I was reading the newspaper (as I do every day, of course) and I happened across an article about sociopaths-- I think it was in the Kids Post (because I'm just that sophisticated), and it sparked my interest.
Pretty much the only thing I know about sociopaths is that Sherlock Holmes is not a psychopath, he's a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research. And that psychopaths get bored.
Hahahahaa, oh, me. I'm hilarious.
I've only heard psychopaths mentioned in a criminal context, like the guys that go and shoot schools full of children. I'm mostly sure that psychopathy is a psychological condition instead of an insulting label hurled at criminals, but other than that, nothing. So, I thought I'd learn more, and thus this blog post was born.
So what are sociopaths? And psychopaths? And what's the difference?
Interestingly enough, when I searched "sociopaths" on Wikipedia, it redirected me to psychopaths, suggesting that they're the same or similar. Psychopathy is a personality disorder marked by several factors, including lack of empathy, lack of emotions like fear or guilt, egocentricity, manipulativeness, impulsivity, other antisocial behaviors such as substance abuse and rowdy and inconsiderate behavior, and a parasitic lifestyle. Basically, psychopaths can't recognize other people's emotions very well or feel many emotions themselves without specifically learning to.
There is a psychopath checklist called the PCL-R, which was developed by psychologist Robert D. Hare. It assesses subjects based on two factors: Factor 1, Aggressive Narcissism, which includes things like superficial charm and the inability to accept responsibility for one's actions, and factor 2, a socially deviant lifestyle, like a need for stimulation and proneness to boredom. There a few others that don't fit into either category, like promiscuous sexual behavior and relying on sociological strategies to pervcieve and feign emotions, usually to manipulate people. Factor 1 is more useful in identifying psychopathy in women, while factor 2 is more useful for men. Experts recognize that this test is not perfect, but it can be useful in determining psychopathy.
There's also a test called the Psychopathic Personality Inventory, or PPI. This is different because it tests personality traits, instead of referring outright to antisocial behaviors themselves. There are 154 factors organized into 8 groups, which are then grouped into two groups, fearless dominance (social skills) and impulsive anisociality not adapting to one's environment), plus one leftover factor which is important in itself, coldheartedness.
Psycopathy is not listed as a condition in itself according to the DSM, a system for testing mental disorders, but it is very similare to ASPD, which is anti-social personality disorder. Many experts argue whether or not psychopathy should even be classified as a separate condition.
Now onto sociopathy. I tried Wikipediaing it again, and this time, Wikipedia said that it is loosely defined and usually refers to psychopathy or ASPD. When I went to the ASPD page, it explained that ASPD was different from sociopathy and psychopathy- and then explained the difference between the two.
The difference between psychopathy and sociopathy, according to Wikipedia, then, is based on what one believes to be the origin of such behavior- sociopathy is usually used by sociologists who believe that the cause is based on social factors, while psychopathy is used with people who believe it to be social or environmental.
Which is interesting when taken back into the context of BBC's Sherlock. If Sherlock considers himself to be a sociopath, then that implies that he thinks his family (namely, Mycroft) and perhaps his school life are what made him who he is. Cool.
But enough over-analyzing British television. My thought train isn't done yet.
It struck me that psychopathy sounded really similar to extreme autism. Autism is a wide spectrum of developmental disorders that usually include impaired social skills, which is a part of psychopathy. In A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, the main character has severe autism, and he has to learn how to discern emotions with facial cue flash cards. This is also a psychopathic behavior. Also, Autism is thought to be somewhat genetic, similarly to psychopathy.
There are a lot of differences, though, as well. Autism is not limited to social efficacy, and neither is psychopathy. Autism also has to do with different parts of social efficacy, like looking people in the eye and symbolic play.
I think it's important to understand personality disorders and why we do things because we have to deal with people all day, every day. Humans are social animals, and by understanding them we can make our lives more fulfilling.
Sources I used:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_spectrum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder#Psychopathy_and_sociopathy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Friday, October 12, 2012
PBS, Evolution, and people
I don't think Mitt Romney truly appreciates the wonderful genius that is PBS. I watch a lot of it. And last night, there was this really cool NOVA special about things that make us human, specifically DNA, laughter, language, and tool-making.
It was so cool.
First of all, it was hosted by David Pogue, who is both really smart and pretty funny, which is rarer than you might think. Not that scientists aren't funny, but a lot of documentaries have elder, condescending narrators who tend to make me feel stupid for not knowing what they're talking about. They're also really hard to understand. But this was fun to watch because Pogue is very engaging. He's a columnist for the New York Times and he's hosted a few other science series.
NOVA ScienceNow is usually hosted by Neil degrasse Tyson. You may not know who he is, but you should definitely Google him, because he is awesome, too. He's an astrophycisist, which means he studies planets and aliens, along with knowing pretty much everything. He also writes books.
