty theft, violence and
Speaker 1: even murder, and basically to give you a rundown. People
Speaker 1: with antisocial personality disorders lack empathy and a conscience and
Speaker 1: really don't care about the rights of others. And so
Speaker 1: if you extrapolate that, that can either apply to the
Speaker 1: lying thing. I don't care about you or what you think.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna lie to you all the way up
Speaker 1: to murder. I don't care about you as a humans.
Speaker 1: I'm going to murder you. Yeah, I'm gonna just get
Speaker 1: you out of my way. Uh. Statistically, antisocial personality disorder
Speaker 1: is thought to affect four percent of the population, or
Speaker 1: about one and twenty five people, and signs of it
Speaker 1: excluding murder include things like disregard for right and wrong,
Speaker 1: persistent lying, deceit, exploitation, a sense of superiority, and exhibitionism,
Speaker 1: which might lead to difficulties with the law. It might
Speaker 1: also manifest if they are parents, and things like child
Speaker 1: abuse or neglect, and again and again, just different ways
Speaker 1: of exhibiting that lack of empathy, whether it's through neglect
Speaker 1: or through lying, or through breaking the law right. And
Speaker 1: these signs generally show up in childhood but become fully
Speaker 1: evident for most sociopaths UH during their twenties and thirties,
Speaker 1: and so people argue, you know, we talked about issues
Speaker 1: in childhood being a trigger, and uh, some researchers, this
Speaker 1: is Donald Black in particular, would argue that it's sort
Speaker 1: of a combination of both nature and nurture. Perhaps there
Speaker 1: is a genetic component that makes you prone to this
Speaker 1: type of personality disorder, but then life situations such as
Speaker 1: child abuse or neglect could potentially trigger it. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: different risk factors include things like family histories of personality
Speaker 1: disorders or mental illness, being subjected to verbal, physical, or
Speaker 1: sexual abuse during childhood, an unstable or chaotic upbringing, a
Speaker 1: history of substance abuse in parents or other family members.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to that diagnosis, we mentioned that
Speaker 1: the symptoms start to emerge in adolescents a lot of times,
Speaker 1: but a child will not be diagnosed necessarily with antisocial
Speaker 1: personality disorder or certainly not be labeled a sociopath in
Speaker 1: childhood because of that nurturing factor going on, and clinicians thinking, well,
Speaker 1: they're still sort of developing who they are if we
Speaker 1: label them this way, now, that might not be correct, right, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: I mean it would it would be unfortunate to label
Speaker 1: a child as sociopath when maybe they're just you know,
Speaker 1: poorly behaved. But conduct disorder in childhood are another big
Speaker 1: sign they are definitely Studies have shown that conduct is
Speaker 1: a serious conduct disorder. I'm not talking about a kid
Speaker 1: who won't listen or won't mind. I mean like a
Speaker 1: serious conduct disorder as a child is linked to being
Speaker 1: a sociopath as an adult. But so we mentioned nature
Speaker 1: versus nurture, and there was a really interesting story from
Speaker 1: NPR that talked to neuroscientists James Fallon. I don't know
Speaker 1: if people read this. I did. I had not heard
Speaker 1: about this before, but I thought it was so interesting.
Speaker 1: So neuroscientists James Fallon have been studying psychopaths for years,
Speaker 1: looking at brain scan, studying the link between psychopathy, sociopathy,
Speaker 1: and criminal behavior and prisoners um and he decided to
Speaker 1: look at his own brain scan after talking to his mama,
Speaker 1: and his mama said, we have some really interesting characters
Speaker 1: in our family tree, a lot of like bad seeds.
Speaker 1: And he went back and realized that he was descended
Speaker 1: from not one, not to but several like murderers. Criminals
Speaker 1: included Lizzie Borden. He is a relative of Lizzie Borden,
Speaker 1: and so he's like, well, that's really weird because I
Speaker 1: never feel like I want to kill anyone. So let
Speaker 1: me look into this. And and for listeners unfamiliar with
Speaker 1: who Lizzie Borden is, she is known for being the
Speaker 1: child who killed her parents with an X with an ax.
Speaker 1: Right she was acquitted though. Um So he had already
Speaker 1: had a bunch of brain scans and blood samples and
Speaker 1: stuff from his own family, because I guess if you're
Speaker 1: related to a neuroscientist, you're just gonna get picked on
Speaker 1: for research. Yeah, that's what you do with Thanksgiving dinner, right, Hey,
Speaker 1: everybody get the m r. I'm machine. So he looked
Speaker 1: at a bunch of scans, and he looked at his kids,
Speaker 1: and they all look like a normal brain scan. He
Speaker 1: looked at his mom's hers look normal. Fallon looks at
Speaker 1: his own and he goes, h, he had absolutely low
Speaker 1: activity in the orbital cortex, the front of the brain,
Speaker 1: just like the psychopaths and sociopath criminals that he had
Speaker 1: been studying. So he writes that people with low activity
Speaker 1: in that section of the brain, the orbital cortex are
Speaker 1: either free wheeling types or sociopaths. The orbital cortex essentially
Speaker 1: serves to put a break on the amygdala, which is
Speaker 1: involved in aggression. And in addition to that low activity
Speaker 1: in the orbital cortex, there's something called the m ao
Speaker 1: a gene also known as the warrior gene, which is
Speaker 1: um an enzyme that regulates serotonin, and a lot of
Speaker 1: scientists think that if you have a certain version of
Speaker 1: this so called warrior gene, your brain won't respond to
Speaker 1: the calming effects of serotonin. So psychopaths sociopaths are kind
Speaker 1: of always primed to fight. This is one reason why
Speaker 1: one hallmark of a sociopath is never learning their lesson.
