sadist

A sadist is someone who enjoys inflicting pain on others, sometimes in a sexual sense. Sadists like seeing other people hurt.

A sadist is the opposite of a masochist, who enjoys being in pain. A sadistis all about hurting others, usually to get off sexually. However, this word is about more than sex. Anyone who is mean and enjoys it — like a bully — could be considered a sadist. Anyone who tortures another human being is almost certainly a sadist. Unfortunately, we can all be a sadist at certain moments. If you've ever been mean to someone and enjoyed it, you were being a little sadistic.

Everyday sadists take pleasure in others' pain

Date:

September 12, 2013

Source:

Association for Psychological Science

Summary:

Most of the time, we try to avoid inflicting pain on others -- when we do hurt someone, we typically experience guilt, remorse, or other feelings of distress. But for some, cruelty can be pleasurable, even exciting. According to new research, this kind of everyday sadism is real and more common than we might think.

Most of the time, we try to avoid inflicting pain on others -- when we do hurt someone, we typically experience guilt, remorse, or other feelings of distress. But for some, cruelty can be pleasurable, even exciting. New research suggests that this kind of everyday sadism is real and more common than we might think.

Two studies led by psychological scientist Erin Buckels of the University of British Columbia revealed that people who score high on a measure of sadism seem to derive pleasure from behaviors that hurt others, and are even willing to expend extra effort to make someone else suffer.

The new findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"Some find it hard to reconcile sadism with the concept of 'normal' psychological functioning, but our findings show that sadistic tendencies among otherwise well-adjusted people must be acknowledged," says Buckels. "These people aren't necessarily serial killers or sexual deviants but they gain some emotional benefit in causing or simply observing others' suffering."

Based on their previous work on the "Dark Triad" of personality, Buckels and colleagues Delroy Paulhus of the University of British Columbia and Daniel Jones of the University of Texas El Paso surmised that sadism is a distinct aspect of personality that joins with three others -- psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism -- to form a "Dark Tetrad" of personality traits.

To test their hypothesis, they decided to examine everyday sadism under controlled laboratory conditions. They recruited 71 participants to take part in a study on "personality and tolerance for challenging jobs." Participants were asked to choose among several unpleasant tasks: killing bugs, helping the experimenter kill bugs, cleaning dirty toilets, or enduring pain from ice water.

Participants who chose bug killing were shown the bug-crunching machine: a modified coffee grinder that produced a distinct crunching sound so as to maximize the gruesomeness of the task. Nearby were cups containing live pill bugs, each cup labeled with the bug's name: Muffin, Ike, and Tootsie.

The participant's job was to drop the bugs into the machine, force down the cover, and "grind them up." The participants didn't know that a barrier actually prevented the bugs from being ground up and that no bugs were harmed in the experiment.

Of the 71 participants, 12.7% chose the pain-tolerance task, 33.8% chose the toilet-cleaning task, 26.8% chose to help kill bugs, and 26.8% chose to kill bugs.

Participants who chose bug killing had the highest scores on a scale measuring sadistic impulses, just as the researchers predicted. The more sadistic the participant was, the more likely he or she was to choose bug killing over the other options, even when their scores on Dark Triad measures, fear of bugs, and sensitivity to disgust were taken into account.

Participants with high levels of sadism who chose to kill bugs reported taking significantly greater pleasure in the task than those who chose another task, and their pleasure seemed to correlate with the number of bugs they killed, suggesting that sadistic behavior may hold some sort of reward value for those participants.

And a second study revealed that, of the participants who rated high on one of the "dark" personality traits, only sadists chose to intensify blasts of white noise directed at an innocent opponent when they realized the opponent wouldn't fight back. They were also the only ones willing to expend additional time and energy to be able to blast the innocent opponent with the noise.

Together, these results suggest that sadists possess an intrinsic motivation to inflict suffering on innocent others, even at a personal cost -- a motivation that is absent from the other dark personality traits.

The researchers hope that these new findings will help to broaden people's view of sadism as an aspect of personality that manifests in everyday life, helping to dispel the notion that sadism is limited to sexual deviants and criminals.

Buckels and colleagues are continuing to investigate everyday sadism, including its role in online trolling behavior.

"Trolling culture is unique in that it explicitly celebrates sadistic pleasure, or 'lulz,'" says Buckels. "It is, perhaps, not surprising then that sadists gravitate toward those activities."

And they're also exploring vicarious forms of sadism, such as enjoying cruelty in movies, video games, and sports.

The researchers believe their findings have the potential to inform research and policy on domestic abuse, bullying, animal abuse, and cases of military and police brutality.

"It is such situations that sadistic individuals may exploit for personal pleasure," says Buckels. "Denying the dark side of personality will not help when managing people in these context

Psychopathology

Psychopathology is a term which refers to either the study of mental illness or mental distress or the manifestation of behaviours and experiences which may be indicative of mental illness or psychological impairment.

The many different professions may be involved in studying mental illness or distress.

Most notably, psychiatrists and clinical psychologists are particularly interested in this area and may either be involved in clinical treatment of mental illness, or research into the origin, development and manifestations of such states, or often, both.

More widely, many different specialties may be involved in the study of psychopathology.

For example, a neuroscientist may focus on brain changes related to mental illness.

Therefore, someone who is referred to as a psychopathologist, may be one of any number of professions who have specialised in studying this area.

Psychiatrists in particular are interested in descriptive psychopathology, which has the aim of describing the symptoms and syndromes of mental illness.

This is both for the diagnosis of individual patients (to see whether the patient's experience fits any pre-existing classification), or for the creation of diagnostic systems (such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) which define exactly which signs and symptoms should make up a diagnosis, and how experiences and behaviours should be grouped in particular diagnoses (e.g. clinical depression, schizophrenia).

Psychopathology is not the same as psychopathy, which has to do with antisocial personality disorders and criminality.

Emotion

Emotion, in its most general definition, is a neural impulse that moves an organism to action, prompting automatic reactive behavior that has been adapted through evolution as a survival mechanism to meet a survival need.

Linda Davidoff defines emotion as a feeling that is expressed through physiological functions such as facial expressions, faster heartbeat, and behaviors such as aggression, crying, or covering the face with hands.

Based on discoveries made through neural mapping of the limbic system, the neurobiological explanation of human emotion is that emotion is a pleasant or unpleasant mental state organized in the limbic system of the mammalian brain.

Defined as such, these emotional states are specific manifestations of non-verbally expressed feelings of agreement, amusement, anger, certainty, control, disagreement, disgust, disliking, embarrassment, fear, guilt, happiness, hate, interest, liking, love, sadness, shame, surprise, and uncertainty.

If distinguished from reactive responses of reptiles, emotions would then be mammalian elaborations of general vertebrate arousal patterns, in which neurochemicals (e.g., dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin) step-up or step-down the brain's activity level, as visible in body movements, gestures, and postures.

In mammals, primates, and human beings, feelings are displayed as emotion cues.

For example, the human emotion of love is proposed to have evolved from paleocircuits of the mammalian brain (specifically, modules of the cingulated gyrus) designed for the care, feeding, and grooming of offspring.

