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Monday, June 18, 2018

DC Has Highest Concentration of Psychopaths in the US

This is my surprised face.

Townhall has the story that researcher Ryan Murphy of Southern Methodist University has researched the prevalence of psychopathic behaviors (the paper - pdf) .
Murphy analyzed "levels of big five personality traits (extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience) in each state," to carry out his research.

"Boldness corresponds to low neuroticism and high extraversion, meanness corresponds to low agreeableness, and disinhibition corresponds to low conscientiousness," Murphy wrote.
There's a hypothesis that says psychopaths are likely to gravitate to positions of power (still my surprised face).  It turns out DC tends to draw psychopaths.
"The District of Columbia is measured to be far more psychopathic than any individual state in the country, a fact that can be readily explained either by its very high population density or by the type of person who may be drawn a literal seat of power (as in Murphy 2016)," 
 The reference to "Murphy 2016" appears to be Ryan Murphy, the author of this paper, who also said:
"The presence of psychopaths in District of Columbia is consistent with the conjecture found in Murphy [2016] that psychopaths are likely to be effective in the political sphere,"
The Northeast states contained the most psychopaths of any region, with three of the top five coming from that region. The most psychopathic state was Connecticut (here I was a bit surprised), followed by California, then New Jersey and New York.  In what was perhaps the most surprising conclusion, New York tied with Wyoming.  Speculation to explain that tends to be sampling errors due to the smaller population in Wyoming.  (I probably would have guessed CA or NY as #1, followed in third by NJ, but probably wouldn't have guessed CT and certainly not WY.  For whatever that's worth.)

So the most psychopaths are in DC (government), California and New York (entertainment).  Gosh, what else do these places have in common?  Love for each other?  I may be surprised for a whole femtosecond. 



6 comments:

  1. I would contend that in the District of Corruption, the FBI and the DoJ have the highest concentration of psychopaths.

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    Replies
    1. It seems that way, but I think there's a lot of competition for that title.

      I wouldn't rule out the EPA, DOE, and the rest of the bureaucratic state apparatus.

      Delete
    2. And BATFE. Can't forget BATFE.

      NEVER forget BATFE.

      Delete
  2. DC Has Highest Concentration of Psychopaths in the US

    You could tell Germans the trains are going to death camps. You could tell Ukrainians they will be starved so thoroughly they will exchange their children with other families before eating them. It is an observed experimental result that most people have a faith in government so strong it cannot be shaken by the most monstrous news. Which is about what I would expect given human politics is part of the brain firmware inherited from monkeys and apes. Humans are not that blank of a slate.

    This means liberty through education doesn't work. What other liberty-creating approaches don't have so much evidence against them?

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  3. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  4. That list describes everyone over age 30 who wants gun confiscation. I don't see any evidence that sociopathy is rare. I see evidence that sociopathy and self-loathing are as common as tuberculosis and syphilis once were. Given the lack of empathy and conscience in so many humans, complaining has little effect. What gives politicians power is citizen obedience, not citizen happiness.

    ReplyDelete