Scientists are so cool.
The actual program was nice, too. It wasn't just about the hosts.
If you think about it, humans have come so far. Not only have we built vast cities and created a profusion of life-helping technologies, but we've also improved genetics-wise. We have opposable thumbs, no tails, voice boxes, enough mental processing skills to modify our environments and use our surrounding, and cooperation skills that are essential to our survival.
Like laughter. One scientist took recordings of the sounds that different human-related monkey species make when they are being tickled, and they found that as their DNA became more and more similar to humans', their laughter became higher pitched and more vocalized. Our super-vocalized laughter has developed, it seems, primarily to manipulate each other. It helps us form emotional bonds with each other so we can work together to hunt and stuff. It's really interesting, because so many things we do and think are hardwired into our brains for an evolutionary advantage. Standards of beauty, for example. Most societies throughout history have prized healthy or younger looking women above others. Younger and healthier woman can live to have more babies. You know. Evolution.
Another really cool thing we do is language. Well, we don't do language so much as have the ability to form and understand complex sentences. Language, or at least more complex language, is remarkably rare in the animal kingdom, so scientists are trying to figure out where it comes from. They just found another australopithecus africanus (Lucy is a famous example) skull, along with a stone tool. Stone tools are also unique to the human species; so, since the astrolopithecus africanus is one of our ancestors, scientists tried to figure out how long we've been able to do these complex things. But that's not the best part. They used the stone tool to figure out whether or not astrolopithecus africanuses could talk by seeing if both skills use the same part of the brain.
It would never have occurred to me to do that. The two ideas are so unrelated, but scientists connected them and tested them. And it turned out to be true! Tool making and language use the same part of the brain! It makes sense, if you think about it. Grammar is kind of like building things. Sort of.
Wow. Science is so cool. And scientists are really smart. that sounds sort of air headed, but I admire their perseverance and passion for their work. If you watch them talk, they're really enthusiastic about everything they say. Not everyone is lucky enough to really love what they do. I just think it's great that not only do we have these really smart, incredibly talented people, but we also have jobs for them where they can learn more things. I want to be able to study what I love, and these people inspired me to try to do that.
Plus, evolution is really interesting. It explains how people have acted been for millions of years and how they came to where they are today. Just like George Orwell discussed in 1984, it is essential that we know our past to evaluate our present. For me, it's very important to know how people work because people are everywhere and they influence everything, If we understand each other, maybe we can finally manage to understand ourselves.
It was so cool.
First of all, it was hosted by David Pogue, who is both really smart and pretty funny, which is rarer than you might think. Not that scientists aren't funny, but a lot of documentaries have elder, condescending narrators who tend to make me feel stupid for not knowing what they're talking about. They're also really hard to understand. But this was fun to watch because Pogue is very engaging. He's a columnist for the New York Times and he's hosted a few other science series.
NOVA ScienceNow is usually hosted by Neil degrasse Tyson. You may not know who he is, but you should definitely Google him, because he is awesome, too. He's an astrophycisist, which means he studies planets and aliens, along with knowing pretty much everything. He also writes books.
Scientists are so cool.
The actual program was nice, too. It wasn't just about the hosts.
If you think about it, humans have come so far. Not only have we built vast cities and created a profusion of life-helping technologies, but we've also improved genetics-wise. We have opposable thumbs, no tails, voice boxes, enough mental processing skills to modify our environments and use our surrounding, and cooperation skills that are essential to our survival.
Like laughter. One scientist took recordings of the sounds that different human-related monkey species make when they are being tickled, and they found that as their DNA became more and more similar to humans', their laughter became higher pitched and more vocalized. Our super-vocalized laughter has developed, it seems, primarily to manipulate each other. It helps us form emotional bonds with each other so we can work together to hunt and stuff. It's really interesting, because so many things we do and think are hardwired into our brains for an evolutionary advantage. Standards of beauty, for example. Most societies throughout history have prized healthy or younger looking women above others. Younger and healthier woman can live to have more babies. You know. Evolution.
Another really cool thing we do is language. Well, we don't do language so much as have the ability to form and understand complex sentences. Language, or at least more complex language, is remarkably rare in the animal kingdom, so scientists are trying to figure out where it comes from. They just found another australopithecus africanus (Lucy is a famous example) skull, along with a stone tool. Stone tools are also unique to the human species; so, since the astrolopithecus africanus is one of our ancestors, scientists tried to figure out how long we've been able to do these complex things. But that's not the best part. They used the stone tool to figure out whether or not astrolopithecus africanuses could talk by seeing if both skills use the same part of the brain.
It would never have occurred to me to do that. The two ideas are so unrelated, but scientists connected them and tested them. And it turned out to be true! Tool making and language use the same part of the brain! It makes sense, if you think about it. Grammar is kind of like building things. Sort of.