Aggression

In psychology and other social and behavioral sciences, aggression refers to behavior that is intended to cause harm or pain.

Aggression can be either physical or verbal, and behavior is classified as aggression even if it does not actually succeed in causing harm or pain.

Behavior that accidentally causes harm or pain is not aggression.

Property damage and other destructive behavior may also fall under the definition of aggression.

Aggression is not the same thing as assertiveness.

Aggression is a perplexing phenomenon.

Why are people motivated to hurt each other?

How does violence help organisms to survive and reproduce?

After two centuries of theories and technological advances, psychologists and other scientists have been able to look deeply into aggression's biological and evolutionary roots, as well as its consequences in society.

The area from which all emotion originates is the brain.

While scientists continue to test various areas of the brain for their effects on aggression, two areas that directly regulate or affect aggression have been found.

The amygdala has been shown to be an area that causes aggression.

Stimulation of the amygdala results in augmented aggressive behavior, while lesions of this area greatly reduce one's competitive drive and aggression.

Another area, the hypothalamus, is believed to serve a regulatory role in aggression.

The hypothalamus has been shown to cause aggressive behavior when electrically stimulated but more importantly has receptors that help determine aggression levels based on their interactions with the neurotransmitters serotonin and vasopressin.

Social psychology

Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.

The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all of the psychological variables that are measurable in a human being.

The reference to imagined or implied others suggests that we are prone to social influence even when no other people are present, such as when watching television, or following internalized cultural norms.

The study of attitudes is a core topic in social psychology.

Attitudes are involved in virtually every other area of the discipline, including conformity, interpersonal attraction, social perception, and prejudice.

Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the interaction of mental states and immediate, social situations.

In general, social psychologists have a preference for laboratory based, empirical findings.

Their theories tend to be specific and focused, rather than global and general.

Maternal bond

The maternal bond is typically the relationship between a mother and her child.

While it typically occurs due to pregnancy and childbirth, it may also occur between a woman and an unrelated child, such as in adoption.

There are hundreds of factors, physical and emotional, which influence the mother-infant bonding process.

Lots of new mothers do not always experience the "instantly-in-mother-love" emotions.

Bonding is a gradually unfolding experience that can take hours, days, weeks or months to evolve.

Many believe that early bonding ideally increases response and sensitivity to the child's needs, bolstering the quality of the mother-baby relationship.

Panic attack

A panic attack is a period of intense, often temporarily disabling sense of extreme fear or psychological distress, typically of abrupt onset.

Though it is often a purely terrifying feeling to the sufferer, panic attacks are actually an evolutionary body response often known as the fight-or-flight response.

Symptoms may include trembling, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, chest pain (or chest tightness), sweating, nausea, dizziness (or slight vertigo), hyperventilation, paresthesias (tingling sensations), vomiting, and sensations of choking or smothering.

During a panic attack, the body typically releases large amounts of adrenaline into the bloodstream.

Many first time sufferers of a panic attack believe they are dying or going insane.

It is a feeling that cannot be described until one has had an attack.

Many often say panic attacks are one of the most frightening experiences in their lives.

Repeated and apparently unprovoked panic attacks may be a sign of panic disorder, but panic attacks are associated with other anxiety disorders as well.

For example, people who suffer from phobias may experience panic attacks upon exposure to certain triggers.

People with panic disorder often can be treated with therapy and/or anti-anxiety/depression medication.

A panic attack typically lasts ten minutes.

Cluster headache

Cluster headaches are rare, extremely painful and debilitating headaches that occur in groups or clusters.

Cluster headache sufferers typically experience severe headaches of a piercing quality near one eye or temple that last for fifteen minutes to three hours.

The headaches are usually unilateral and occasionally change sides.

Cluster headaches are classified as vascular headaches.

The intense pain is caused by the dilation of blood vessels which creates pressure on the trigeminal nerve.

While this process is the immediate cause of the pain, the etiology (underlying cause or causes) is not fully understood.

Cluster headaches often go undiagnosed for many years, being confused with migraine or other causes of headache.

Understanding Psychpathic and sadistic model

Psychopathic serial killers are a source of infinite public fascination. If best-selling novels, hit TV series and popular films are any indication, you’d think real-life Hannibal Lecters were constantly running amok in the U.S. Thankfully, such offenders are far less prevalent in reality than they are in entertainment — but the disproportionate damage done by violent and even nonviolent psychopaths not surprisingly attracts intense scientific interest as well. On May 11, in fact, the New York Timesexplored whether psychopaths can be diagnosed as young as age 9.

Another way to figure out what makes the psychopath tick is to contrast him — and they are overwhelmingly male — with other abnormal personalities. In a recent study led by Jean Decety, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Chicago, researchers looked at a personality trait often confused with psychopathy: sexual sadism.

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The Psychopath vs. the Sadist
The typical Hollywood serial killer combines psychopathic traits — cold calculation, lack of empathy, delight in manipulation — with the sadist’s joy and erotic pleasure gleaned from the pain of others. But in reality, these traits may be quite distinct. “If you look at movies, there are people that are both — like Hannibal Lecter,” says Decety. “I’m not sure that’s what we have in the real world.”

Decety and his colleagues recently published a brain-scan study of 15 violent sexual offenders, eight of whom were classified as sexual sadists. The research deliberately excluded psychopaths in order to find brain differences unique to sadism.

Participants were shown images that involved either pain or no pain — for example, a picture of a person stabbing a table or another person’s hand with scissors, or an image of someone slamming a car door and either hitting or not hitting another person.

When viewing the pictures of pain, the sadists showed greater activation in their amygdala — a brain area associated with strong emotion — compared with the other sexual offenders. Moreover, the sadists rated the pain experienced by the victim as more intense than the nonsadists did. And the more intense the sadists thought the pain was, the greater their activation in another brain region called the insula, which is involved with monitoring one’s own feelings and body states.

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“When you feel something like disgust, pain, pleasure, even orgasm, the insula plays a critical role to bring those bodily emotions to awareness,” Decety says.

Decety’s study suggests that sadists seem to be especially tuned in to what their victims are feeling — in fact, they experience it vicariously and are aroused by it. Psychopaths, on the other hand, tend to be indifferent to the emotions of others. “If you live with a psychopath and you cry because that person was unpleasant to you, that probably doesn’t matter to him. He is not moved and doesn’t care, because he doesn’t feel anything about what you feel,” says Decety. “The sadists do feel. They understand that the victim is in pain.”

Psychopathy vs. Antisocial Personality Disorder
In another new study aimed at elucidating the workings of the psychopathic brain, researchers at King’s College London explored the differences between people with psychopathy and those with another dangerous personality type: antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), psychiatry’s diagnostic manual, views psychopathy as basically the most extreme type of ASPD, but increasingly, research suggests that they are separate. “Nobody had ever done [a brain-imaging] study contrasting people with ASPD and psychopathy,” says lead author Nigel Blackwood.

Blackwood describes people with ASPD this way: “They’re impulsive, irritable and hotheaded. They use reactive aggression like the classic pub-brawl scenario when they see a threat where it may not exist and use violence to ‘solve’ the situation.”

