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The subject of psychopaths comes up frequently on Soylent in many contexts, so this story caught my eye:
How do you think a psychopath can be affected despite all that has been written about the psychopath being so devious etc.? I am sure there are weaknesses which one can dig into to break him 'psychologically'. I read somewhere that they are basically people who are very insecure and they love to control people so that they feel they have a power within themselves.
I know of a psychopath who insists on people doing what he wants and anyone defying him will see his vengeful self lashing out. But I am sure there must be something that can break such a psychopath. How about belittling or bring him to shame?
The first part of the answer is to be able to distinguish a narcissist from a psychopath:
I agree with the other post that points out that the person described is a narcissist, not a psychopath. Psychopaths are very secure and they to not seek control for the sake of feeling powerful, nor are they vengeful or spiteful. You could say that psychopaths are very practical, they want pure gain for the sake of the gain (e.g. money, a sexual favor, special access to something such as convince) rather than the ego stroke or prestige. A smart psychopath would probably keep things as low key as possible, as to maximize potential gain and minimize the danger of being caught. They are cool and calm, unlike the person described who lashes out for personal reasons.
Read the rest of the article for the takeaway.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday November 15 2016, @05:08PM
Are "psychopath," "narcissist," and the like really "meaningless labels?" Psychologists and psychiatrists don't seem to use them interchangeably. For those in the cognitive sciences they are distinct concepts. Loose usage among laymen, who do conflate those two things, does not invalidate them as useful labels in clinical application.
There are those of us who bristle when laymen call HTML "coding," exactly the same as "coding" with C, because those two things are not at all the same--to us. There are those who roll their eyes whenever creationists pooh-pooh evolution as merely a "theory," because "theory" means something much more rigorous to a scientist than when my friend Bob shares his "theory" about why NFL TV ratings are way down.
There is bombastic language used by psychologists and such. I can't count the times I've seen software engineers spout technobabble to fend off some feature marketroids want because they think it's stupid. But that doesn't mean that there isn't something real that underlays what happens in both fields of endeavor.
Social sciences are not the same as physical sciences, but they are a long, long way from majoring in theater.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 15 2016, @05:37PM
A sound theoretical argument. No sarcasm. Good luck on the pragmatic observational side with things like
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair [wikipedia.org]
Pragmatically I think the simplest way for a layman to tell the difference between a hard or soft science is fundamentally hard sciences are dis-provable by someone with some tools like math or stats resulting in internal self policing of the group, whereas the soft sciences base all their true and false testing and therefore their internal self policing, what little exists, on authoritarianism, personal relationships real or desired, political alliances, etc.
It would be fun to think about opposites day. Imagine physicists trying to act like soft sciences, for a laugh. The response to "Feynman got some things wrong about quantum electrodynamics" is ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @06:15PM
You are being very insulting to scientists that take on the very difficult task of measuring human cognition. It is a very difficult task and I'm glad some people keep at it despite detractors such as yourself. All of the points you made can apply to hard science as well, its just that hard sciences make it easier to spot such bias.
There may be a higher incidence of those factors in the soft sciences, but lumping every psychologist together is a terrible way of analyzing the world. I'd like to think you can do better.
(Score: 1) by The Vocal Minority on Wednesday November 16 2016, @07:06AM
Seems certain topics on SN really brings out the stupid. Your post isn't the only one but easiest to pull apart without writing a wall of text.
1. Maths and Stats is used in Psychology, much to the chagrin of many a fuzzy headed psych student. By your definition Psychology is a "hard" science.
2. Humanities Social Science. Culture Studies is not Social Science. Social Text is a Culture Studies journal, it has very little to do with Social Science in general and Psychology in particular. However your criticism of Social Science, if applied to Humanities instead, does have some merit.
TVM