Six Percent?

[whitecoast]

I've often heard this number thrown around the forums here for the number of psychopaths in the general population.
I was wondering if anyone here knew where that specific number came from?

I checked the Wikipedia article and it offered two sources that said 1 percent (Neumann, Craig S.; Hare, Robert D. (2008). "Psychopathic traits in a large community sample: Links to violence, alcohol use, and intelligence". Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 76 (5): 893–9) or 0.6 percent (Coid J, Yang M, Ullrich S, Roberts A, Hare RD (2009). "Prevalence and correlates of psychopathic traits in the household population of Great Britain". International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 32 (2): 65–73).

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Epidemiology

 

[Renaissance]

I've often heard this number thrown around the forums here for the number of psychopaths in the general population.
I was wondering if anyone here knew where that specific number came from?

The figure comes from Lobaczewski in Political Ponerology.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

I've often heard this number thrown around the forums here for the number of psychopaths in the general population.
I was wondering if anyone here knew where that specific number came from?

The figure comes from Lobaczewski in Political Ponerology.

I know I posted about this elsewhere, but can't find the post using the search function. Lobaczewski said that in Poland the number of essential psychopaths was 0.6%, which is the same figure Coid et al. got in their study. He said that the grand total of all types of psychopaths and characteropaths was 6%. According to the data the Cs gave works out to an average of 6% psychopaths in the world population (with numbers ranging from miniscule to significant for individual countries). Whether this is the number of essential psychopaths (using Lobaczewski's term) or all psychopathies (again his way of using the word), I don't know.

 

[whitecoast]

Okay thanks Shane and Approaching Infinity. I guess the number can get really flexible if we're incorporating characteropaths (or secondary psychopaths, as the recent video on psychopathy names them http://www.sott.net/articles/show/234214-Defense-Against-the-Psychopath), especially depending on what stage of the ponerogenic cycle we're in.

:)

 

[Laura]

There's also the "ambulatory psychopaths" or non-criminal or sub-criminal psychopaths to consider. One university study indicated about 5% of the student population had "machiavellian" characteristics which COULD indicate that they are this type of psychopath - that is, the successful psychopath.

"Psychopathy, as originally conceived by Cleckley (1941), is not limited to engagement in illegal activities, but rather encompasses such personality characteristics as manipulativeness, insincerity, egocentricity, and lack of guilt - characteristics clearly present in criminals but also in spouses, parents, bosses, attorneys, politicians, and CEOs, to name but a few. (Bursten, 1973; Stewart, 1991). Our own examination of the prevalence of psychopathy within a university population suggested that perhaps 5% or more of this sample might be deemed psychopathic, although the vast majority of those will be male (more than 1/10 males versus approximately 1/100 females).

"As such, psychopathy may be characterized ... as involving a tendency towards both dominance and coldness. Wiggins (1995) in summarizing numerous previous findings... indicates that such individuals are prone to anger and irritation and are willing to exploit others. They are arrogant, manipulative, cynical, exhibitionistic, sensation -seeking, Machiavellian, vindictive, and out for their own gain. With respect to their patterns of social exchange (Foa & Foa, 1974), they attribute love and status to themselves, seeing themselves as highly worthy and important, but prescribe neither love nor status to others, seeing them as unworthy and insignificant. This characterization is clearly consistent with the essence of psychopathy as commonly described.

"The present investigation sought to answer some basic questions regarding the construct of psychopathy in non forensic settings... In so doing we have returned to Cleckley's (1941) original emphasis on psychopathy as a personality style not only among criminals, but also among successful individuals within the community.

"What is clear from our findings is that (a) psychopathy measures have converged on a prototype of psychopathy that involves a combination of dominant and cold interpersonal characteristics; (b) psychopathy does occur in the community and at what might be a higher than expected rate; and (c) psychopathy appears to have little overlap with personality disorders aside from Antisocial Personality Disorder. ...

"Clearly, where much more work is needed is in understanding what factors differentiate the law abiding (although perhaps not moral-abiding) psychopath from the law-breaking psychopath; such research surely needs to make greater use of non forensic samples than has been customary in the past." {"Construct Validity of Psychopathy in a Community Sample: A Nomological Net Approach, Salekin, Trobst, Krioukova, Journal of Personality Disorders, 15(5), 425-441, 2001)}

 

[Denis]

Okay thanks Shane and Approaching Infinity. I guess the number can get really flexible if we're incorporating characteropaths (or secondary psychopaths, as the recent video on psychopathy names them http://www.sott.net/articles/show/234214-Defense-Against-the-Psychopath), especially depending on what stage of the ponerogenic cycle we're in.

:)

Just watched the video shared in the article, many thanks to the sott.net crew for posting it. Very valuable indeed!

 

[Mayb]

I recall that in " Sociopath Next Door " Marta Stout also mention similar percentage for sociopathy , actually 4 percent

 

[Approaching Infinity]

I recall that in " Sociopath Next Door " Marta Stout also mention similar percentage for sociopathy , actually 4 percent

Yep, but it's important to keep in mind that she derives that statistic from research on antisocial personality disorder, not psychopathy. In other words, a lot of those 4% aren't psychopaths, and many psychopaths aren't included in that number (subclinical). In other words, not a very useful number, like pretty much ALL the numbers available.