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“Once that’s done, they might experience some degree of regret or remorse. They might feel guilty. They have lot of anxiety [disorders] and depression and substance misuse,” he says. Psychopaths, in contrast, may be equally violent and aggressive — and are also likely to frequently take drugs — but they are remorseless and coldly plan their attacks.

Another difference: both those with ASPD and psychopathy tend to have experienced maltreatment during childhood, but unlike people with ASPD, psychopaths don’t have symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder as a result. Quite the opposite: psychopaths tend to have little anxiety and virtually no fear.

Compared with people with ASPD only, the brain-scan study found that psychopaths had reduced volume in a region called the anterior rostral prefrontal cortex (arPFC) and another area known as the temporal pole. These regions are important for understanding one’s own thoughts and feelings as well as the minds of others.

“Both areas are involved in the process of thinking about yourself and other people at the same time to work out their intentions, emotional state and desires,” Blackwood says. While psychopaths clearly require some sense of what others are thinking and feeling to allow them to manipulate people, damage here could explain their own lack of emotion and indifference to that of their victims.

Decety’s work and that of others had previously shown differences between psychopaths and normal people in a nearby prefrontal area, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, or vmPFC. “That region is [used] to combine emotion and cognition to make decisions,” says Decety, noting that people with brain damage there may become pathological gamblers or make other repeatedly bad choices. Without the vmPFC, negative consequences don’t seem to affect behavior.

Psychopaths, of course, are well-known for their resistance to punishment. Their lack of fear means they don’t worry about physical pain or harm, and their lack of concern for the feelings of others means social punishment doesn’t work either. If you don’t care if you hurt or disappoint people — and aren’t bothered by rejection — you won’t feel ashamed or guilty or embarrassed, and consequently won’t be motivated to avoid those feelings.

When Does Psychopathy Begin?
The roots of all types of antisocial behavior appear to be laid down in early childhood, with genetic predispositions interacting with nurture — or typically, in these cases, a lack thereof — to shape development.

Some children seem to be born with slight antisocial tendencies: they are difficult to discipline and have impaired self-control. Indeed, to warrant a diagnosis of adult ASPD, antisocial behavior must begin early in life, in what is labeled childhood conduct disorder (CD) and characterized by persistent defiant and sometimes cruel behavior.

Most children with CD will not grow up to become psychopaths, however, and at least one-third outgrow the diagnosis entirely; they don’t even develop ASPD. But a smaller group show an early lack of fear and indifference toward others that is much more troubling. These children, who are characterized as having callous/unemotional traits, are at greatest risk for becoming psychopaths.

Sexual sadism also seems to have early developmental roots. “What I would predict is that this kind of behavior has its origins very early in infancy. The way babies are treated or abused may have long-term consequences for the development of the pathways for pleasure and pain,” Decety says.

When young children, who are dependent on their caregivers, are abused, they have little choice but to love the people who are hurting them. “If the caregiver is inflicting pain and you also love that person, a weird relationship can develop where pain becomes pleasurable,” says Decety. “What is important to realize is that the pathways in the brain that are involved in pain processing and the pathways involved in pleasure are linked. They have to overlap to some extent. That’s why if in development something goes wrong and you mix the two, you [may] seek pleasure from pain.”

Can Psychopathy Be Cured?
Adult psychopaths don’t fear the pain of punishment, and similarly, they aren’t bothered by social pain. Children with callous/unemotional traits are the same and, as a result, are extraordinarily difficult to manage. While simple conduct disorder can result from having antisocial tendencies and being raised in a violent or chaotic home — and can therefore often be helped by remedying that situation — CD with callous/unemotional traits seems to have a stronger genetic basis and is more intractable.

“Treatment programs for conduct disorder are very good, but the callous/unemotional group doesn’t respond to things like punishment, the naughty step, or time out,” says Blackwood. In the same way, psychopaths are much harder to reform than adults with ASPD.

Because they don’t respond to punishment, reward-based treatments work best for callous/unemotional children, even as they seem counterintuitive for the most badly behaved kids. “We have to open our eyes about what the neuroscience tells us,” says Decety. “We have intuitions [about what will work], but they are often wrong and not accurate.”

As a result, Blackwood and most other experts support separate diagnoses to emphasize the differences between the hotheaded adult antisocial personality and the cold-blooded psychopath, or in children, those with ordinary conduct disorder and those with CD plus callous/unemotional traits.

“In the DSM-5 [the pending update of the DSM], it looks reasonably clear that there will be specifications for CD with or without callous/unemotional traits, but there is no equivalent for adults. It’s still lumped together as ASPD, and I think it’s important to tease out these groups,” says Blackwood. That will be especially important given that labeling a child as a potential psychopath could itself have severely negative effects on his future.

Of course, these classifications say nothing about why one person becomes a psychopath while another becomes antisocial, or why some sadists develop a taste for masochism too. Decety’s research didn’t include sadists who weren’t sex offenders — but he would like to study the differences between people who engage in consensual and nonconsensual behavior. Researchers are also studying the life course of children identified with CD and callous/unemotional traits. Finding out what differentiates the group that becomes psychopathic from those who manage to master or outgrow these traits might help prevent some of the worst criminal behavior.

Then, perhaps, the most gruesome fiction will no longer involve real-world inspiration.

What is Sexual Sadism Disorder?

Prior to the release of the DSM-5, this disorder was known as Sexual Masochism and Sadism. Sexual Masochism and Sadism has now been split into two separate disorders of Sexual Masochism Disorder and Sexual Sadism Disorder. Both are classified as Paraphilic Disorders, which requires the presence of a paraphilia that is causing significant distress or impairment, or involve personal harm or risk of harm to others.

A paraphilia involves intense and persistent sexual interest (recurrent fantasies, urges or behaviors of a sexual nature) that center around children, non-humans (animals, objects, materials), or harming others or one's self during sexual activity. Sometimes this sexual interest focuses on the person's own erotic/sexual activities while in other cases, it focuses on the target of the person's sexual interest.

In order to be diagnosed with a Paraphilic Disorder, the paraphilia needs to be causing significant distress or impairment, or involve personal harm or risk of harm to others. You can have a paraphilia, but not have a paraphilic disorder. It is only when it causes impairment, harm or the risk of harm that it become a clinical diagnosis.

Symptoms of Sexual Sadism Disorder include:

over a period of at least 6 months, a person has had recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors from the physical or psychological suffering of another person.
the individual has acted on these sexual urges with a nonconsenting person, or the fantasies and sexual urges are causing clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Clinicians can also specify if the disorder is:

In a controlled environment - usually applicable to people who are living in institutions or other settings where opportunities to engage in sadistic sexual behaviors are restricted.
In full remission - the person has not acted on the urges with a nonconsenting person, and there has not been distress or impairment for at least 5 years while in an uncontrolled (non-institutional) environment.

How common is Sexual Sadism Disorder?

The prevalence for Sexual Sadism Disorder in the general population is unknown. According to the DSM-5, depending on the criteria for sexual sadism, prevalence varies widely from 2% to 30%. Among committed sexual offenders in the United States, less than 10% have this disorder. Among those that have committed sexually motivated killings, rates of sexual sadism disorder range from 37% to 75%.