Wow. Science is so cool. And scientists are really smart. that sounds sort of air headed, but I admire their perseverance and passion for their work. If you watch them talk, they're really enthusiastic about everything they say. Not everyone is lucky enough to really love what they do. I just think it's great that not only do we have these really smart, incredibly talented people, but we also have jobs for them where they can learn more things. I want to be able to study what I love, and these people inspired me to try to do that.
Plus, evolution is really interesting. It explains how people have acted been for millions of years and how they came to where they are today. Just like George Orwell discussed in 1984, it is essential that we know our past to evaluate our present. For me, it's very important to know how people work because people are everywhere and they influence everything, If we understand each other, maybe we can finally manage to understand ourselves.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Barcode
Is the name of my group's dystopian trailer!!!!
Yeah, I know, we're really cool. And by we, I mean Samantha, Martha, Milena and I. On a completely unrelated note, I learned how to link text! Pretty cool, huh? I think it adds infinite meaning to this post.
What? Oh, right, the assignment!
Our dystopian trailer is called Barcode, and it's about a society where people have to wear paper bags over their heads and use pre-written cards to communicate so that they can all be equal and they can't express themselves. They also wear earpieces so that they can't hear anything except their leader's voice. Their names are barcodes, which further limits any inkling of individuality. Hence the title. Yup. I can hear you thinking, "Of course, Sarah. You are brilliant!" Yeah, that's right. I can hear your thoughts. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Sorry, everyone, I'm feeling exceptionally schizophrenic today. I should know better, especially now that actual people are reading these blogs. So hello to all my new and adoring fans! Congratulations for finding this blog! I'm sure reading it was a constructive use of your time.
But again, I digress.
I'm in charge of scriptwrting, which is going okay. We're using dramatic text slides and actual scenes from the movie to tell the story, so no voiceover. We have the concept and the characters down, but our main problem is the plot. We know we want the main character to somehow try to overthrow the government and take a stand, but what we have so far is sort of similar to a lot dystopian movies and pretty generic.
So far, we have seventeen scenes. The scenes at the beginning are pretty short and layered on top of eachother, but as the action gets more intense, the scenes are longer and more complete. It starts out more or less a montage of the premise of our society, and then shows longer scenes of the catylist and main rising events. Towards the end, the story switches between the protagonist trying to infiltrate the leader's office and her trying to take over the broadcasting system so she can contact the general public. The final scene shows her taking off her mask in between shots of the crowd, of the leader, of her enjoying being individual, etc.
The script is still subject to change, if we hit a problem during production or if it's not clear, but this is what we have now. I'm really excited about production, because I'm going to be the main protagonist and it'll be fun to act that out. My only fear is that we won't have enough time to finish shooting, but I think we'll pull through. This is CAP, after all.
Yeah, I know, we're really cool. And by we, I mean Samantha, Martha, Milena and I. On a completely unrelated note, I learned how to link text! Pretty cool, huh? I think it adds infinite meaning to this post.
What? Oh, right, the assignment!
Our dystopian trailer is called Barcode, and it's about a society where people have to wear paper bags over their heads and use pre-written cards to communicate so that they can all be equal and they can't express themselves. They also wear earpieces so that they can't hear anything except their leader's voice. Their names are barcodes, which further limits any inkling of individuality. Hence the title. Yup. I can hear you thinking, "Of course, Sarah. You are brilliant!" Yeah, that's right. I can hear your thoughts. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Sorry, everyone, I'm feeling exceptionally schizophrenic today. I should know better, especially now that actual people are reading these blogs. So hello to all my new and adoring fans! Congratulations for finding this blog! I'm sure reading it was a constructive use of your time.
But again, I digress.
I'm in charge of scriptwrting, which is going okay. We're using dramatic text slides and actual scenes from the movie to tell the story, so no voiceover. We have the concept and the characters down, but our main problem is the plot. We know we want the main character to somehow try to overthrow the government and take a stand, but what we have so far is sort of similar to a lot dystopian movies and pretty generic.
So far, we have seventeen scenes. The scenes at the beginning are pretty short and layered on top of eachother, but as the action gets more intense, the scenes are longer and more complete. It starts out more or less a montage of the premise of our society, and then shows longer scenes of the catylist and main rising events. Towards the end, the story switches between the protagonist trying to infiltrate the leader's office and her trying to take over the broadcasting system so she can contact the general public. The final scene shows her taking off her mask in between shots of the crowd, of the leader, of her enjoying being individual, etc.
The script is still subject to change, if we hit a problem during production or if it's not clear, but this is what we have now. I'm really excited about production, because I'm going to be the main protagonist and it'll be fun to act that out. My only fear is that we won't have enough time to finish shooting, but I think we'll pull through. This is CAP, after all.
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