Scott Lilienfeld, as usual, did a fine job delineating the issues here. He apologized that his answer was limited and relatively succinct. I suspect we'd be hard-pressed to agree that he didn't give us much more than would ever be expected. And of course our interest here is in how it pertains to our teaching of psychology.
My chagrin was that in the original Huffington Post article Scott's research was puddled in with a rather simplistic assessment of U.S. Presidents as possibly possessing psychopathic features. I sensed that the writer of the Huffpost article failed to understand the divergence we in psychology recognize for those who have high T scores: thrill-seekers can go either way. (Forgive me for describing what many of you already know. I learned much of this from some of you during my early days on TIPS a couple of decades ago. I'm still grateful, use it often in class, and am trying to pass it on.) Ideally, with positive experiences and guidance in childhood and adolescence, these thrill-seeking needs can produce people with wonderfully exciting, adventurous lives, without negative "sociopathic" tendencies. (Think of Chuck Yeager, and a more recent example, young Shaun White, of snowboarding and skateboarding Olympic fame. I have a video that shows him discussing how he was a fearless kid, but his family helped channel his interests into something positive.) To send this back into a teaching moment: the T-score test in class is a fun one. First, either give out a T-test quiz and/or ask how many students in your class have ever gone bungee-jumping (or how many would like to). You'll see a clear division. Those who have gone bungee-jumping, or would like to, might score fairly high on the T-test. (You can have them take a simplified T-test. Need one? I'll look for mine and can post it.) It's a perfect moment to discuss the above points. What if you are a person who doesn't get turned on by "big thrills" and is easily bored? And what if you have no positive parenting or mentoring roles? What if you live in an inner city area where a real challenge is to do something illegal? (The possibilities are endless, and you can discuss those in class.) So here's the Big Question: have (any of) our Presidents evidenced psychopathic traits? Or were they just high on the T-score traits? This is a terrific teaching moment. Hats off to you, Scott! I hope your deadlines mellow out! Beth Benoit Granite State College Plymouth State University New Hampshire On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 6:27 PM, Lilienfeld, Scott O <[email protected]>wrote: > Hi All - Sorry to be a bit delayed in responding. My time is very limited > (dealing with some deadlines), so I will need to be relatively succinct > (they may not seem succinct, but I have a lot more to say!) in my responses > below. > > (1) Re: Beth's original email, the Huffington Post article (note that I > did speak with any reporters there, nor did any of them try to contact me) > is not inaccurate per se, although the headline is, not surprisingly, > sensationalized and oversimplified. We did indeed find that some, but not > all, of the traits associated with psychopathy, namely those linked to > boldness (fearless dominance), such as fearlessness, social potency, risk > taking, and immunity to stress as rated by presidential biographers and > experts, were associated with a number of independent historical ratings of > presidential success and effectiveness. They were also related to several > largely objective historical indicators of presidential success. At the > same time, it would be wildly oversimplified to imply that psychopathic > traits make for good presdiencies, or that psychopathic traits in general > (as the Huff Post title perhaps implies) are related to presidential > success. In fact, in our analyses, we found that psychopathic traits > linked to poor impulse control, egocentricity, and a tendency to > externalize blame were either unrelated or negatively related to > presidential effectiveness. When I've spoken directly with reporters about > our study, I've made these important caveats quite clear, but of course one > has no control over what reporters (especially those who pick up the story > from other news sources) will say. > > Incidentally, I do not agree with Martha Stout (quoted in the article) > that it's self-evident that politicians are more psychopathic than > non-politicians, nor am I aware of much good (or even lousy) evidence > bearing on this issue. To my knowledge, our study is the first to show > that some politicians (the U.S. presidents) may (given the inherent > limitations of historical ratings by biographers) have higher levels of > some psychopathic traits than people in the general population, but even > here that was true only for the fearless dominance traits of psychopathy, > not to the antisocial/impulsive traits of the disorder. Re: Stout's > conjecture, I worry about the misuses of an availabilty heuristic here. No > doubt, there are plenty of psychopathic politicians out there, but those > are the ones we often hear most about. Although some features of > psychopathy (e.g., shading the truth, superficial charm, self-promotion) > may well predispose to political success in some cases, other features > (e.g., poor impulse control, difficulties in delaying gratification, low > frustration tolerance, short fuse) might make long-term political success > more difficult. > > (2) Mike Palij raises the interesting question of right-wng > authoritarianism (RWA). We did not examine this variable in our analyses, > although we might (?) be able to address Mike's question in some subsidary > analyses (not sure...I'll poke around in a week or two once the dust > settles, as we have a lot of personality data on each president that might > allow us extract estimates of authoritarianism). My own hypothesis, > however, would be that RWA is quite different from fearless dominance, and > that it would differ in its implications for presidential success/failure. > RWA tends to load positively on the higher-order dimension that Tellegen > terms Constraint (opposite pole is often called Disinhibition, as in Lee > Anna Clark's model), whereas Fearless Dominance tends to be weakly > negatively associated with Constraint (largely due to its inclusion of > fearlessness/reversed harmavoidance, which is a potent Constraint marker). > Moreover (and consistent with the Constraint findings), data suggest that > RWAs are highly sensitive to threat cues, whereas high fearless dominance > scorers tend to be relatively insensitive to threat cues (for example, in > several published studies, they show slightly weaker fear-potentiated > startle to aversive stimuli than do other individuals). But I may be able > to examine this question indirectly with some of our extant data; not sure. > Re:: the interesting interactional John Dean hypothesis that Mike raises, I > don't know of anyone who has tried to test it using presidential data. We > might be able to do so obliquely using some extant trait estimates, but I'm > less sanguine. > > (3) Mike also asked about the terminological and conceptual differences > between psychopathy and sociopathy. Put simply, this is a muddle. Some > authors, like Stout, appear to use the terms interchangeably. Going back > to G.E. Partridge, whom I believe coined the term sociopathy in 1930, some > writers have used this term in much the way Mike implies, viz., a > conditiion of enduring antisocial/criminal behavior that is presumably > largely social/environmental in etiology. My late Ph.D. mentor David > Lykken revived this usage in his 1995 book, "The antisocial personalities." > And still other authors, like those in the Washington University group > (Lee Robins, Guze, Feighner), used the term siociopathy in the 1960s and > 1970s atheoretically to refer to a condition of chronic antisocial/criminal > behavior that was the precursor of the DSM (1980) diagnosis of antisocial > personality disorder. So, depending on whom one listens to, sociopathy or > psychopathy are either (a) the same, (b) different in etiology, or (c) > different in that sociopathy focuses on overt antisocial/criminal behaviors > whereas psychopathy focuses largely on trait-like dispositions (e.g., lack > of guilt, lack of empathy, narcissism, low physical fear). For these > reasons, few experts in the field use the term sociopathy today. > > Gotta run, so please forgive typos and sloppy sentences above (and forgive > a likely non-response to subsequent emails given that I'm under the gun > with deadlines for the next day or two). But I do hope that at least some > of this info is helpful. Take care, all ...Scott > > > ________________________________________ > From: Jeffry Ricker, Ph.D. [[email protected]] > Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2012 5:09 PM > To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) > Subject: [tips] Can Psychopathic Traits Be Adaptive? > > On Sep 15, 2012, at 5:47 PM, Beth Benoit wrote: > > > I was chagrined to see our Scott Lilienfeld's name hooked up with this > story. > > I didn't have the same reaction (i.e., chagrin). And I know that others > have studied correlations between psychopathic traits (which, of course, > are dimensional) and success in areas such as business, politics, etc. > (e.g., see Hall & Benning, 2006). > > An Emory University news release provides a nice summary of the study ( > http://esciencecommons.blogspot.com/2012/09/psychopathic-boldness-tied-to-us.html). > It's no substitute for reading the journal article of course, but I mention > it only because it provides a bit more information than the Huffington Post > piece. The following seems to be the study's take-home point: > > > fearless dominance, linked to low social and physical apprehensiveness, > appears to correlate with better-rated presidential performance for > leadership, persuasiveness, crisis management and Congressional relations, > the analysis showed. > > > Scott is quoted in the news release providing a bit of nuance with respect > to the study's conclusions: > > > “The way many people think about mental illness is too cut-and-dried,” > Lilienfeld says. “Certainly, full-blown psychopathy is maladaptive and > undesirable. But what makes the psychopathic personality so interesting is > that it’s not defined by a single trait, but a constellation of traits.” > > > It's a very complex issue, and I know that referring to the "successful > psychopath" is controversial. But I don't think there is a great deal of > controversy about correlations between psychopathic traits (which vary > dimensionally, as do all personality traits) and success in areas such as > politics. > > Best, > Jeff > > Reference: > Hall, J. R., & Benning, S. D. (2006). The "successful" psychopath: > Adaptive and subclinical manifestations of psychopathy in the general > population. In C. J. Patrick (Ed.). Handbook of Psychopathy (pp. 459-478). > New York: Guilford. > -- > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Jeffry Ricker, Ph.D. > SCC: Professor of Psychology > MCCCD: General Studies Faculty Representative > PSY 101 Website: http://sccpsy101.wordpress.com/ > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Scottsdale Community College > 9000 E. 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