Research in Australia estimated that 2.2% of males and 1.3% of females had been involved in bondage and discipline, or dominance and submission in a 12-month period.

Not much is currently known about the occurrence over time, but it is likely that the course of the disorder varies with age and that it will decrease as a person gets older.

What are the risk factors for Sexual Sadism Disorder?

Risk factors have not yet been identified for this disorder.

What other disorders or conditions often occur with Sexual Sadism Disorder?

Research in this area has focused on people (mostly males) who have been convicted of criminal acts involving sadistic behavior against nonconsenting individuals. This means that the co-occurring conditions found in this population might not be the same as in the general population. They typically include other paraphilic disorders.

How is Sexual Sadism Disorder treated?

Common treatments include psychotherapy and medication. Cognitive-behavioral therapy can be used where the therapist helps the person discover the underlying cause of the behavior and then works with the person to teach skills to manage the sexual urges in more health ways. This may include the use of aversion therapy and different types of imagery/desensitization in which the person imagines themselves in the situation and then experiencing a negative event, such as being arrested, to reduce future interest in participating in the sadistic activities. Cognitive restructuring (identifying and changing the thoughts that drive the behavior) and empathy training may also be used.

Various medications can be used to decrease the level of circulating testosterone in order to reduce the frequency of sexual fantasies and erections. Antidepressant medications may also be used to reduce sexual desire.

This Sexual Disorders topic center contains information about paraphilias (more commonly known as sexual perversions or deviancies). If you are interested in sexual desire or arousal disorders, as well as information about healthy sexuality throughout the lifespan, the proper terms for that would be Sexuality and Sexual Problems.

With the publication of the DSM-5, this family of disorders has been renamed Paraphilic Disorders and all the disorders in this group require the presence of a paraphilia. A paraphilia involves intense and persistent sexual interest (recurrent fantasies, urges or behaviors of a sexual nature) that center around children, non-humans (animals, objects, materials), or harming others or one's self during sexual activity. Sometimes this sexual interest focuses on the person's own erotic/sexual activities while in other cases, it focuses on the target of the person's sexual interest.

In order to be diagnosed with one of these disorders, the paraphilia also needs to be causing significant distress or impairment, or involve personal harm or risk of harm to others. You can have a paraphilia, but not have a paraphilic disorder. It is only when it causes impairment, harm or the risk of harm that it become a clinical diagnosis.

This category of disorders includes:

Voyeuristic Disorder - spying on others in who are engaging in private activities
Exhibitionistic Disorder - exposing one's genitals to a non-consenting person
Frotteuristic Disorder - touching or rubbing against another person who has not consented to participate in such activity
Sexual Masochism Disorder - receiving humiliation, bondage or suffering during sexual activities
Sexual Sadism Disorder - inflicting humiliation, bondage or suffering on another person during sexual activities
Pedophilic Disorder - focuses one's sexual interest on children
Fetishistic Disorder - having one's sexual energies focused on a body part or object, rather than onto another human being
Transvestic Disorder -cross-dressing for sexual arousing reasons

There is also a diagnostic category for Other Specified Paraphilic Disorder. This is used when symptoms of a paraphilic disorder are present and cause significant distress or impairment, but do not meet full criteria for any of the other disorders. This classification is used when the clinician is listing the specific reason that the symptoms do not meet the full disorder criteria. Examples include chronic preoccupation with making obscene telephone calls or relating sexually to only a part of another's body, dead people, feces and urine, animals, etcetera.

Unspecified Paraphilic Disorder is used when symptoms cause significant distress or impairment, but do not meet full criteria for any of the other disorders, and the clinician does not wish to specify the reason that criteria are not met. This also includes situations when there is not enough information available for the clinician to make a specific diagnosis.

Paraphilic Disorders are disorders of deviant sexuality. Because they are so often associated with abusive sexual practices that create real victims, many people tend to regard persons who display sexual deviancies as monsters. Further, many people tend to assume that all sexual deviants are equally awful and disgusting. Neither of these statements are accurate. While they are ultimately responsible for their choices (including those that harm other people), should be punished and, thereafter, closely monitored to prevent further abusive practices, even people with pedophiliac disorder or sexual sadism are legitimately suffering from mental, emotional and spiritual disturbance and should be able to participate in treatment. There are also forms of sexual deviancy such as Transvestic Disorder and Fetishistic Disorder that harm no one and that do not deserve to be thought of in the same breath as the other more extreme cases.

On a final note, we should point out one mode of sexuality which is definitively not listed here, and that is Homosexuality and Bisexuality. Although historically listed as sexual deviancies, homosexuality and bisexuality has been recognized as completely normal variants of human sexuality for many years now. However, just because being gay isn't a sexual deviancy or disorder, doesn't mean that it doesn't come with its own set of stressful issues.

What is Voyeuristic Disorder?

The disorder was previously known as Voyeurism and someone with the condition has often been referred to as a "Peeping Tom." With the release of the DSM-5, it is now called Voyeuristic Disorder and is classified as a Paraphilic Disorder, which requires the presence of a paraphilia that is causing significant distress or impairment, or involve personal harm or risk of harm to others.

This diagnosis is given when:

over a period of 6 months, a person 18 years or older has had recurrent and intense sexual arousing fantasies, urges or behaviors from observing an unsuspecting person who is naked, in the process of disrobing, or engaged in sexual activity.
the person has acted on these sexual urges with a non-consenting person, or the sexual urges and fantasies have caused significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of daily functioning.

How common is Voyeuristic Disorder?

The prevalence of Voyeuristic Disorder is not currently known. However, it is estimated that the highest possible lifetime prevalence is 12% in males and 4% in females, therefore making it 3 times more likely to occur in males.

What are the risk factors for Voyeuristic Disorder?

The cause and effect of risk factors has not been determined for this disorder, but possible risk factors include childhood sexual abuse, substance abuse, having a preoccupation with sex, and being hypersexual (having extremely frequent or suddenly increased sexual urges or sexual activity).

What other disorders or conditions often occur with Voyeuristic Disorder?

Research in this area has focused on males who are suspected or have been convicted of acts involving the secret watching of nude or sexually active people that have not consented to the watching. This means that the co-occurring conditions found in this population might not be the same as in the general population that has voyeuristic disorder. They include hypersexuality (having extremely frequent or suddenly increased sexual urges or sexual activity), other paraphilic disorders (especially exhibitionistic disorder), depression and bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, ADHD, conduct disorder, and antisocial personality disorder.

How is Voyeuristic Disorder treated?

People with this condition do not often seek treatment on their own and do not generally recognize that they have a problem until they have ended up in court and are then required to enter treatment. Common treatments include psychotherapy and medication.

Behavior therapy is often used to help the person control their urges and use more acceptable means of coping with them than engaging in the watching of others.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy can also be used where the therapist helps the person identify triggers that cause their urges and then works with the person to teach skills to manage those urges in healthier ways. This typically includes cognitive restructuring (identifying and changing the thoughts that drive the behavior), relaxation training (to reduce sexual impulses), and coping skills training (different ways to behave when feeling aroused).

