8 years ago
4
Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath?
Psychologists now believe fledgling psychopaths can be identified as early as kindergarten. The hope is to teach these children empathy before it’s too late. By Jennifer Kahn.
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http://www.nytimes.com
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That worries me, with nothing to back it up. There are similarities between sociopaths and psychopaths as much as there are differences and I don't think a flippant comment like that helps general understanding at all.
"Psychopaths are estimated to make up 1 percent of the population but constitute roughly 15 to 25 percent of the offenders in prison and are responsible for a disproportionate number of brutal crimes and murders."
Then they have not caught enough. Is that the premise?
Psychopathy is not illegal so there's no "not caught enough." A person with a mental illness can perfectly fit in with society and to suggest psychopathy can only be criminal is incredibly damaging to understanding and accepting mental illness.
"Mark Dadds, a psychologist at the University of New South Wales who studies antisocial behavior in children, acknowledges that “no one is comfortable labeling a 5-year-old a psychopath.” But, he says, ignoring these traits may be worse"
This sounds like "catching" to me, hence the question on premise.