Speaker 1: You punish them, it doesn't matter, They're going to do
Speaker 1: this same thing again because their brains are literally primed
Speaker 1: for this. And yeah, and no conscience, and so he
Speaker 1: points out. Fallon points out that the third piece of
Speaker 1: the puzzle in terms of his research is child abuse
Speaker 1: or violence, which can be a major trigger if those
Speaker 1: other puzzle pieces are already there. So if you already
Speaker 1: have low to no activity in your orbital cortex and
Speaker 1: you also have this warrior gene, so you're primed to
Speaker 1: fight or primed to be aggressive, if you already suffered
Speaker 1: as a child, then that's like a perfect storm that
Speaker 1: could set you on a path of being associate path.
Speaker 1: He in the interview and his wife too were saying, well,
Speaker 1: thank goodness, I had a great childhood, a great upbringing,
Speaker 1: very loving family because oh boy, and his wife even
Speaker 1: joked about it. His wife was like, well, I'm still here,
Speaker 1: so everything that's fine. And it's such evidence that nature
Speaker 1: in this instance is not destiny because you have this
Speaker 1: perfectly well adjusted, successful neuroscientist who just happens to discover
Speaker 1: that he has the brain of a psychopath. Right, but yeah,
Speaker 1: and so he's his own very interesting case study as
Speaker 1: to like, why am I not in prison and all
Speaker 1: these other people are in prison for doing these terrible things.
Speaker 1: I just didn't have some of the puzzle pieces well,
Speaker 1: And because of that, that nurture puzzle piece, it is possible,
Speaker 1: unlike what a lot of people think, it is possible
Speaker 1: for sociopaths to be treated psychotherapy can possibly be affected.
Speaker 1: The challenge, though, is that person wanting to have that
Speaker 1: change happen, right, Because, as you might imagine a lot
Speaker 1: of people who would be labeled sociopaths. I mean they
Speaker 1: don't have a conscience, so they might and they have
Speaker 1: a sense of superiority. Yeah, they see no need to change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what why would I need to change? It's all of
Speaker 1: you people who out there who need to change, which
Speaker 1: which some days, you know, when I'm being hard on myself,
Speaker 1: that kind of a brain would be a nice, nice break,
Speaker 1: like I'm fine, I'm totally fine here, it's the rest
Speaker 1: of you. And when it keeps sitting on this scug
Speaker 1: you're watching Netflix, Yeah, murdering. I think that's I think
Speaker 1: that's something totally different. But that's just wanting a lazy
Speaker 1: sunday you deserve. It doesn't inside into my brain. Ye. Well,
Speaker 1: so we haven't talked about gender yet. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about how about four percent of the population
Speaker 1: could be qualified as having an antisocial personality disorder, But
Speaker 1: so what about gender. Well, it turns out that there
Speaker 1: is a massive gender gap when it comes to antisocial
Speaker 1: personality disorder and people we think of as sociopaths because
Speaker 1: very few of them are women. Out of about the
Speaker 1: ten million sociopaths in the United States, only one and
Speaker 1: a half million of them are women, and depending on
Speaker 1: the particular population, men are two to eight times likelier
Speaker 1: to have it. So what's going on with that on
Speaker 1: the nature front, Well, some scientists think that it has
Speaker 1: a lot to do with that warrior gene that I
Speaker 1: just mentioned. Yeah, because the warrior gene is a variant
Speaker 1: on the X chromosome, and men have just the one
Speaker 1: X chromosome, which means that they're more sensitive to the
Speaker 1: warrior genes effects and therefore more likely than women to
Speaker 1: exhibit anti social behavior. And Donald Black, who is the
Speaker 1: author of that book we sited earlier, Bad Boys, Bad Men,
Speaker 1: offers another possible explanation in that the way that antisocial
Speaker 1: personality disorders sociopathy, the way they manifest in people, could
Speaker 1: also have something to do with gender norms that no
Speaker 1: matter what we're feeling inside, even if you Kristen as
Speaker 1: a woman, just as Rag as a man next to you,
Speaker 1: that you might, because you're a woman, turn your anger inward,
Speaker 1: while men generally stereoto typically tend to express it outwardly.
Speaker 1: So perhaps women are acting out in less obvious ways,
Speaker 1: which could then mean that women are simply less likely
Speaker 1: to be diagnosed as associate bath. So you might not
Speaker 1: go around like smashing storefronts and murdering people. Instead, I
Speaker 1: just eat Jacklin and buy shoes. Caroline, I'm a monster, Seriously.
Speaker 1: The we did find a few studies looking at how
Speaker 1: generals might play into the diagnosis of personality disorders, because
Speaker 1: you have borderline personality disorder being overwhelmingly diagnosed to women.
Speaker 1: And we've actually side note, had a few stuff I've
Speaker 1: never told you. Listeners request an episode on that, which
Speaker 1: we can come back and do later on if folks
Speaker 1: would like to hear about that. But we found one
Speaker 1: study in the Journal of Personality Disorders in two thousand
Speaker 1: two looking at this, and it examined whether established gender
Speaker 1: differences in the prevalence of normal personality trait could explain
Speaker 1: the gender differences found in the prevalence of personality disorders. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, how we are clinicians sitting there would assume,
Speaker 1: for instance, talking about the anger inward outward would assume
Speaker 1: that either a woman or a man sitting on a
Speaker 1: couch across from them should be processing their emotions. Right. So, yes,
Speaker 1: there are definitely stereotypical gender roles and expectations whether you're
Speaker 1: a man or a woman. But it's not just biological
Speaker 1: sex that has stuff to do with this, it's also
Speaker 1: gender roles and the way that you fit into the
Speaker 1: spectrum as far as masculinity and femininity, not just your
Speaker 1: biological sex. And so they found that, you know, as
Speaker 1: you would expect anti social traits, those people with low
Speaker 1: levels of agreeableness that was associated with masculinity, whereas men.