Various medications can be used to inhibit sexual hormones (testosterone or estrogen) in order to reduce sexual desire. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which are commonly used for depression and other mood disorders, can also be used because lower levels of serotonin in the brain has been found to cause an increased sex drive. Therefore, using a SSRI can reduce the sexual desire being felt.

What is Exhibitionistic Disorder?

Prior to the release of the DSM-5, this disorder was known as Exhibitionism and was classified as an impulse control disorder. In the DSM-5, this disorder has been reclassified to be a Paraphilic Disorder and renamed Exhibitionistic Disorder. A Paraphilic Disorder requires the presence of a paraphilia that is causing significant distress or impairment, or involve personal harm or risk of harm to others.

Symptoms of Exhibitionistic Disorder include:

over a period of at least 6 months, a person has recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving the exposure of one's genitals to an unsuspecting stranger.
the person has either acted on these impulses with a nonconsenting person or the fantasies and sexual urges are causing clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Subtypes of the disorder are based on the age or physical maturity of the nonconsenting individual that the person prefers to expose his/her genitals to and include:

Sexually aroused by exposing genitals to prepubertal children (children who have not yet gone through puberty)
Sexually aroused by exposing genitals to physically mature individuals
Sexually aroused by exposing genitals to prepubertal children (children who have not yet gone through puberty) and to physically mature individuals

Clinicians can also specify if the disorder is

In a controlled environment - usually applicable to people who are living in institutions or other settings where opportunities to expose their genitals are restricted.
In full remission - the person has not acted on their urges and there has not been distress or impairment for at least 5 years while in an uncontrolled (non-institutional) environment.

How common is Exhibitionistic Disorder?

The prevalence rate for this disorder is not currently known, but is estimated to be 2-4% of the general population. It is also estimated to occur much less often in females than in males.

What are the risk factors for Exhibitionistic Disorder?

Risk factors including antisocial history, antisocial personality disorder, alcohol misuse, and pedophilic sexual preference (being sexually attracted/aroused by children) are thought to increase the risk of exhibitionistic tendencies.

Childhood sexual and emotional abuse, a preoccupation with sex, and hypersexuality (having extremely frequent or suddenly increased sexual urges or sexual activity) have also been suggested as risk factors, but a cause and effect relationship between them has not been proven at this time.

What other disorders or conditions often occur with Exhibitionistic Disorder?

Research in this area has focused primarily on males who have been convicted of exposing their genitals to nonconsenting individuals. This means that the co-occurring conditions found in this population might not be the same as in the general population that has exhibitionistic disorder. They include depression and bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, substance use disorders, hypersexuality, ADHD, other paraphilic disorders, and antisocial personality disorder.

How is Exhibitionistic Disorder treated?

People with this condition do not often seek treatment on their own and do not generally recognize that they have a problem until they have ended up in court and are then required to enter treatment.

Common treatments include psychotherapy and medication.

Behavior therapy is often used to help the person control their urges and use more acceptable means of coping with them than exposing their genitals to others.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy can also be used where the therapist helps the person identify triggers that cause their urges and then works with the person to teach skills to manage the sexual urges in more health ways. This typically includes cognitive restructuring (identifying and changing the thoughts that drive the behavior), relaxation training (to reduce exposure impulses), and coping skills training (different ways to behave when feeling aroused).

Various medications can be used to inhibit sexual hormones (testosterone or estrogen) in order to reduce sexual desire. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which are commonly used for depression and other mood disorders, can also be used as lower levels of serotonin in the brain has been found to cause an increased sex drive. Therefore, using a SSRI can reduce the sexual desire being felt.

What is Frotteuristic Disorder?

Prior to the release of the DSM-5, this disorder was known as Frotteurism. It is classified as a Paraphilic Disorder, which requires the presence of a paraphilia that is causing significant distress or impairment, or involve personal harm or risk of harm to others.

Symptoms of Frotteuristic Disorder include:

over a period of at least 6 months, a person has had recurrent and intense sexually arousing fantasies, urges or behaviors from touching or rubbing against a nonconsenting person.
the person has either acted on these impulses with a nonconsenting person or the fantasies and sexual urges are causing clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Clinicians can also specify if the disorder is

In a controlled environment - usually applicable to people who are living in institutions or other settings where opportunities to touch or rub against a nonconsenting person are restricted.
In full remission - the person has not acted on their urges and there has not been distress or impairment for at least 5 years while in an uncontrolled (non-institutional) environment.

How common is Frotteuristic Disorder?

The prevalence for Frotteuristic Disorder in the general population is unknown. Frotteuristic acts, including uninvited sexual touching or rubbing against another individual are thought to occur in up to 30% of adult males in the general population. Roughly 10-14% of adult males seen in outpatient settings for paraphilic disorders and hypersexuality (having extremely frequent or suddenly increased sexual urges or sexual activity) meet the criteria for this disorder.

What are the risk factors for Frotteuristic Disorder?

Cause and effect risk factors have not yet been identified for this disorder, but it is believed that nonsexual antisocial behavior, a preoccupation with sex, and hypersexuality (having extremely frequent or suddenly increased sexual urges or sexual activity) might be risk factors.

What other disorders or conditions often occur with Frotteuristic Disorder?

Research in this area has focused on males who have been suspected of or convicted of criminal acts involving sexual touching or rubbing against a nonconsenting person. This means that the co-occurring conditions found in this population might not be the same as in the general population that has exhibitionistic disorder. They include hypersexuality (having extremely frequent or suddenly increased sexual urges or sexual activity) and other paraphilic disorders (particularly exhibitionistic disorder and voyeuristic disorder), conduct disorder, antisocial personality disorder, depression and bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, and substance use disorders.

How is Frotteuristic Disorder treated?

People with this condition do not often seek treatment on their own and do not generally recognize that they have a problem until they have ended up in court and are then required to enter treatment.

Common treatments include psychotherapy and medication.

Behavior therapy is often used to help the person control their urges and use more acceptable means of coping with them than rubbing or touching others.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy can also be used where the therapist helps the person identify triggers that cause their urges and then works with the person to teach skills to manage the sexual urges in more health ways. This typically includes cognitive restructuring (identifying and changing the thoughts that drive the behavior), relaxation training (to reduce touching or rubbing impulses), and coping skills training (different ways to behave when feeling aroused).

Various medications can be used to inhibit sexual hormones (testosterone or estrogen) in order to reduce sexual desire. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which are commonly used for depression and other mood disorders, can also be used as lower levels of serotonin in the brain has been found to cause an increased sex drive. Therefore, using a SSRI can reduce the sexual desire being felt.

What is Sexual Masochism Disorder?

Prior to the release of the DSM-, this disorder was known as Sexual Masochism and Sadism. Sexual Masochism and Sadism has now been split into two separate disorders of Sexual Masochism Disorder and Sexual Sadism Disorder. Both are classified as Paraphilic Disorders, which requires the presence of a paraphilia that is causing significant distress or impairment, or involve personal harm or risk of harm to others.

