I never really met a psychopath myself but I always wonder if they are really that dangerous as portraied in movies and TV-shows.
If not can you please explain me why in simple words as I don’t understand much about this topic?
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They take what they can get. If you give them no rope then they can’t hang anybody. Also they are beholden to their own abilities just like the rest of us. A really thick psychopath would be more ineffective in achieving their ambitions.
If society can channel people like that into positive outcomes then they can make a positive contribution even if driven by self gratification.
Not always. There are people who don’t want to be sociopaths anymore, but they’re forced to be because not enough money is given to the psychiatric field. Punishing and/or ignoring them is cheaper than researching how to treat them.
dont trust tv shows and films on mental illnesses.
statistically, people with mental illnesses are more likely to be a victim of a crime than to be the criminal.
not a single mental illness will make you do crimes or harm other people by itself.
Why are people describing sociopathy? No, a psychopath is not always dangerous. It’s just a combination of some personality traits, and like any trait, that doesnt determine their actions. They can be violent or not. They can exploit people or not. They can be educated to be a very good person in society. The only thing dangerous is that it’s easier for them to do bad things because of their lack of empathy and remorse.
Saw a statistic a while back that something like 50%+ of the big name CEOs and richest company owners are psychopaths
Not feeling bad about trampling people over to get to the top ends up being a good way to get to the top. Who woulda guessed
Yea stay away from them. They usually stay in jail and if they’re lucky they grow up around age 27. They can bring you down to hell with them in the meantime.
The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson is an excellent read about this. You’ll never look at psychopathy the same way again.
Iirc, among other things, he suggests that many powerful and successful CEOs are psychopaths. And that it helps them be successful cos for example, they don’t feel bad in the slightest about laying off or screwing over tons of employees for profit.
There are studies that people with mental disorders are more often victims instead of harming others themselves.
A psychopath will gain a short term advantage at the cost of a long term relationship.
That is pretty dangerous if you think about it.
[https://youtu.be/yuzV8K-p8YU?t=18](https://youtu.be/yuzV8K-p8YU?t=18)
I once read an interesting piece that psychopathic traits were generally favoured in many upper echelons of companies and can be considered leadership abilities by some in business and politics. The ability to lay off large amounts of people without guilt if it provides business benefit, strategically enact environmentally damaging legislation for personal gain, etc. That seems quite dangerous to me.
As a point, movies will rarely portray serious unusual conditions, especially mental health conditions, in any realistic manner. I mean, you know of plenty of movies with characters with “schizophrenia” (psychosis: delusions, hallucinations) but it affects 1 in 100 people and only 1 in 100 of them have levels of paranoia to the point of being dangerous. Most are usually just scared all the time. You may have seen movies with “split personality” but most people will dissociative conditions only have the one fragmented personality, and even those few who do have DID, well, their situation is far more mundane and boring (even if the trauma that often leads to such conditions is not) and never fun.
However, none of that plays well on the screen. People want to see interesting and gripping characters like Hannibal Lecter. Not someone in the HR department firing someone and then going home and watching TV without a care in the world.
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