Speaker 1: So it's still men, but men who are described as
Speaker 1: feminine ended up exhibiting more features of all the personality
Speaker 1: disorders they studied, except antisocial, whereas when it comes to
Speaker 1: dependent traits which involve higher levels of agreeableness, were not
Speaker 1: so surprisingly associated with higher femininity and lower masculinity. So
Speaker 1: these studies aren't saying that all of these diagnoses are
Speaker 1: totally bunk because all clinicians are just operating on gender stereotypes.
Speaker 1: But it nonetheless, for something as puzzling as these kinds
Speaker 1: of personality disorders, it is worthwhile to pay attention to again,
Speaker 1: like how the nurture intertwines with the nature, because gender
Speaker 1: roles would certainly be a part of that nurture pieces.
Speaker 1: But what is it though, about this combination of nature
Speaker 1: nurture that manifests in these antisocial personality disorders, which when
Speaker 1: you say it like that, that doesn't sound to appealing
Speaker 1: at all. And yet we seem to have, especially now
Speaker 1: a pop cultural fascination with them and almost like a
Speaker 1: secret sort of admiration for the sociopath. So let's take
Speaker 1: let's take more into that when we come right back
Speaker 1: from a quick break and now back to the show.
Speaker 1: So in terms of of the pop culture fascination with
Speaker 1: the sociopath, I think it makes sense. I think, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the sociopath is someone that we have described
Speaker 1: in the first half of this episode as someone yeah,
Speaker 1: who's terrible and doesn't have a conscience. But also if
Speaker 1: we're watching them as a third party from the safety
Speaker 1: of our own living room, it's it's almost as if
Speaker 1: you can look at this character, this archetype, this trope
Speaker 1: and say, man, look at how powerful he or she is.
Speaker 1: Look at the fact that this person doesn't really give
Speaker 1: a hoot. Give a hoot. The sociopaths certainly gives no hoops.
Speaker 1: That's right, the new tagline for sociopaths everywhere. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: what's interesting to see two is when you look at
Speaker 1: characters sociopathic characters on television like Tony Soprano or Walter White,
Speaker 1: Dexter Stringer Bell and Marlow from the wire. What you
Speaker 1: do see is that it's this sociopathy as manifested in
Speaker 1: sort of the unadulterated violent masculinity. In a way, there
Speaker 1: are murdering people, they're out for themselves, they're getting wealth
Speaker 1: and power along the way. Some also called Don Draper
Speaker 1: a sociopath. So he's clearly not killing people, but he
Speaker 1: is having sex left and right and lying constantly with
Speaker 1: no conscience as well. So what's going on with this? Well?
Speaker 1: Adam Kotsko over at the New Inquiry wrote along piece
Speaker 1: about this, and he said that it seems as though
Speaker 1: most cultures have lionized ruthless individuals who make their own rules.
Speaker 1: Yet there is something new going on in this entertainment
Speaker 1: trend that goes beyond the understandable desire to fantasize about
Speaker 1: living without the restrictions of society. He says that this
Speaker 1: fantasy sociopath is somehow outside social norms, and he goes
Speaker 1: on to talk about how this person, this character is
Speaker 1: totally breaft of sympathy and totally a moral They're a
Speaker 1: master manipulator doing whatever they can to get what he
Speaker 1: or she wants. But we're looking at them and we're
Speaker 1: just going like, oh, that is so cool, yeah, because
Speaker 1: what would it be like through this fantasy sociopath It
Speaker 1: allows us to just take a moment and consider and
Speaker 1: indulge in this idea of living without any rules what soever,
Speaker 1: only you know, serving ourselves and um. One thing in
Speaker 1: his essay that really jumped out to me was this
Speaker 1: idea that perhaps our admiration of these sociopaths on screen
Speaker 1: is connected to our desire to avoid awkwardness, because I
Speaker 1: feel like there is a total, like pop cultural obsession
Speaker 1: right now with awkwardness and also on the other end
Speaker 1: of it with these sociopaths. And he talks about how
Speaker 1: maybe the fantasy of the sociopath is partly the fact
Speaker 1: that sociopaths don't experience awkwardness, because they part of like
Speaker 1: awkwardness in and of itself. Social awkwardness is all about
Speaker 1: feeling uncomfortable with the violation of social norms, of not
Speaker 1: knowing what rules to follow, you know, the dead silence,
Speaker 1: not knowing how to fill it. I have a very
Speaker 1: close and personal relationship with this feeling. But a sociopath
Speaker 1: could yet again give a hoot Caroline, but could not
Speaker 1: get dog a boot about the awkward silence because there
Speaker 1: are you know, that person is living in sort of
Speaker 1: the psychological vacuum where there are no rules. Who cares? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he says, so that if you're sitting on your couch
Speaker 1: watching Tony Soprano do his thing. It's a thought experiment
Speaker 1: based on the question what if I really and truly
Speaker 1: did not give a bleep about anyone the answer they provide,
Speaker 1: then I would be powerful and free. We all we
Speaker 1: all want to avoid the awkwardness, and so maybe that's
Speaker 1: a good test that we can all perform right now
Speaker 1: on ourselves. Do you feel awkward on a regular basis? Yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: you're probably not a sociopath. Congratulations to a portion of
Speaker 1: our audience. This is true. Well, and these fantasy sociopaths too,
Speaker 1: are so clearly not grounded in all of the clinical
Speaker 1: stuff we were just talking about in terms of how
Speaker 1: sociopaths might have this neurological predisposition for these kinds of behaviors,
