Should screening for genetic sociopathy be mandatory for politicians and police?

reply to post by soficrow


While the tests aren't perfect, they are still necessary.

Although sociopathy/psychopathy isn't purely genetic. genetics does account for around half of it, and environment for the rest, and still the tests are necesssary.

What's the worst that could happen with being faslely id'd a a sociopath?

You couldn't try for politics or get a job as a cop, or other profession where there was a fundemental requirement to have the capacity to genuinely care about others. It would be the same as colorblindness: can't be in a job heavily using color-coding.

And if you were falsely id'd as a sociopath/psychopath, your behavior will eventually tell the truth.

Some are assuming the test would criminalize the disorder, but that isn't at all my aim. My aim is merely to id them so we can be less susceptible to harm from them.

If and when they cause harm, deal with them. Knowing who they are beforehand should make it easier to find themand stop them if they do.

If they don't, then they're just like the person who's just a little colorblind.

reply to post by apacheman

....What's the worst that could happen with being faslely id'd a a sociopath?

That person would lose their freedoms and their life would be ruined. For nothing. Like what happens to guys who are falsely accused of being pedophiles.

And if you were falsely id'd as a sociopath/psychopath, your behavior will eventually tell the truth.

Too late. The harm is done.

Some are assuming the test would criminalize the disorder, but that isn't at all my aim.

The disorder is NOT criminal in our society - it is legally required under corporate law, and sociopathic behavior is rewarded monetarily and socially.

...Far too often the "obvious" solutions have the opposite effect than the one intended - in this case, more innocent people would be harmed than protected.

...and your premise is that people should be punished (constrained) for having the potential to commit actions that should be criminal but aren't, rather than for actually committing real crimes or addressing the hypocrisies inherent in the legal system. An extremely flawed position in my view.

My aim is merely to id them so we can be less susceptible to harm from them.

Identifying sociopaths is simple: Forbes makes the list every year. ...and better we should become aware of what we are teaching our children to value, where it leads and how bad it really is.

If and when they cause harm, deal with them. Knowing who they are beforehand should make it easier to find themand stop them if they do.

Why go after the individuals who follow society's dominant values, and the law? Why not change corporate laws? And our society's values?

reply to post by soficrow


Your argument fails on every level.

Psychopathic behavior is rewarded because the psychopaths are in charge: they shouldn't be, any more than an alcoholic or a drug addict should be a pilot.

Or a better example still, someone with narcolepsy shouldn't be an air traffic controller.

We test people every single day for all sorts of things, for all sorts of employment reasons, so testing for potential sociopaths should simply be par for course.

Sociopaths are poisoinously dangerous, and those who are in positions of power infinitely more so. If we can set up the TSA and ge our junk groped every time we fly based on the idea that one of the millions of travellers each day might be a terrorist, screening for socipathy when applying for positions of powershould be a given.

Any harm done to an individual through a false positive pales in comparison to the harm avoided by finding them before you allow them power.

The Forbes list is a good starting place, but you are assuming they are all sociopaths, and that assumption, while probably correct carries no weight. Testing them would prove the point with a fair degree of certainty, and would then legally block them from certain feilds of endeavor for the safety of the rest of us.

Personally, I don't care how nice a sociopath is or whether he/she hasn't acted out on it yet, I still don't want them in positions of power, ever. There's no logical or moral reason to do so.

Someone has probably posted something to the effect already, but there is so much wrong with your thread's title.
To suggest actually doing such a thing is incredibly dangerous. Not only would this destroy another liberty, it would give future politicians the opportunity to discriminate who their opposition were to be or to use the legislative framework to enact such legislation on the public.
Also, your title and thread suggest that sociopathy is a purely genetic trait which is plain ignorant. I can assure you of this, having actually studied genetics and psychology at a real university several years ago, as well as by actually living with a real life post-grad Psych/Genetics student. The genetic basis for behaviour is a fallacy. Yes, certain alleles (yeah, that's a word I learnt at uni) are associated with various disorders, but no single allele can be said to cause anything. It's just not that simple; without a complete genotypic/phenotypic map we don't know which genes interact with which. Or, more importantly which mutations alter these interactions.
Also, sociopathy =/= psychopathy.
You have to learn to be a sociopath, almost by definition. Sure, some sociopaths, with genetic sociopathic predispositions give birth to others. You probably walk past them in the street every day and never notice. Why shouldn't an upstanding citizen be allowed to run for office, of any sort? Good grief.
What you are suggesting is invasive and discriminatory; where do you draw the line with any sort of discrimination. Should we make it so only socio/psychopaths can join the armed forces? That way, when they kill people it makes us happy?
I think that to suggest debating such a thing is an insult to the ATS community.