Symptoms of Sexual Masochism Disorder include:

over a period of at least 6 months, a person has had recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors from the act of being humiliated, beaten, bound, or otherwise made to suffer.
the fantasies and sexual urges are causing clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

A subtype of the disorder includes with asphyxiophilia if the person engages in the practice of achieving sexual arousal related to the restriction of breathing (i.e., being choked or having breathing compromised in order to feel sexually aroused).

Clinicians can also specify if the disorder is:

In a controlled environment - usually applicable to people who are living in institutions or other settings where opportunities to engage in masochistic sexual behaviors are restricted.
In full remission - there has not been distress or impairment for at least 5 years while in an uncontrolled (non-institutional) environment.

How common is Sexual Masochism Disorder?

The prevalence for Sexual Masochism Disorder in the general population is unknown. Research in Australia estimated that 2.2% of males and 1.3% of females had been involved in bondage and discipline, or dominance and submission in a 12-month period.

Those with paraphilias reported an average age of onset for sexual masochism at 19.3 years of age, although it is possible at an earlier age as well. Not much is currently known about the occurrence over time, but it is likely that the course of the disorder varies with age and that it will decrease as the person gets older.

What are the risk factors for Sexual Masochism Disorder?

Risk factors have not yet been identified for this disorder.

What other disorders or conditions often occur with Sexual Masochism Disorder?

Research in this area has focused on people who are currently in treatment for the disorder. This means that the co-occurring conditions found in this population might not be the same as in the general population that has sexual masochism disorder. They typically include other paraphilic disorders, such as transvestic disorder (males who feel sexually aroused by dressing in women's clothing).

How is Sexual Masochism Disorder treated?

Common treatments include psychotherapy and medication. Cognitive-behavioral therapy can be used in which the therapist helps the person discover the underlying cause of the behavior and then works with the person to teach skills to manage the sexual urges in more health ways. This may include the use of aversion therapy and different types of imagery/desensitization in which the person imagines themselves in the situation and then experiencing a negative event to reduce future interest in participating in that activity. Cognitive restructuring (identifying and changing the thoughts that drive the behavior) and empathy training may also be used.

What is Pedophilic Disorder?

Pedophilic Disorder is classified in the DSM-5 as a Paraphilic Disorder, which requires the presence of a paraphilia that is causing significant distress or impairment, or involve personal harm or risk of harm to others.

Symptoms of Pedophilic Disorder include:

over a period of at least 6 months, a person has had recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child (a child who has not yet gone through puberty) or children. Typically, the child or children are age 13 years or younger.
the individual has acted on these sexual urges, or the fantasies and sexual urges are causing marked distress or interpersonal difficulties.
The individual is at least 16 years old and at least 5 years older than the child or children involved.

This diagnosis does not apply if the person is in late adolescence and is involved in an ongoing sexual relationship with a 12- or 13-year old.

Clinicians can also specify if the disorder is:

Exclusive type (attracted only to children)
Nonexclusive (attracted to both children and adults)
Sexually attracted to males
Sexually attracted to females
Sexually attracted to both
Limited to incest

If someone feels no guilt, shame or anxiety about their sexual urges, does not have any limitations in daily functioning because of the fantasies or urges, and has never actually acted on the urges, they are said to have a pedophilic sexual orientation, but would not be diagnosed with Pedophilic Disorder.

How common is Pedophilic Disorder?

The prevalence for Pedophilic Disorder in the general population is unknown. Estimates for the highest percentage in males is thought to be 3-5% and in females is thought to be a small fraction of the rate in males.

What are the risk factors for Pedophilic Disorder?

There are temperamental, environmental and genetic/physiological risk factors for this disorder. With temperament, there appears to be a relationship between males with antisocial personality disorder and pedophilic disorder where the acting out behavior from the personality disorder involves sexual urges, fantasies or behaviors with children.

Adult males with pedophilic disorder often report having been sexually abused as children, but a cause and effect relationship between the two have not been proven at this time.

There is some evidence that abnormal neurodevelopmental issues during fetal development may lead to an increased probability of developing the disorder.

What other disorders or conditions often occur with Pedophilic Disorder?

Research in this area has focused on people (mostly males) who have been convicted of sexual offenses involving children. This means that the co-occurring conditions found in this population might not be the same as in the general population. They typically include substance use disorders, depression and bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, antisocial personality disorder, and other paraphilic disorders.

How is Pedophilic Disorder treated?

What is Fetishistic Disorder?

Prior to the release of the DSM-5 in 2013, this disorder was known as Fetishism. In the DSM-5, it is now known as Fetishistic Disorder and is classified as a Paraphilic Disorder, which requires the presence of a paraphilia that is causing significant distress or impairment, or involve personal harm or risk of harm to others.

Symptoms of Fetishistic Disorder include:

over a period of at least 6 months, a person has had recurrent and intense sexual arousal from fantasies, sexual urges or behaviors from either the use of nonliving objects, or a highly specific focus on nongenital body parts.
the fantasies, sexual urges and behaviors are causing clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
The fetish objects are not limited to articles of clothing used in cross-dressing (as is transvestic disorder) or devices specifically designed for the purpose of genital stimulation (such as a vibrator).

Clinicians can specify if the fetish is a:

Body part(s) - often includes feet, toes, and hair.
Nonliving object(s) - Frequently, fetish objects include shoes (men's or women's), and women's underwear, panties or bras. They may be made of particular materials such as leather or rubber. It is common for a person with a fetish to not be able to achieve orgasm without involving their fetish object in the sexual act (e.g., by getting their partner to wear the fetish object).
Other

They can also specify if the disorder is:

In a controlled environment - usually applicable to people who are living in institutions or other settings where opportunities to engage in fetishistic behaviors are restricted.
In full remission - there has not been distress or impairment in social, occupational or other areas of functioning for at least 5 years while in an uncontrolled (non-institutional) environment.

How common is Fetishistic Disorder?

The prevalence for Fetishistic Disorder in the general population is unknown.

Paraphilias often have an onset during puberty, but fetishes can develop prior to this time. Once developed, they tend to be long lasting, but can fluctuate in intensity and frequency over time.

What are the risk factors for Fetishistic Disorder?

Risk factors have not yet been identified for this disorder.

What other disorders or conditions often occur with Fetishistic Disorder?

This disorder may occur with other paraphilic disorders and hypersexuality (having extremely frequent or suddenly increased sexual urges or sexual activity).

How is Fetishistic Disorder treated?

Because those with this disorder can feel extremely embarrassed or shameful, they rarely seek professional treatment. When they do so, psychotherapy is the most common treatment.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy can be used where the therapist helps the person discover the underlying cause of the behavior and then works with the person to teach skills to manage the sexual urges in more health ways. This may include the use of aversion therapy and different types of imagery/desensitization in which the person imagines themselves in the situation and then experiencing a negative event to reduce future interest in participating in the fetishistic activities. Cognitive restructuring (identifying and changing the thoughts that drive the behavior) and thought stopping techniques may also be used.

Medications that target the compulsive thinking (similar to those found in an Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorder), antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications can also be used in conjunction with therapy.

What is Transvestic Disorder?

