What is #Psychopathy? And is Vladimir Putin a #Psychopath?
A thread 🧵 based on what we know about his personality and history, and the Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience of the condition
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People describe #Putin as a bully, a mafia boss, a barbaric war criminal, or simply as evil.
All of these views are correct, but Psychopathy is in many ways an attempt at a scientific understanding of evil
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopat…
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If we understand the personality traits and behaviours of psychopaths, we can begin to understand the extent to which a person may be Psychopathic (or not).
As psychopathy exists on a spectrum, perhaps a better question is *how psychopathic* is Putin?
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A good place to start is the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (Revised version) which is a 20 item list of Psychopathic traits. For each item, you rate the person for how often they behave that way:
Never = 0
Sometimes = 1
Often/Always = 2
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopat…
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The next thing to realise is that we can conceive of two different types of Psychopathic individuals.
High functioning, i.e. better self-control, and low functioning, i.e. low self-control.
High functioning psychopaths may even have an advantage in rising to leadership
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The FBI have long had a distinction between Organised & Disorganised serial killers.
Organised serial killers plan ahead, rarely act impulsively or leave evidence behind, even cleaning the crime scene. Disorganised serial killers are the opposite
ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-…
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As a result, law enforcement rarely capture or imprison the high functioning/organised psychopaths.
As a result, psychology & psychiatry mostly study the low functioning/disorganised psychopaths.
In addition, most high functioning psychopaths *pretend to be a good guy*
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If we look at the Psychopathy Checklist again, we can use a statistical technique called Factor Analysis to split the list into two factors:
1) Callousness & Manipulation
2) Low Self Control
These explain the two psychopathic types quite well.
psycnet.apa.org/record/1989-24…
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People high in Callousness & Manipulation are high functioning psychopaths.
People high in Callousness & Manipulation, who also score highly on Low Self-Control, are low functioning psychopaths.
Those who just have the Low Self-Control factor aren’t really Psychopathic
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Let’s rate #Putin on both of these factors, as best we can, just to see what we find.
First though, I urge you to read this excellent threat by @kamilkazani on interacting with psychopaths in relation to the Russian prison culture:
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Seriously, read Kamil’s thread first. It really gives an insight into just how horrifying and widespread this Psychopathic culture is in Russia. And not just in prisons - plenty of these mafia people are working in Russian government and military too now:
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So, let’s rate Putin on factor 1. Is he:
- Superficially charming
- Grandiose in self-worth
- A pathological liar
- Conning/Manipulative
- Lacking Guilt/Remorse
- Shallow emotionally
- Callous/Lacking empathy
- One who refuses to accept responsibility for his actions
?
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Obviously we can’t meet Putin to do a proper psychological/psychiatric assessment, and even if we did, he would lie.
I think though that it’s clear he constantly lies, cons people, and has no empathy, guilt or remorse for his war crimes and political assassinations
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Let’s rate Putin on Factor 2. Is he:
- Prone to boredom
- A social & economic parasite
- Poor at temper control
- One with poor behaviour as a child
- Lacking in long-term, realistic goals
- Impulsive
- Irresponsible
- One who fails to stick to bail/parole
?
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Arguably, he’s not that high on the psychopathy factor 2.
He might be a parasite on the Russian nation, hoarding wealth for himself, but he’d never have become leader if he was totally impulsive.
But organised psychopaths often end up as leaders
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_in…
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There are a few items on the psychopathy checklist that don’t load on either factor (mathematically). These are:
- Promiscuous sexual behaviour
- Many short-term relationships
- Juvenile delinquency
- Criminal versatility
Lots of non-psychopaths do these things too…
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…but psychopaths do these things far more frequently. Presumably because they don’t care about anyone other than themselves.
I’ll break for now, and return with what causes psychopathy, Nature vs Nurture, comparing the Neuropsychological causes and the Cultural ones
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PART 2: What might be different in #Putin’s brain compared to the normal person?
Continuing the thread 🧵 above with reference to Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neuroscience.
I’ll try to keep this concise and simplify this using plain English
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I first learned about Psychopathy academically when studying Frontal Lobe Brain Injury, & specifically injuries to the Orbitofrontal Cortex (OFC) and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex (VMPFC).
The OFC is highlighted in green below. The VMPFC is lower & further back behind it
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Damage to the OFC makes it hard to reflect on one’s own & others actions. It leads to poor self reflection or understanding others intentions.
Damage to the VMPFC leads to deficits in *anticipation of future consequences*
Both of these tend to cause terrible self-control
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I don’t think Putin has OFC or VMPFC damage, but lots of people with Antisocial Personality & Low Functioning Psychopaths (high in factor 2) do behave like this.
Some of them may have OFC or VMPFC damage, given the high rates of brain injuries in our prison populations
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Low Functioning Psychopaths are incredibly useful to High Functioning Psychopaths.
The former act as willing thugs, happy to do the violence that a high functioning mafia boss distances themselves from. Think of the assassinations Putin has ordered his minions to do
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The poisoning of Alexander #Litvinenko with a radioactive isotope - Polonium-210 - must have been committed by a state with access to such isotopes, and wouldn’t have happened without Putins approval
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The poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko, with Dioxin, again must have been approved, or more likely directly ordered, by Vladimir Putin. After this horrifying poison, the Ukrainians asked us to wake up to the threat posed by Russia
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In 2018, Russians used the nerve agent #Novichok hospitalising both the Russian target Sergei #Skripal and his daughter Yulia, but also several other people, resulting in permanent disability for one policeman. A chemical weapon used on British soil
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Clearly, the low functioning psychopaths represent a steady flow of useful thugs, ready to do their master’s bidding, but how is the brain of a high functioning psychopath different?
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It’s harder to study high functioning psychopaths, because they rarely end up imprisoned, compared to their low functioning kin.
One fascinating study shows that the Uncinate Fasciculus, a white matter tract that links the OFC to the Amygala is malformed in psychopaths
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Amygdala damage leads to fearlessness, so amygdala malformation probably results in a fearless, disorganised psychopath
The Uncinate Fasciculus (UF) is a connection *between* the Amygdala (Fear) & OFC (anticipating consequences)
Does this explain the lack of empathy?
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Does a disconnect between fear and anticipation and decision making result in psychopathy?
Does it explain why they don’t care about fear in other people?
Does it explain why they don’t care about anyone other than themselves?
Does it explain Putin?
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If you want to learn more about the Cognitive Neuroscience of Psychopathy, and with particular reference to Vladimir Putin, have a watch of this interview of Prof. Jim Fallon talking about this very subject:
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We were fortunate enough to talk with Prof Jim Fallon on the @MriyaReport Twitter voice chat space last week, who kindly spent about 3 hours with us on this topic. I’ll share a link to the recording once it’s available
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Another things that can cause awful and deviant behaviour are things like frontal lobe tumours. There are cases studies of these resulting in pedophilia.
Maybe the trending #Pedoputin hashtag may actually have something behind it?
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12633158/
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It’s been reported that the murder of #Litvinenko was due to him accusing Putin of being a pedophile
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In Part 3, I’ll discuss how Russian culture is incredibly violent by our standards.
I’ll reference the Prison Culture, the Dedovschina, domestic violence and alcoholism, but I’ll tweet that tomorrow
/34 END of Part 2
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