PS: For crying out loud, man; did you even think this one through?

reply to post by myster0


Thought it through long and hard.

You are arguing for the "rights" of sociopaths to be sociopathic?

I'm sure you took a class or two in college about the subject. I've been reading the research for years now, and the research show that there are identifiable physical characteristics that combined with the genetic screening give a very high certainty that the person exhibiting those characteristics is a sociopath. Did you actually read any of the references I provided and follow up on any of them? The brain scans show whether their brain patterns euqate with feeling empathy or other emotions.

We check for all sorts of disabilities, and various disabilities disqualify people from different jobs. this is merely an extension of that.

A sociopath has no more "right" to be a politician or police officer than a colorblind person has to be a pharmacy technician. Do you want your pills sorted by someone who can't tell colors?

Sociopaths are emotionally disabled and that disqualifies them from any job that requires actually caring about people. If you knew your priest or minister was a sociopath, would you want him or her in that position? A sociopath could still be an EMT because that job is about skill more than caring, caring isn't the primary requirement.

Sociopaths aren't just like anyone else: they aren't very nice people, they are very dangerous ones from a societal perspective, far more dangerous than someone who smokes pot, for instance. But many jobs are denied to those who do smoke, based upon tests that aren't 100% accurate and assumptions that are nearlly 100% wrong, yet most folks don't seem to be bothered by that.

In contrast, the fMRI tests show pretty conclusively whether the brain is responding to stimuli in a sociopathic manner. Combine that with psychological testing, genentic screening and a background history, and there is a very high probability of correct diagnosis.

Sociopathy is untreatable with current knowledge and techniques, so identifying them is about the only way to deal with them.

As far as being concerned about discriminating against them....well, I find it difficult to worry about respecting their rights when they are utterly incapable of respecting anyone else's. And just saying to a sociopath that they can't occupy power positions isn't discrimination: like I said, there are jobs for which some people are just not physically qualified to perform.

reply to post by apacheman


I am all for it.....

No matter if a sociopath has all the knowledge or good intensions, we should never give or trust the sociopath the power of decision making when it concerns a billion people or just one person.

Simple as that....for the obvious reasons.

reply to post by myster0

I think that to suggest debating such a thing is an insult to the ATS community.

Unfortunately, we need to pay attention. The Eugenics Movement did not die - just got repackaged as "genetics" - and dam the evidence showing that nurture deals the cards, environment trumps genetics.

Many people are unaware that Hitler's extermination policies began with the large-scale elimination of people with disabilities. …The fact is that Hitler stole most of his ideas on eugenics from publications originating in the USA.

The plan of the eugenics movement was that since the poor had these genes…, which led them to misery, vice, and crime, the obvious solution to American social problems was to sterilize them, and restrict the immigration of more poor.

...Little has changed.

reply to post by apacheman


1. You are focusing on politicians and police - who have NO power.
2. You are ignoring corporate law, which requires sociopathy.

…Corporations hold all the power in our Brave New Corporate World - NOT politicians and policement - and sociopathic/psychopathic behavior is required by corporate law.

Corporate Law, Profit Maximization, and the 'Responsible' Shareholder

…conservatives defend the view that corporate law obligates management to pursue stockholders' profit without regard to ethical considerations or social responsibility except insofar as the latter might affect profits.

The provision in the law I am talking about is the one that says that the purpose of the corporation is simply to make money for shareholders. Distilled to its essence, it says that the people who run corporations have a legal duty to shareholders, and that duty is to make money. Failing this duty can leave directors and officers open to being sued by shareholders. This explains why corporations find social issues such as human rights irrelevant - because they fall outside the corporation's legal mandate. …

…Projects that would serve the public interest - but at a financial cost to the corporation - are considered naive.

…We must enquire why corporations behave as they do, and look for a way to change these underlying motives. Once we have arrived at a viable systemic solution, we should then dictate the terms of engagement to corporations, not continue letting them dictate terms to us. We must remember that corporations were invented to serve humankind. Humankind was not invented to serve corporations. Many activists cast the fundamental issue as one of 'corporate greed', but that's off the mark. Corporations are incapable of a human emotion like greed. They are artificial beings created by law. The real question is why corporations behave as if they are greedy. The answer lies in the design of corporate law. WE CAN CHANGE that design. We can make corporations (ed. and the people who serve them) more responsible to the public good by amending the law that says the pursuit of profit takes precedence over the public interest.

…managers' corporate law duties, which are unconstraining

reply to post by myster0

PS: For crying out loud, man; did you even think this one through?