Speaker 1: but a lot of that is triggered by a series
Speaker 1: of unfortunate events. You know, It's not like being a
Speaker 1: fantasy sociopath is like you just won the lottery, dude,
Speaker 1: everything's great for you. No, no, right, because you know,
Speaker 1: some some of the studies and articles we looked at,
Speaker 1: we're talking about how a lot of sociopaths come out
Speaker 1: of broken homes, kids who were just left to their
Speaker 1: own devices. They were neglected, and when mom or dad
Speaker 1: or grandma whoever did come home, then they were abused
Speaker 1: verbally or physically, and then they end up in the
Speaker 1: criminal system and they end up in prison very much
Speaker 1: unlike a lot of the people that, as Kotsko says,
Speaker 1: we lionized for their ruthless activity, the ruthless behavior. Well,
Speaker 1: it seems like when it comes to this fantasy sociopath
Speaker 1: though that Kotsko is talking about, we are misinterpreting that
Speaker 1: as what's really a fantasy psychopath, because the psychopath is
Speaker 1: the one that we hear about a lot in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, the psychopaths among us, psychopaths and CEOs, like
Speaker 1: psycho paths, do tend to not always but they have
Speaker 1: a greater likelihood of being very successful because they tend
Speaker 1: to be very charming with with that lack of empathy
Speaker 1: on top of it, which unfortunately is kind of a
Speaker 1: recipe for success in certain ways, whereas the sociopath, like
Speaker 1: you said, Caroline, in real world terms, often has a
Speaker 1: much harder time climbing a ladder, if they even want
Speaker 1: to climb a ladder. Right, And when we were searching
Speaker 1: for this episode, I ran a Google Trends search and
Speaker 1: a Google Ingram search for our use of the term
Speaker 1: sociopath because it seemed like we hear more and more
Speaker 1: and more these days, and the data showed like, pretty
Speaker 1: much after two thousand it's used just shoots up. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's interesting because I think we do just
Speaker 1: sort of throw it around. Yeah, I know that I
Speaker 1: throw it around, not throw it around just like hey
Speaker 1: that girl on the street over there must be a sociopath,
Speaker 1: Chris and stuffings such a sociopath, Like I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't throw it around like that, but you know, I
Speaker 1: do know I have this acquaintance and in my life
Speaker 1: who um completely lack sympathy, which is part of the
Speaker 1: sociopath psychopath thing. But I did read one article that
Speaker 1: sort of said it was one of those like are
Speaker 1: you dating this person? And it looked at psychopath sysiopath,
Speaker 1: but also narcissist. I think they're like things like narcissism.
Speaker 1: We tend to just lump all of this, you know,
Speaker 1: less than ideal personality traits into just calling somebody a
Speaker 1: sociopath because it sounds so dramatic. I wonder too, and
Speaker 1: this is completely anecdotal armchair aside. I wonder if it's
Speaker 1: more of our current sort of need to label everything
Speaker 1: and identify a lot of things, and thinking about the
Speaker 1: popularity of BuzzFeed quizzes what kind of X are you?
Speaker 1: I think we just are at a moment where we
Speaker 1: really want to figure out what every thing is, and
Speaker 1: o ceopath is one of those things that sort of
Speaker 1: risen to the top as like our go to, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that person is clearly lack sympathy, must be a sociopath. Well,
Speaker 1: I think also in an era where uh pop psychology
Speaker 1: books like from Malcolm Gladwell or like Freakonomics, those guys,
Speaker 1: I think when we live in an era like that,
Speaker 1: where more and more people are wanting to know more
Speaker 1: about basic psychological concepts, I think that that raises an
Speaker 1: issue too. Not to say that we are learning everything
Speaker 1: that we need to learn to properly identify people but
Speaker 1: we're still curious about it. We're still fascinated by these people. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's one of the reasons why this memoir that
Speaker 1: came out not too long ago, Confessions of a Sociopath
Speaker 1: A Life Spent Hiding in Plane Sight by M. E. Thomas,
Speaker 1: which is a pseudonym, cut so much attention because first
Speaker 1: of all, people were like, oh, this is a memoir
Speaker 1: written by a sociopath. This is incredible. We have nothing
Speaker 1: like this. We have to read this. What is it
Speaker 1: like inside that brain? And also the fact that Thomas
Speaker 1: is a woman. Right now, John Ronson, who wrote the
Speaker 1: book The Psychopath Test and who we talked about in
Speaker 1: our episode a while back on Psychopaths, wrote a piece
Speaker 1: in The New York Times about Emmy Thomas's book because
Speaker 1: he was so excited. He's like, oh my god, am
Speaker 1: I going to get the chance to hear, you know,
Speaker 1: from the mouth of a sociopath. And then his review
Speaker 1: is so just like, oh man, because it's a freaking
Speaker 1: memoir written by a sociopath. He says that it starts
Speaker 1: out great and then it just lags because someone with
Speaker 1: this trait, this personality disorder, doesn't maybe um understand when
Speaker 1: they're just spewing nonsense, you know, when they've gotten past
Speaker 1: the point of being interesting and helpful and they buy
Speaker 1: too much into their own image. And so he says that,
Speaker 1: like the book just starts to sort of peter off,
Speaker 1: and then he says, and then wait a second, it
Speaker 1: part of being a sociopath is pathological lying. So how
Speaker 1: do we even know that all the stuff this woman
Speaker 1: says it is true about being you know, this powerful
Speaker 1: corporate person in the corporate world, but also teaching Sunday