 

[Redrock12]

Not sure which session it was, but didn't the Cs say that 42% of the population of Israel are psychopaths? fwiw.

 

[whitecoast]

There's also the "ambulatory psychopaths" or non-criminal or sub-criminal psychopaths to consider. One university study indicated about 5% of the student population had "machiavellian" characteristics which COULD indicate that they are this type of psychopath - that is, the successful psychopath.

Thanks for that Laura. It reminds me of seeing somewhere either on the C Forum or SOTT that something like 40% of Russian males exhibited Machiavellian characteristics! The author of the piece reasoned that perhaps Machiavellianism was an adaptive asset for living in a totalitarian state, and three generations of communism have successfully spawned, if not large numbers of genetic psychopaths, large numbers of conditioned or secondary psychopaths or characteropaths. It pains me that I can't find the article to share at the moment.

Redrock 12, I did a search of the C's, and I didn't come up with any mention of psychopath %composition in Israel, but the document only goes has the transcripts up to Sep 23, 2000. I'm thinking that was before LKJ got involved with the whole psychopathy shtick.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

There's also the "ambulatory psychopaths" or non-criminal or sub-criminal psychopaths to consider. One university study indicated about 5% of the student population had "machiavellian" characteristics which COULD indicate that they are this type of psychopath - that is, the successful psychopath.

Thanks for that Laura. It reminds me of seeing somewhere either on the C Forum or SOTT that something like 40% of Russian males exhibited Machiavellian characteristics! The author of the piece reasoned that perhaps Machiavellianism was an adaptive asset for living in a totalitarian state, and three generations of communism have successfully spawned, if not large numbers of genetic psychopaths, large numbers of conditioned or secondary psychopaths or characteropaths. It pains me that I can't find the article to share at the moment.

Redrock 12, I did a search of the C's, and I didn't come up with any mention of psychopath %composition in Israel, but the document only goes has the transcripts up to Sep 23, 2000. I'm thinking that was before LKJ got involved with the whole psychopathy shtick.

Here it is: http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,15927.0.html

I'm guessing the 42% would include schizoids and OCPD. Either that or nearly every person you'd meet on the street has a personality disorder.

 

[whitecoast]

There's also the "ambulatory psychopaths" or non-criminal or sub-criminal psychopaths to consider. One university study indicated about 5% of the student population had "machiavellian" characteristics which COULD indicate that they are this type of psychopath - that is, the successful psychopath.

Thanks for that Laura. It reminds me of seeing somewhere either on the C Forum or SOTT that something like 40% of Russian males exhibited Machiavellian characteristics! The author of the piece reasoned that perhaps Machiavellianism was an adaptive asset for living in a totalitarian state, and three generations of communism have successfully spawned, if not large numbers of genetic psychopaths, large numbers of conditioned or secondary psychopaths or characteropaths. It pains me that I can't find the article to share at the moment.

Redrock 12, I did a search of the C's, and I didn't come up with any mention of psychopath %composition in Israel, but the document only goes has the transcripts up to Sep 23, 2000. I'm thinking that was before LKJ got involved with the whole psychopathy shtick.

Here it is: http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,15927.0.html

I'm guessing the 42% would include schizoids and OCPD. Either that or nearly every person you'd meet on the street has a personality disorder.

Yeah, what bothers me about those >10% numbers for UK, France, and Russia, America and Israel in particular is: just how on EARTH are they holding their societies together? Duct tape and chewing gum?

Actually, to be fair, the USA clearly isn't holding itself together, and is disintegrating further every day as any glance at non-sanitized news reports will tell you. As for Israel, maybe the fact that it receives so much foreign aid from other, relatively lower% psychopathic countries allows them to externalize the majority of their aggression towards humbling the rest of NATO, the Palestinians, et cetera.

I'm a Canadian, and this country's becoming increasing ponerized ever since the Conservative Party took office in 2006. Ironically though, there hasn't been an extensive degree of unrest apart from the G20 honeypot the police set up in 2010 and some Olympic-related ponerology. Our environment, however, has begun to take a turn for the worst, especially with the Alberta tar sand extractions poisoning the environment and indigenous communities through particular watersheds that everyone in power seems keen on ignoring. I can't help but wonder if Canada's ability to exploit our large and resource-rich environment has helped spare us the necessity of exploiting one another. It's not a comforting thought, mind you, but it may lend credence to my suggested answer to the question of Israeli sociocultural stability.

 

[anart]

Yeah, what bothers me about those >10% numbers for UK, France, and Russia, America and Israel in particular is: just how on EARTH are they holding their societies together? Duct tape and chewing gum?

If a society is adapted to psychopathy (as all western societies now are), it works quite well, until it doesn't.

 

[egypt]

6%? No wonder they're everywhere!

Love, e

 

[thevenusian]

6%? No wonder they're everywhere!

Love, e

Hi egypt,

I see this is your second post, so welcome to our forum. :)

We recommend all new members to post an introduction in the Newbies section telling us a bit about themselves, how they found the cass material, and how much of the work here they have read.

You can have a look through that board to see how others have done it.