He am. No thinking required. Whatisname was wrong and besides, chickens and eggs are off topic.

reply to post by soficrow


Corporations have power because they can manipulate the election process to ensure that fellow sociopaths are elected, as the behavior of the Tea Partiers shows. You don't need all of them to be sociopaths, just enough to form a bloc that can disrupt business and make a series of demands that escalate into impossibility and force others into sociopathic behavior to survive.

Block them from being politicians and police and you remove a great deal of corporate power. Laws and regulations that limit corporate power stand a much better chance of being passed and enforced with fewer sociopaths in office.

reply to post by apacheman

Corporations ...can manipulate the election process to ensure that fellow sociopaths are elected

Corporations are NOT people - they exist only under law. And they have no "fellows."

disrupt business and make a series of demands that escalate into impossibility and force others into sociopathic behavior to survive.

Sociopathic behavior protects profits and business; that's why it's required by law. Change the law, and you'll change the behavior.

Block them from being politicians and police and you remove a great deal of corporate power.

Not at all - the laws remain.

Laws and regulations that limit corporate power stand a much better chance of being passed and enforced with fewer sociopaths in office.

I'm not talking about laws that give corporations power - just the ones that require them to put profits before people, the environment, planet, public health, etc.

reply to post by soficrow


Corporations are composed of people, everything a corporation does is the result of a small group which runs it. effect the people who run it, you effect the corporation.

Which laws are you referring to? Laws are passed by politicians via the political system. Remove the sociopaths from that process and you'll get simpler, clearer, and more sane laws.

reply to post by apacheman

Which laws are you referring to?

Just scroll down. Don't forget to click on the links and actually read the references.

Laws are passed by politicians via the political system. Remove the sociopaths from that process...

Too late. They're all dead now. It's a done deal, and we're in the endgame.

…You can't cure cancer by treating the symptoms with cold cloths and painkillers - nor can you decontaminate a corrupt economic system by targeting its victims.

If screenings were allowed we wouldn't have any cops or politicians . Even though there seems to be examples of police brutality everywhere, I am still of the belief that a good portion (small majority) are good people. I would replace police with investment bankers. As far as politicians go I would rate them at 65-75% sociopathic or anti-social personality types. Preachers aren't far behind unfortunately IMO.

Some more evidence that psychopaths are physically different, and those differences can be detected:

The study showed that psychopaths have reduced connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), the part of the brain responsible for sentiments such as empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which mediates fear and anxiety.

Two types of brain images were collected. Diffusion tensor images (DTI) showed reduced structural integrity in the white matter fibers connecting the two areas, while a second type of image that maps brain activity, a functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI), showed less coordinated activity between the vmPFC and the amygdala.

"This is the first study to show both structural and functional differences in the brains of people diagnosed with psychopathy," says Michael Koenigs, assistant professor of psychiatry in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. "Those two structures in the brain, which are believed to regulate emotion and social behavior, seem to not be communicating as they should."

Psychopaths' Brains Show Differences in Structure and Function

Why is it even a subject for debate whether or not to test for psychopathy for persons in socially/politically/financially sensitive positions?

Let's begin the testing immediately and weed out the psychopaths who are responsible for the mess we are in, and who will make it infinitely worse if we continue to do nothing about them.

reply to post by apacheman


I agree with you that sociopaths are scary as hell - and absolutely, positively should NOT be in positions of power.

But. The situation is so very complex - and obviously, sociopathy is NOT genetic, else there would not have been such a rapid increase in such a short period of time. And if we test and tag them, who's next? We're already putting down old people and cancer victims. Should we move on to kids with ADHD, or maybe asthma?

Ed to add: More about the complexity of the situation, please, read this to learn how your approach might be abused.

Once they are tagged, they should then merely be prohibited from being in societal positions where they have say over other people's fates. But I wonder if they would be good in jobs involving working with dead people, like morticians, coroners, body farms, and things like that.

reply to post by soficrow


There most certainly is a genetic component, it is commonly carried through the female line. Screening for the genetic component followed by the brain scans will positively confirm sociopathy if it is present.

No one is going to kill the elderly or the sociopaths, that's a red herring. All that will or should happen is that they will be precluded from holding positions or jobs they are clearly unsuited for: those that require the ability to give a crap about outcomes, those that require empathy and good judgment.

Frankly, I'm not too concerned about potential abuse of psychopaths and sociopaths, since their entire being is wrapped up in manipulating and abusing others without conscience.

They prey upon normals mercilessly and are irredeemably dangerous. They can't be trusted, unless you mean trusted to harm others. There is no cure or treatment, so identifying them and limiting the scope of the harm they can cause is only reasonable.

reply to post by apacheman

There most certainly is a genetic component, it is commonly carried through the female line.