Speaker 1: school and having a family and doing all this stuff,
Speaker 1: Like how much of this can we actually believe? Well,
Speaker 1: and he was even skeptical of the author's claim that
Speaker 1: she's a woman because sociopathy is so predominant among men,
Speaker 1: and going back to you know, his being of like
Speaker 1: wait a minute, their pathological wires. A lot of times
Speaker 1: this is almost too good to be true? Is the
Speaker 1: wrong cliche to use, but sort of like that, right,
Speaker 1: But yeah, so Amby Thomas is actually well. She said
Speaker 1: she was attacked quite a bit online on her blog,
Speaker 1: you know message boards, uh, saying that, oh, well, you're
Speaker 1: faking it because you're a woman, or you're really a
Speaker 1: man disguised as a woman, or you're just trying to
Speaker 1: get attention by, you know, breaking out of the norms
Speaker 1: of what a sociopath is is. But in terms of
Speaker 1: answering the question of why are we so fascinated by
Speaker 1: these characters take it from a sociopath or a self
Speaker 1: described sociopath, Thomas writes that in a world filled with gloomy,
Speaker 1: mediocre nothings, people are attracted to the sociopaths exceptionalism, like
Speaker 1: moths to a flame. And that seems to fit in
Speaker 1: with what Kotsko was saying about, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: this escapism when we watch a sociopathic character like Tony
Speaker 1: Soprano or whatever, that we're like, oh, man, he just
Speaker 1: doesn't give a hoot who you know, who it's given,
Speaker 1: he doesn't care. He can just do what he wants.
Speaker 1: He's so powerful and and and doesn't stop to feel guilty,
Speaker 1: Like there is something attractive about that. Well, and it's
Speaker 1: incredible to consider what it would be like if you know. M. E.
Speaker 1: Thomas claims in her book that she has never had
Speaker 1: an insecurity and feels no anxiety. And on top of this,
Speaker 1: and this is a quote listeners she possesses quote remarkably
Speaker 1: beautiful breast, which even putting that out there to the
Speaker 1: world in your memoir is evidence of the fact that
Speaker 1: you have never had a security And what what is
Speaker 1: walking through the world like that for a day like that?
Speaker 1: I mean, that is kind of incredible to think about. Um.
Speaker 1: But one thing too that jumped out at me reading
Speaker 1: about how her blog followers turned on her, some of
Speaker 1: them when she was actually outed by another blog Above
Speaker 1: the Law as a woman. Um, it was a number
Speaker 1: of sociopaths who had started reading the blog because there
Speaker 1: is an online community of sociopaths, which sounds sort of
Speaker 1: like an oxymoron of an sociopathic community, but of people
Speaker 1: you know there are obviously in the same way that
Speaker 1: they're functioning psychopaths out there, they're clearly functioning sociopaths out
Speaker 1: there as well. And yeah, but the the idea of
Speaker 1: her being a woman was just outrageous, so outrageous. What
Speaker 1: it's not so outrageous when it comes to pop cultural
Speaker 1: characters of late because in addition to the Tony sopranos,
Speaker 1: would you call Walter White on Breaking Bad a sociopath
Speaker 1: or psychopath? Oh? I mean, because he cares about Walt Jr.
Speaker 1: Making him his his breakfast. Now I would I would
Speaker 1: say that he's not, you know, because he does care
Speaker 1: so much, and that what drives him into a life
Speaker 1: of crime is not because he doesn't give a hoot
Speaker 1: uh and want power. It's because he is sick and
Speaker 1: needs money and also needs to save his family. This
Speaker 1: is this is true. Walter White not a sociopath. You've
Speaker 1: heard it here for yes, moving on, but yeah, in
Speaker 1: addition to all these male characters that have been very
Speaker 1: popular of late, they're also a lot of sociopathic women,
Speaker 1: particularly on television as well. You have Cercy Landister, for instance,
Speaker 1: in Game of Throw although we have to say, I
Speaker 1: mean that's it's more originally written in a book. I
Speaker 1: know it didn't start as a television show. And then
Speaker 1: they're also there's Glenn Close's character in Damages, which I
Speaker 1: think it's I watched it on Netflix. I assume it's
Speaker 1: still on Netflix if you haven't seen it yet. She's
Speaker 1: definitely a sociopath on there. And then on screen you
Speaker 1: have Laura and under the Skin, who I believe is
Speaker 1: played by Scarlett Joe Hanson. And then Elizabeth Salander again
Speaker 1: started as a book girl with a dragon tattoo, right,
Speaker 1: And I mean, you know, we need to we need
Speaker 1: to get to the chase here people Gone Girl and
Speaker 1: uh and this is the part where if you haven't
Speaker 1: read the book and you're not planning to see the
Speaker 1: movie yet, you might want to go ahead and pause
Speaker 1: the podcast until after you've done one of those things
Speaker 1: because spoiler alert. So part of the inspiration for this
Speaker 1: episode was talking about Amy Dunn from Gone Girl. She
Speaker 1: is the wife in the movie. She'll be played by
Speaker 1: the lovely Rosamond Pike. Um. In writing the character of Amy,
Speaker 1: Jillian Flynn, Gone Girls author calls Amy a quote unquote
Speaker 1: functioning sociopath, which she makes sure to distinguish from the
Speaker 1: quote iconic psycho bitch. And I thought that her definitions
Speaker 1: of these things was was so interesting because she ties
Speaker 1: it in, as does another writer that we'll talk about
Speaker 1: a second, but she ties it in with feminism and
Speaker 1: kind of society's perceptions of what women and female characters
Speaker 1: should be um because she says Flynn Flynn writes that
Speaker 1: feminism isn't just this go girl empowering attitude about being
Speaker 1: the best you can be. She says, for me, it's
Speaker 1: also the ability to have women who are bad characters.
