Neuroscientist says 1% of the population are psychopaths

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From the article, list of criteria includes: "glibness and superficial charm, grandiose sense of self-worth, cunning/manipulative, pathological lying, emotional shallowness, callousness and lack of empathy, a tendency to boredom, impulsivity, criminal versatility, behavioural problems in early life, juvenile delinquency, and promiscuous sexual behaviour."

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-s ... z3I3QS8LMO

(Autism is brought up in discussion on empathy.)

In a population of 316 million, that's 3.16 million psychopaths running around in society. By comparison, there's somewhere around 850,000 licensed physicians. (http://www.nationalahec.org/pdfs/fsmbph ... census.pdf).

So if you're ever wondering how some people can mistreat others for fun and not care about the effect, there are psychopaths, literally psychopaths, out there who really don't care whether you live or die, and may just mistreat others for enjoyment or to gain their own advantage, and they seem to have a skill for detecting others who are vulnerable.

Here's a BBC documentary about them.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LE-UlvzmoM[/youtube]

I had heard the number was 4%.

Based on my personal observations, I'd guess 5-10%.

Autistic people tend to have a thicker, more densely packed amygdala than most other people. Pschychopaths, just the opposite, smaller amygdalas. Because of the fact that so many autistics were raised by monsters, I wonder-knowing NOTHING about genetics and heredibility- if it is possible that the "whatever" we inherit that makes us autistics with big fat beautiful [but very anxiety ridden] amygdalas, could be the same something that could cause someone else to inherit the short, loosely packed amygdala of a psychopath. I do not know. Just wondering.

vickygleitz, is it your experience in talking to autistics that they had monstrous parentage?

YippySkippy, what's your reason for estimating 5-10% in your experience?

The video LupaLuna posted says it's 1 in 200 in Britain, which is 0.5%. But they're not citing margin of error on their numbers.

Still, even at 1% in the US, think if there are about 3.2 million psychopaths, odds are that for every doctor you come in contact with, you'll encounter almost 4 psychopaths.

they are not uniformly distributed among the population but tend to concentrate in certain areas, I have found. they abound in the military and government and upper levels of corporations as well.

Maybe not, but this explains some of the behavior I've seen in several apt. dwellers around me.

I have to wonder if the article really means "sociopath" because most other studies I've seen tend to say that sociopaths are a smaller percentage than that, so I am a little skeptical of there being that many psychopaths. On another note, my father was a sociopath. He was a great person too and I think sociopaths can be very misunderstood, as many of them are capable of empathy too, it just doesn't happen as often and it depends on the person. From what I understand psychopaths also can have empathy towards specific people that they are close to, although of course they are still very manipulative. And then there are the Mansons of the world, I wonder how common those are, people who just don't have regard towards anybody.

There are several kinds of psychopaths each with noticeable behavior differences.
The ambitious kind flocks to power.
The other kinds don't.
All are manipulative, but they have different motivations. They all have goals they want to achieve. These goals may be simple or complex. They may endanger others or not.
Some psychopaths gain a family and abuse the family. Other psychopaths gain a family, treat them extremely well, and kill other people ( Dr. H.H. Holmes for example). Psychopathy comes in many forms.
Not to mention all the other Antisocials.

At least we know the probable gene for psychopathy. If we go by that, the rate is roughly 1/24 people being psychopaths. But the gene can be either active or inactive. It also presents in different ways. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. What could be good about the psychopath gene? Well, it gives some people the gift of temporary psychopathy which allows a person to suddenly be capable of staying calm and collected during intense pressure. Temporary psychopathy is frequent among surgeons.

^^^
I would imagine some military men/fighter pilots also.

I'm not surprised. Actually I take it back, I'd be surprised if the percentage was that low. If we're counting sociopaths along with full-blown psychopaths, it's definitely higher.

As to the psycho/socio-pathy in the military:

http://gazette.com/27-afa-cadets-injure ... cle/146671

Officials will make public relations statements about not tolerating such behavior, but my experience was that they often knew what was going on, and tolerate/encourage it as a part of toughening up the troops. The nuking ritual they refer to can be a quite violent event, and like the "first snow, first shirt" event described in this article, is often done in freezing weather. I saw many nukings, and couldn't understand how such mistreatment of students could be tolerated (no need to explain - I understand it now).

The game the officials play is how to allow the hazing to go on, but not get so out of hand that it causes a scandal or unfavorable public exposure. Anyone who reports it runs the risk of brutal retaliation unless the problem is thoroughly dealt with, which it never is.

The traits may be desired in leaders, but the real question is, what is it they are leading others to do. Is the ultimate outcome of p/s-pathic leadership, whether on battlefield or boardroom, really something helpful to society?