That's one helluva claim. References? Link? Personally, I doubt you can back it up.

Sociopathy has only emerged as a dominant cultural force in the last while - meaning it's most unlikely to be "genetic." Have you considered "epigenetic" inheritance?

reply to post by soficrow


I've already posted links about the genetics of sociopathy on the first page of this thread, apparently you missed them.

But here's some more:

New research on the origins of antisocial behaviour, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, suggests that early-onset antisocial behaviour in children with psychopathic tendencies is largely inherited.

The findings are the result of extensive research funded by the Medical Research Council, the Department of Health and the Home Office, and carried out by Dr. Essi Viding of the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, within the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London.

...

A sample of 3687 twin pairs formed the starting point for this research. Teacher ratings for antisocial behaviour and psychopathic tendencies (i.e. lack of empathy and remorse) were used to classify the twins. Those who were in the top 10% of the sample for antisocial behaviour were separated into two groups - those with and without psychopathic tendencies.

Following analysis, the results showed that, in children with psychopathic tendencies, antisocial behaviour was strongly inherited. In contrast, the antisocial behaviour of children who did not have psychopathic tendencies was mainly influenced by environmental factors. These findings are in line with previous research showing that children with psychopathic tendencies are at risk to continue their antisocial behaviour and are often resistant to traditional forms of intervention.

Dr Essi Viding says: "Our research has important implications. The discovery that psychopathic tendencies are strongly heritable suggests that we need to get help for these youngsters early on. Any behaviour is influenced by multiple genes and an unlucky combination of genes may increase vulnerability to a disorder.

www.medicalnewstoday.com...

Here's a link to a number of papers on the subject:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

Not convinced yet?

reply to post by soficrow


Here's more:

Sex differences and the “two-threshold” model Cloninger put forth a “two threshold” polygenic model to account for both the sex difference in sociopathy and its spectral nature (Cloninger, Reich & Guze 1975; Cloninger, Christiansen, Reich & Gottesman 1978). According to the model, sociopaths are individuals on the extreme end of a normal distribution whose genetic component is (1) polygenic and (2) to a large degree, sexlimited. [Sex- limited genes, not to be confused with sex-linked genes, are those which are located on the autosomes of both sexes but which are triggered into expression only within the chemical/ hormonal microenvironment of one sex or the other. Common examples include beard and mustache growth in men, and breast and hip development in women.] If a large number of the many genes underlying sociopathy are triggered by testosterone or some other androgen, many more men than women will pass the threshold of the required number of active genes necessary for its outward expression. According to the two-threshold model, those females who do express the trait must have a greater overall “dose” or “genetic load” (i.e, they are further out in the extreme of the normal distribution of genotypes) than most of the males who express the trait. This proposition has been supported by data showing that in addition to the greater overall risk for males as opposed to females, there is a also greater risk for the offspring (and other relatives) of female sociopaths as compared to the offspring (and other relatives) of male sociopaths. This phenomenon cannot be accounted for either by sex-linkage or by the differential experiences of the sexes. Besides providing a proximate explanation for the greater incidence of male sociopathy and crime, the two-threshold model also explains on a proximate level the finding that males are more susceptible to environmental influences than females. Somewhat paradoxically, while a male will express sociopathy at a lower “genetic dose” than is required for expression in a female, the heritability of the trait is greater for females, meaning that the environmental component of the variance is greater for males (8). The two-threshold model thus explains in a proximate sense what sociobiologists would predict from a more ultimate perspective. The fact that males are more susceptible than females to the environmental conditions of their early years fits well with sociobiological theory, in that the greater variance in male reproductive capacity makes their “choice” of life strategy somewhat more risky and therefore more subject to selective pressures (Symons 1979, Buss 1988, Mealey & Segal 1993). Sociobiological reasoning thus leads to the postulate that males should be more sensitive to environmental cues that (1) trigger environmentally-contingent or developmentally-canalized life history strategies or (2) are stimuli for which genetically based individual differences in response thresholds have evolved. (Recall mechanisms 3, 4 & 5 for the maintenance of mixed-strategy ESSs in a population.)

pathwhisperer.... wordpress.com/2011/08/07/the-sociobiology-of-sociopathy-an-integrated-evolutionary-model-linda-mealey/

There's a lot out there if you just look.

Sociopathy apparently is an evolutionary adaption to living in large groups. It confers a high degree of success due to the sociopaths' ability to mimic but not feel normal emotions, and thus enables them to attain high status and wealth by taking advantage of normal cooperative behaviors without actually cooperating
.