Speaker 1: The one thing that really frustrates me is the idea
Speaker 1: that women are innately good, innately nurturing in literature. She says,
Speaker 1: they can be dismissible, bad, trampy, vampi bitchy types. But
Speaker 1: there is still a pushback against the idea that women
Speaker 1: can be just pragmatically evil, bad and selfish. And so
Speaker 1: Flynn is saying, I don't write these quote psycho bitches,
Speaker 1: because this particular woman is just crazy. She has no motive,
Speaker 1: so she is dismissable as a person. And she contrasts
Speaker 1: the character of Amy Dunn and Gone Girl to someone
Speaker 1: like Glenn Close in Fail Attraction, who, as Flynn describes it,
Speaker 1: is crazy because quote her lady parts have gone crazy.
Speaker 1: And I mean that is a good point to make,
Speaker 1: where it is rare to see a woman who is
Speaker 1: simply bad, not just bad, because she is driven by
Speaker 1: the actions of a man or by her sexuality, and
Speaker 1: it's usually the exhibition of her sexuality that makes her bad.
Speaker 1: Right Whereas with a character like Amy Dunn, if you know,
Speaker 1: if you do read the book or see the movie
Speaker 1: or whatever, she's not nuts or harry or unstable. Because
Speaker 1: she has a hysterical floating womb, I mean, or because
Speaker 1: she's had sex with someone she shouldn't have had sex with,
Speaker 1: and so she's damaged goods. She is just as as
Speaker 1: Flynn said, pragmatically bad and so. Writing in a piece
Speaker 1: for Dick about this female sociopath that is so on
Speaker 1: our minds these days, MERV m Ray wrote that unlike
Speaker 1: these women, like Glen Close's character and fatal attraction, these
Speaker 1: quote iconic psycho bitches, the functional sociopath isn't dismissable as
Speaker 1: a slave to her emotions. She's not outwardly violent, she's remorseless.
Speaker 1: She's clear eyed and calculating. Um, she's donning one feigned
Speaker 1: feeling after another to get what she wants. But m
Speaker 1: right in this piece also delves into the connection between
Speaker 1: pop culturally, speaking, between the female sociopath and our pop
Speaker 1: cultural conceptions feminism and how feminism informs our idea of
Speaker 1: powerful women, and how a lot of times powerful women
Speaker 1: in society are often cast as sociopaths. Essentially, Yeah, she
Speaker 1: writes about how this this character of the female sociopath,
Speaker 1: this clear eyed, calculating sociopath, nimbly scales the professional ladder.
Speaker 1: So it's it's the female corporate equivalent in our in
Speaker 1: our popular imaginations of like a tony soprano. Uh Emory
Speaker 1: writes that this female sociopath character wants to dominate these
Speaker 1: systems from within, these systems being generally inequality the corporate world,
Speaker 1: and then she writes as the most streamlined product of
Speaker 1: a world in which well intentioned people blithely invoke words
Speaker 1: like arbitrage, leverage, capital, and currency to appraise how successfully
Speaker 1: we inhabit our bodies ourselves. So what does that mean, Caroline?
Speaker 1: What what is she arguing here in terms of feminism
Speaker 1: um and the female sociopath? Because there was a follow
Speaker 1: up piece on this, or a response piece I should
Speaker 1: say on this at the bill fold, essentially saying, oh,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? Because when you first read it,
Speaker 1: it does seem like em Ray is saying that the
Speaker 1: ultimate realization of feminism in today's corporate world is that
Speaker 1: of the female sociopath, which is just makes me want
Speaker 1: to hulk smash somethings I think I had. Well, I
Speaker 1: was telling Christian before we did this that I had
Speaker 1: to read that piece a couple of times before because
Speaker 1: my first reaction was like wait a second, and then
Speaker 1: I had to our t f a uh. And so basically,
Speaker 1: I think she's pointing out that so these these sociopathic
Speaker 1: women characters don't give a hoot because they don't care
Speaker 1: about these gender norms, these social norms, these social constructs
Speaker 1: holding them back, so they'll just plow ahead however they went, which, okay,
Speaker 1: good for them, that might make you a CEO. But
Speaker 1: when this character type, this trope, this construct is aligned
Speaker 1: with feminism, you can imagine that that's not the greatest
Speaker 1: pr for anyone, but it certainly says a lot about
Speaker 1: how we view career women. I mean, look at these
Speaker 1: women we've talked about, and how so many of these
Speaker 1: shows that we watch nowadays featured this strong, like sociopathic
Speaker 1: leaning woman character. And I think that shows that, Okay,
Speaker 1: yes women can be powerful, but yes, we sure do
Speaker 1: still have a lot of anxieties about a powerful woman
Speaker 1: and what that means. But the only person so far
Speaker 1: in my research for this who has invoked feminism directly
Speaker 1: in relation to a sociopathic character is Jillian Flynn. And
Speaker 1: I don't see It's not like Glenn Close on Damages
Speaker 1: is advising, you know, the younger female attorney like, hey, honey,
Speaker 1: have have you heard of my glorious Steinhum, she's really
Speaker 1: gonna now let's go kill someone, you know? Like what,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't see how that's happening. I think
Speaker 1: perhaps it's more a thing of image of If the
Speaker 1: image of a powerful woman that we're seeing is a
Speaker 1: freaking sociopath um, then perhaps that can be limiting and
Speaker 1: damaging to the idea of feminism. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: though no one's worried that too much of Tony soprano
Speaker 1: is gonna hurt men, you know what I mean? Like
Speaker 1: that that cause there And I think it's interesting that
Speaker 1: this feminism plus uh sociopathy conversation has come up because
Speaker 1: Jillian Flynn was also not all readers loved the character
Speaker 1: of Amy Dunn and how Jillian Flynn wrote her, because
Speaker 1: some people interpret her interpreted her as a very misogynistic
Speaker 1: character because she has no patience for other women, which
Speaker 1: obviously is a manifestation of her sociopathy. But there were
Speaker 1: some people who thought that it was actually kind of
Speaker 1: a misogynistic book in that in that way, Caroline, you're
Speaker 1: now doing your classic Caroline I roll. Well, I think
Speaker 1: that I mean, I I loved the character of Amy Dunne. Oh,
Speaker 1: I loved Gone Girl. I read it on the beach
Speaker 1: in like two days. No, but I mean I loved
Speaker 1: Amy Dunne. I loved the book. But I loved Amy Dunne.