Prior to the release of the DSM-5, this disorder was known as Transvestic Fetishism. In the DSM-5, it is now known as Transvestic Disorder and is classified as a Paraphilic Disorder, which requires the presence of a paraphilia that is causing significant distress or impairment, or involve personal harm or risk of harm to others.

Symptoms of Transvestic Disorder include:

over a period of at least 6 months, a person has had recurrent and intense sexual arousal from fantasies, sexual urges or behaviors from cross-dressing (most often when a heterosexual male has fantasies about and/or acts out dressing up in woman's clothing).
the fantasies, sexual urges and behaviors are causing clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Clinicians can specify:

With fetishism - sexually aroused by fabrics, materials or clothing
With autogynephilia - if the male is sexually aroused by thoughts or images of himself as female.

They can also specify if the disorder is:

In a controlled environment - usually applicable to people who are living in institutions or other settings where opportunities to engage in cross-dressing are restricted.
In full remission - there has not been distress or impairment in social, occupational or other areas of functioning for at least 5 years while in an uncontrolled (non-institutional) environment.

How common is Transvestic Disorder?

The prevalence for Transvestic Disorder in the general population is unknown.

It is rare in males and extremely rare in females. Research has found that fewer than 3% of males report having ever seen sexually aroused by dressing in women's clothing.

The first signs of this disorder may appear in childhood and involves general pleasure in dressing in girl's clothing. Then with the arrival of adolescence, dressing in women's clothing brings about sexual desire and penile erection. Often as the boy grows into adulthood, he will report less sexual excitement by cross-dressing, but instead a feeling of comfort or well-being by continuing to cross-dress.

What are the risk factors for Transvestic Disorder?

Risk factors have not yet been identified for this disorder.

What other disorders or conditions often occur with Transvestic Disorder?

This disorder may occur with other paraphilias including fetishism and masochism.

How is Transvestic Disorder treated?

Because those with this disorder can feel extremely embarrassed or shameful, they rarely seek professional treatment on their own, but may do so at the request of a partner. When they do so, psychotherapy is the most common treatment.

Medications that target the compulsive urges, antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications can also be used in conjunction with therapy.

The Pros to Being a Psychopath In a new book, Oxford research psychologist Kevin Dutton argues that psychopaths are poised to perform well under pressure According to author Kevin Dutton, psychopaths have a distinct set of personality characteristics. Pictured is Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates in Psycho. (Photo by: Mary Evans / UNIVERSAL PICTURES / Ronald Grant / Everett Collection) By Amy Crawford smithsonian.com October 28, 2012 When most of us hear the word “psychopath,” we imagine Hannibal Lecter. Kevin Dutton would prefer that we think of brain surgeons, CEOs and Buddhist monks. In his new book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success, the Oxford research psychologist argues that psychopathic personality traits—charm, confidence, ruthlessness, coolness under pressure—can, in the right doses, be a good thing. Not all psychopaths are violent, he says, and some of them are just the sort of people society can count on in a crisis. To further his psychopathic studies, Dutton is seeking participants for his Great American Psychopath Survey, which he says will reveal the most psychopathic states, cities and professions in the United States. Try it for yourself at wisdomofpsychopaths.com. “Psychopath” is a term that gets thrown about a lot in our culture. Are psychopaths misunderstood? It’s true, no sooner is the word “psychopath” out than images of your classic psychopathic killers like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer and a whole kind of discreditable raft of senior politicians come kind of creeping across our minds. But actually, being a psychopath doesn’t mean that you’re a criminal. Not by default, anyway. It doesn’t mean that you’re a serial killer, either.

One of the reasons why I wrote the book in the first place was to debunk two deep-seated myths that the general public have about psychopaths. Firstly, that they’re either all “mad or bad.” And secondly, that psychopathy is an all-or-nothing thing, that you’re either a psychopath or you’re not. What is a psychopath, anyway? When psychologists talk about psychopaths, what we’re referring to are people who have a distinct set of personality characteristics, which include things like ruthlessness, fearlessness, mental toughness, charm, persuasiveness and a lack of conscience and empathy. Imagine that you tick the box for all of those characteristics. You also happen to be violent and stupid. It’s not going to be long before you smack a bottle over someone’s head in a bar and get locked up for a long time in prison. But if you tick the box for all of those characteristics, and you happen to be intelligent and not naturally violent, then it’s a different story altogether. Then you’re more likely to make a killing in the market rather than anywhere else. How are these psychopathic traits particularly useful in modern society? Psychopaths are assertive. Psychopaths don’t procrastinate. Psychopaths tend to focus on the positive. Psychopaths don’t take things personally; they don’t beat themselves up if things go wrong, even if they’re to blame. And they’re pretty cool under pressure. Those kinds of characteristics aren’t just important in the business arena, but also in everyday life. The key here is keeping it in context. Let’s think of psychopathic traits—ruthlessness, toughness, charm, focus— as the dials on a [recording] studio deck. If you were to turn all of those dials up to max, then you’re going to overload the circuit. You’re going to wind up getting 30 years inside or the electric chair or something like that. But if you have some of them up high and some of them down low, depending on the context, in certain endeavors, certain professions, you are going to be predisposed to great success. The key is to be able to turn them back down again. You’ve found that some professions rate higher than others when it comes to psychopathic traits. Which jobs attract psychopaths? I ran a survey in 2011, “The Great British Psychopath Survey,” in which I got people to fill out a questionnaire online to find out how psychopathic they were. I also got people to enter their occupations, what they did for a living, and how much money they earned over the course of a year. We found a whole range of professions cropping up—no serial killers among them, although no one would admit to it. The results made very interesting reading, especially if you’re partial to a sermon or two on a Sunday, because the clergy cropped up there at number eight. You had the usual suspects at the top; you had your CEOs, lawyers, media—TV and radio. Journalists were a bit down the list. We also had civil servants. There were several police officers, actually, so as opposed to being criminals, some psychopaths are actually out there locking other people up. Any situation where you’ve a got a power structure, a hierarchy, the ability to manipulate or wield control over people, you get psychopaths doing very well. What would be a bad career choice for a psychopath? Which professions scored low? No real surprises, actually. There were craftsmen, care workers. Nurses were in there. Accountants were pretty low on psychopathy. One of the interesting ones: doctors. Doctors were low on psychopathy, but surgeons were actually in the top ten, so there’s kind of a dividing line between surgeons and doctors. Can psychopaths have a positive impact on society, as opposed to just using their advantages to get ahead? I’ve interviewed a lot of special forces troops, especially the British Special Air Service. They’re like Navy Seals. That’s a very good example of people who are pretty high on those psychopathic traits who are actually in a perfect occupation. Also, I interview in the book a top neurosurgeon—this was a surgeon who takes on operations that are especially risky—who said to me, “The most important thing when you’re conducting a dangerous operation, a risky operation, is you’ve got to be very cool under pressure, you’ve got to be focused. You can’t have too much empathy for the person that you’re operating on, because you wouldn’t be able to conduct that operation.” Surgeons do very nasty things to people when they’re on the operating table. If things do go wrong, the most important facet in a surgeon’s arsenal is decisiveness. You cannot freeze. You noted in the book that you’re not a psychopath yourself. Despite my profession, I scored pretty low on your survey as well. Can “normals” like you and me learn to develop these psychopathic traits, even if we don’t have them naturally? Absolutely. Normal people can work out their psychopath muscles. It’s kind of like going to the gym in a way, to develop these attributes. It’s just like training. Psychopaths don’t think, should I do this or shouldn’t I do this? They just go ahead and do stuff. So next time you find yourself putting off that chore or filing that report or something, unchain your inner psychopath and ask yourself this: “Since when did I need to feel like something in order to do it?” Another way you can take a leaf out of a psychopath’s book: Psychopaths are very reward-driven. If they see a benefit in something, they zone in on it and they go for it 100 percent. Let’s take an example of someone who is kind of scared of putting in for a raise at work. You might be scared about what the boss might think of you. You might think if you’d don’t get it you’re going to get fired. Forget it. Cut all that stuff off. “Psychopath up,” and overwhelm your negative feelings by concentrating on the benefits of getting it. The bottom line here is, a bit of localized psychopathy is good for all of us. You just came back to England this week from the Himalayas. Did that trip have anything to do with your research into psychopaths? I was running a rather odd study over there. Psychopaths and Buddhists, in terms of their performance in the lab, have certain characteristics in common. They’re good at living in the present. They’re mindful. Both are calm under pressure. They focus on the positive. But also, both are good at mind reading. They’re very good at picking up on micro-expressions, basically lightning-fast changes in facial scenery; our brain downloads onto the muscles of our face before it decides on the real picture that it wants to project to the world. These microexpressions are invisible to most of our naked eyes. But it seems that expert Buddhist meditators are able to pick them up, probably because they are able to slow down their perception. There’s a recent study that seems to show that psychopaths are also good at picking up on micro-expressions. We don’t really know the reason for that, but it could be that psychopaths might spend more time just studying us. What I did was I hot-footed it over the mountains of Northern India on the Tibet border with a laptop. On the laptop were 20 “pleader videos”—clips of press conferences organized by the police where you’ve got folks pleading with the general public for information as to loved ones who’ve gone missing. We know that 10 of these guys have actually done the deed themselves, and 10 people are genuine pleaders. I put them on a laptop, basically took them to the mountains, caves and remote cabins of these expert Buddhist meditator monks in the high Himalayas, and got them to tell me which of the 20 were false and which were true. I’ll be testing psychopaths very shortly, and I am going to see who gets more out of 20. Is it the Buddhist monks, or is it the psychopaths? It was an epic journey. If you don’t like heights and you have a nervous disposition—we’re talking about footwidth edges, thousand-meter drops. Pretty dicey. I mean, you have to be a bit of a psychopath to get to these guys. This interview series focuses on big thinkers. Without knowing whom we will interview next, only that he or she will be a big thinker in their field, what question do you have for our next interview subject? Ask them to take my test and tell me what they score. How psychopathic do they think they are?

