Do psychopaths actually do this? I thought the whole point was that they didn’t care about other people, so would have no particular interest in hiding?
Not quite. There’s a range of antisocial personality disorders. The common characteristic is lacking empathy. For the most part, the interest in hiding is more a byproduct of self preservation, getting what you want, and upbringing.
Just because you don’t care about something doesn’t mean you don’t do things you were taught , you just do them because that’s how things are done, not because you’ve internalized the reason behind it. I hold the door for the person behind me because being kind to strangers is good, and I’d feel bad if I made someone have a worse day. A sociopath might do it because they were told that that’s what you do.
Put differently: they view people as akin to objects. I will openly admit to having objectified my toaster. I don’t care what it thinks of me, and when it stops toasting I’ll only keep it long enough to reference the model number and get a new one. (Not being a sociopath, I’ve now considered the feelings of my toaster and feel a tinge of irrational guilt about writing that about my loyal toaster).
Abusing the toaster wouldn’t give me intrinsic joy. It would cause my family to look at me oddly and I’d have to answer all sorts of questions. Also I couldn’t make bagels. Treating an inert object well helps me avoid an uncomfortable situation, and is more useful to me. Once treating it poorly had more value though, I won’t really hesitate.
That’s why they often find themselves in jobs where treating people like objects is helpful. Other people balk at ruthlessly firing people right before the holidays, or telling a child with cancer that their treatment is more expensive than the premiums they’ll bring in, even accounting for the lawsuit for wrongful claim rejection, and so they need to die. Sociopath just sees the benefit to themselves of making their quarterly numbers look good.
Do psychopaths actually do this? I thought the whole point was that they didn’t care about other people, so would have no particular interest in hiding?
Not quite. There’s a range of antisocial personality disorders. The common characteristic is lacking empathy. For the most part, the interest in hiding is more a byproduct of self preservation, getting what you want, and upbringing.
Just because you don’t care about something doesn’t mean you don’t do things you were taught , you just do them because that’s how things are done, not because you’ve internalized the reason behind it. I hold the door for the person behind me because being kind to strangers is good, and I’d feel bad if I made someone have a worse day. A sociopath might do it because they were told that that’s what you do.
Put differently: they view people as akin to objects. I will openly admit to having objectified my toaster. I don’t care what it thinks of me, and when it stops toasting I’ll only keep it long enough to reference the model number and get a new one. (Not being a sociopath, I’ve now considered the feelings of my toaster and feel a tinge of irrational guilt about writing that about my loyal toaster).
Abusing the toaster wouldn’t give me intrinsic joy. It would cause my family to look at me oddly and I’d have to answer all sorts of questions. Also I couldn’t make bagels. Treating an inert object well helps me avoid an uncomfortable situation, and is more useful to me. Once treating it poorly had more value though, I won’t really hesitate.
That’s why they often find themselves in jobs where treating people like objects is helpful. Other people balk at ruthlessly firing people right before the holidays, or telling a child with cancer that their treatment is more expensive than the premiums they’ll bring in, even accounting for the lawsuit for wrongful claim rejection, and so they need to die. Sociopath just sees the benefit to themselves of making their quarterly numbers look good.