Speaker 1: I thought that that character was so despicable and so
Speaker 1: awful and um, I mean I For instance, there's a
Speaker 1: chapter and Amy chapter talking about the cool girl, the
Speaker 1: cool girlfriend, and I was like, Oh my god, if
Speaker 1: you weren't so insane, I would love you for this
Speaker 1: thing that you're you as the character writing about being
Speaker 1: the cool girlfriend. It's interesting though, because that IM remember
Speaker 1: being a passage explicitly called out and things that I
Speaker 1: read about as an example of possible misogyny in this
Speaker 1: I'm and I'm I didn't read misogyny into it either,
Speaker 1: but I could see where that interpretation could come from.
Speaker 1: I like taking things a few steps back. I love
Speaker 1: the idea. One of the reasons why I also enjoyed
Speaker 1: Amy Dunn's character is just because of the rarity of
Speaker 1: a woman just being bad for bad sake. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that's what Gillian Flynn is saying. I think
Speaker 1: I mean to leave out merv em Ray's dig piece completely.
Speaker 1: I think if you just go back to the author herself,
Speaker 1: Gillian Flynn, I think she's absolutely right. Why socially can't
Speaker 1: we have Why why do they all have to be
Speaker 1: Glenn Close boiling a bunny? Why can't it just be
Speaker 1: a fantastically, deliciously just bad woman. And I'm going to
Speaker 1: ask a question that might be controversial, but why can't
Speaker 1: we also just have times when we don't throw feminism
Speaker 1: into the stewpot? Because I feel like in the Rabbit
Speaker 1: with the Rabbit, exactly with Michael Douglas's daughter's rabbit, because
Speaker 1: I feel like this is actually one of those instances
Speaker 1: when it only I don't know, it only stirs things
Speaker 1: up rather than let something be okay in and of itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it. I think it muddies it a little.
Speaker 1: I do wonder, I uh do wonder what prompted the
Speaker 1: discussion about from Jillian Flynn about feminism in terms of
Speaker 1: the way that she wrote Amy Dunne. Well, it might
Speaker 1: have been questions about people thinking that she wasn't such
Speaker 1: a feminist character and maybe her being fed up with it.
Speaker 1: But I'm also just completely projecting at this point. But
Speaker 1: I just like I don't, um, I don't think that
Speaker 1: these kinds of characters who are incredibly entertaining in the
Speaker 1: same way that all these devious, sociopathic, evil for evil's
Speaker 1: sake mail characters are entertaining, are necessarily somehow corrupting the
Speaker 1: image of like women, powerful women in the corporate world,
Speaker 1: those women, like our dual images of women in the
Speaker 1: corporate world and what it takes to be a successful woman.
Speaker 1: Like there there's enough in there to work on. I
Speaker 1: don't think that Amy Dunn and Gone Girl is somehow
Speaker 1: making it worse. It's already bad. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: definitely wish we could get that dig writer on here
Speaker 1: and ask her for her take on all of this,
Speaker 1: um to sort of follow up her piece and um,
Speaker 1: you know, talk about the sociopathic character and what that
Speaker 1: means to her. But alas we can't, but we can
Speaker 1: ask our listeners what they think. I realized we also
Speaker 1: have covered so much ground and probably ended in a
Speaker 1: very unexpected place, but there was a lot to talk about,
Speaker 1: so hopefully we have a lot to hear from our
Speaker 1: listeners about sociopathy. Are there any sociopaths listening Gone Girl fans?
Speaker 1: What do you think Let us know all your thoughts.
Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at how Stuffwork dot com is where you
Speaker 1: can email us. You can also tweet us at Mom's
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast and also messages on Facebook. And we've got
Speaker 1: a couple of messages to share with you. Right after
Speaker 1: a quick break and now back to the show. Alrighty Well,
Speaker 1: Kristy and I have some letters here from listeners in
Speaker 1: response to our Grandparents episode. UM. I have this letter
Speaker 1: here from Talas who says I wanted to drop a
Speaker 1: line about my granny and I happen to be sitting
Speaker 1: on the couch with her right now watching British mystery
Speaker 1: TV shows. I am the daughter of my grandmother's eleventh
Speaker 1: child my father's side of the families from Tobago of
Speaker 1: Trinidad and Tobago, and I find that the very large
Speaker 1: families are common in West Indian countries. My granny is
Speaker 1: one of thirteen children too. The family has been and
Speaker 1: still is run as a matriarchy, with my granny at
Speaker 1: the top, even in a late seventies. She is definitely
Speaker 1: a woman to be revered. She brought her almost a
Speaker 1: dozen children to Queens, New York in ninete with no
Speaker 1: one to greet her or money in her pocket, as
Speaker 1: so many immigrants have done before her. As a woman
Speaker 1: with many children, she also has dozens of grandchildren. She's
Speaker 1: pretty good about keeping our name straight. During my childhood,
Speaker 1: I spent all my summers, holidays, and time off from
Speaker 1: school in her house. I also lived with her full
Speaker 1: time during a separation my parents had. She has raised
Speaker 1: so many and cared tirelessly for all of them as well.
Speaker 1: Up until a few years ago, she was a main
Speaker 1: caregiver at her church's daycare, as well as taking care
Speaker 1: of an elderly gentleman from the church. Since last year,
Speaker 1: I've been staying with my grandmother during the school weeks
Speaker 1: since I live outside of the Five Boroughs. I'm twenty
Speaker 1: one now and I have a seven year old cousin
Speaker 1: who lives in the house. It's funny to watch them
Speaker 1: interact because I was around the same age when I
Speaker 1: spent most of my time with her. I can say
Speaker 1: that a Caribbean granny is one of the best you
Speaker 1: can have. Full of all kinds of stories. My personal
Speaker 1: favorites are the island ghost stories, and in addition, she
Speaker 1: it's an incredible catalog of recipes in her wonderful brain.
Speaker 1: I do think that grandparents are viewed in an unfavorable
Speaker 1: light and modern American society where they become obsolete and
Speaker 1: reside in nursing homes or care facilities and are only
Speaker 1: seen during holidays. However, I come from a family where
Speaker 1: the house is and has been multigenerational, with my granny
Speaker 1: at the helm. I believe this is one of the
Speaker 1: most positive things about my family and something I would
Speaker 1: like to maintain because the benefits that I've reaped as
Speaker 1: well as the ones your podcast reinforced and informed me about.
Speaker 1: So thank you tell us I I love your granny already. Well,
Speaker 1: I have one here from Beck in Australia, who writes,
Speaker 1: I just listened to your grandmother Hypothesis episode, which I
Speaker 1: found interesting as I was raised by my maternal grandparents
Speaker 1: for a large part of my childhood. More than this, though,
Speaker 1: both of my grandparents who raised me were also raised
Speaker 1: by their grandparents, although this was mainly due to the
Speaker 1: fact that their fathers were away fighting in World War
Speaker 1: Two and their mothers were absent. You mentioned that a
Speaker 1: close relationship with grandparent and skips children a closer association
Speaker 1: with their grandparents. Views and ideals. I thought this was
Speaker 1: an interesting point, as despite being raised by them, I
Speaker 1: have radically different political views. Especially they're fairly conservative, but
Speaker 1: I've always identified with a far more liberal ideology. I've
Speaker 1: actually gained far more of my political leanings from my friends,
Speaker 1: but I've always been considered an old soul. I didn't
Speaker 1: have any video games, but I can embroider and crochet.
Speaker 1: I made a quote when I was nine, and I
Speaker 1: was taught to be self sufficient in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways that I noticed many children now are not. In fact,
Speaker 1: I view my childhood to be more similar to that
Speaker 1: of a decade or two earlier than my own. I
Speaker 1: was given a bike and would be expected to be
Speaker 1: out of the house all day. I had to ride
Speaker 1: over a mile to get to the nearest children, and
Speaker 1: as we had a national park on our street, we
Speaker 1: had no shortage of space to explore, so that's precisely
Speaker 1: what we did. My grandmother had asked me several times
Speaker 1: if I felt like I was missing out growing up
Speaker 1: on an isolated location with two senior citizens for company.
Speaker 1: I never felt as though I was missing out. My
Speaker 1: grandfather's role in our local government meant that we were
Speaker 1: often invited to openings and events that others my age
Speaker 1: didn't get to experience. My grandparents were both still working
Speaker 1: full time for at least the first few years, and
Speaker 1: if there was somewhere they had to be, then I
Speaker 1: had to be there too. I was raised to be
Speaker 1: someone who could be taken anywhere. The other thing that
Speaker 1: I wanted to say was that not all grandmothers are
Speaker 1: good bakers. I love my nan, but she is the
Speaker 1: worst cook. This meant that I had to learn to
Speaker 1: cook very early, because seriously, her food is inedible. This
Speaker 1: is actually something I'm super grateful for. I love to
Speaker 1: be in my kitchen and I love food. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for talking about grandparents. I love your podcast and
Speaker 1: listen to it often at work, So thanks Beck, and
Speaker 1: thanks to everybody else who's written into us. Mom stuff
Speaker 1: at how stuffworks dot com is our email address and
Speaker 1: for links to all of our social media as well
Speaker 1: as all of our videos, blogs, and podcasts, including this one,
Speaker 1: which has all of our sources so that you can
Speaker 1: follow right along with us. It's all stuff Mom Never
Speaker 1: told You dot com for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Isn't how staff works dot com