Our last interviewee, Alison Dagnes, a political scientist whose book, A Conservative Walks Into a Bar, looks at the liberal bias in political satire, asks: What is your work going to mean for the future? There was a story in the news not too long ago in which there was a U.S. computer company that deliberately advertised for people who have Asperger’s-like traits, because they know these people are very, very good at focusing on data and seeing patterns. So perhaps one of the things that could happen in the future is that certain kinds of industries might actually deliberately screen for people whose psychopath dials are turned up more than normal.

Sadomasochism, the giving or receiving of pleasure from acts involving the receipt or infliction of pain or humiliation
Sadistic personality disorder, an obsolete term proposed for individuals who derive pleasure from the suffering of others
Sexual sadism disorder, a medical/psychological condition for sexual arousal from inflicting pain/humiliation on unwilling, non-consenting victims

Sadomasochism (/ˌseɪdoʊˈmæsəkɪzəm/ SAY-doh-MASS-ə-kiz-əm)^[1] is the giving or receiving of pleasure from acts involving the receipt or infliction of pain or humiliation. Practitioners of sadomasochism may seek sexual gratification from their acts. While the terms sadist and masochist refer respectively to one who enjoys giving and receiving pain, practitioners of sadomasochism may switch between activity and passivity.

Sexual sadism disorder is the condition of experiencing sexual arousal in response to the extreme pain, suffering or humiliation of others.^[1] Several other terms have been used to describe the condition, and the condition may overlap with other conditions that involve inflicting pain. It is distinct from situations in which consenting individuals use mild or simulated pain or humiliation for sexual excitement.^[2] The words sadism and sadist are derived from Marquis de Sade.

Sadistic personality disorder is a personality disorder involving sadism which appeared in an appendix of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III-R).^[1] The later versions of the DSM (DSM-IV, DSM-IV-TR and DSM-5) do not include it.

Aggressive behavior brings emotional pain to sadist

People with sadistic personality traits tend to be aggressive, but only enjoy their aggressive acts if it harms their victims. According to a series of studies of over 2000 people, these actions ultimately leave sadists feeling worse than they felt before their aggressive act.

The research appears in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, published by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

"Sadistic tendencies don't just exist in serial killers, but in everyday people and are strongly-linked to greater aggressive behavior," says David Chester (Virginia Commonwealth University), lead author of the study.

In the real world, sadists might be someone bullying others to feel better, or a group of sports fans looking for rival fans to fight for the "excitement" of it.

In a lab setting, the scientists gauged people's aggressive and sadistic tendencies by measuring participant's likelihood to seek vengeance or to harm an innocent person.

For some cases, the virtual event may have been having someone eat hot sauce as punishment or blasting an opponent with loud noises and reading about their suffering.

With each scenario, the researchers found those with a history of aggression and sadistic behaviors, as measured by personality tests and questionnaires, showed more pleasure in causing harm to others, as expected, but they also saw that their overall mood went down following the event.

The authors were surprised to see the negative impact on mood.

It may be due to how aggression affects the brain, making people perceive something as pleasurable, when it actually creates the opposite effect, suggests Chester.

Better understanding the dynamic emotions that drive sadistic aggression may help people create interventions as well.

How aggression and sadistic behaviors tie into the cycle of violence

If they break the link between pleasure and inflicting pain, by changing how the sadist perceives the harm they inflict, or by helping the sadist understand how it will harm them, Chester suspects we may be able to "short-circuit" the aggression cycle.

The complex relations between the positive feelings before or during aggression in sadists, coupled with the negative mood following a sadistic behavior, suggests there are several ways to understand, and hopefully address, violence.

"Aggression is often thought of as a product of negative feelings such as anger, frustration, and pain -- yet this is not the whole story," says Chester. Their research on the link between aggression and sadism suggest that positive feelings are also an important cause of human violence.

"Going forward, psychologists should not neglect this side of the aggressive coin," says Chester.

Colleagues C. Nathan DeWall and Brian Enjaian (both University of Kentucky) contributed to the research.

Sadism

sadist

Everyday sadists take pleasure in others' pain

Psychopathology

Emotion

Aggression

Social psychology

Maternal bond

Panic attack

Cluster headache

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