I tell a lie actually. I once did feel an urge to murder, a serious one, not a 'I will bloody kill them' passing thought. When it was revealed my little brother had been abused by an 18 year old when I was 16. I genuinely was going to kill him and I did not give a **** at all that his family would be grieving and such. The only thing that managed to stop me was my parents saying about me going to prison. I think that scared them a bit, that no 'emotional' reasoning with me worked, and only bringing up a possible consequence for myself helped. And even then I went into how I would effectively 'hide' what I had done and maybe try to frame someone else if I could not make it out to be an accident.

I am very good at 'faking' guilt for stuff. I learnt that as a young child. I did know deep down that I was nothing like my siblings or parents.

It feels odd to finally get this out properly..as the only person I can speak about properly about this is my psychiatrist. And I only ended up seeing her because a gambing counselor once mentioned to me that from what I said to her, it sounded like I was a sociopath :S It worried me a lot as I was of the opinion that sociopaths were naturally really horrible people (also I did not meet the 'requirements' completely, as I do have emotions when my children/family are involved, so not totally emotionless), but it turns out thats not necessarily the case at all. And that a lot of people like me can effectively act 'normal' pretty easily.

Though I do admit, I am not normal at all and when I want to, I can manipulate most situations into my chosen conclusion with literally no thought at all to how it will affect anyone else. As an example I have purposely split up long term relationships as it was convenient for me to do so. And did not care at all when I saw how sad both parties were because of my actions. That kind of thing. I genuinely do not care about the consequences for anyone other than myself. I can pretend to. But I don't. I cannot 'empathize'. Again, I have tried, but I can't. I can pretend to pretty convincingly though.

I know this is making me out to be absolutely horrendous. Not even sure why I have gone so much into this on here as its not really relevant at all. But yeah, I don't believe a videogame could be a trigger.

That's a trigger though, you can't blame a trigger since anything and nothing can be a trigger for violence when it comes to violent people. They could have copied something they saw on TV or read in a book but that doesn't mean we scapegoat books or TV.

The Columbine killers were disturbed individuals that would have done what they did regardless of if they played Doom or not. It wasn't a game that put them on that path.

I remember reading a while back that psychopaths and the like often feel like the world around them isn't real and that's why they do what they do without a conscience because to them, they aren't hurting something that's alive, they're killing something that isn't real. I think any form of media could be dangerous to an individual like that because they can't distinguish between reality and their delusions. That's where things become dangerous, as long as a person understands the difference between reality and fiction then I don't think a game can affect a normal person in a lasting way (obviously like a film, games can be emotional or promote fear but that's VERY short term, just like a film would).

It's more important to look at why killers kill and to learn what the signs and events were that led to them killing then it is to scapegoat their actions. It's why I get quite passionate on this subject. The Helen Lovejoys of the world that think games are a corrupting force are just providing excuses for killers, it doesn't help anyone to blame films, games or music for someone's actions.

I would say there is probably a lot of truth in that old scream quote, personally

'Don't you blame the movies. Movies don't create psychos. Movies make psychos more creative!'

Well.. anything hypothetically could do it. Tripping on a twig could hypothetically do it, but lets not ban oxygen and water. Theres a long line of issues that would need to occur before anyone attempts to murder.

there will never be metrics connecting video games to behavior. They do however have an age recommendation associated with them which in itself indicates unsuitability for an impressionable audience. That is an acknowledgement that they do influence people

This neuroscientist was shocked to discover he was... as he had no idea, he could only assume that due to to his life experiences he hadn't been 'triggered'.
Unless you do kill someone then I guess being a psychopath is nothing to be ashamed of?

I can't watch beheadings or anything, gory films terrify me and yet faced with a real life situation involving serious injury doesn't phase me at all.
I identify with the manipulative and charismatic part I suppose.
The most telling being how I need to 'rest' after being around people.... it's just so draining.

If I'm being perfectly honest I wouldn't trust myself to act rationally and revenge for major slights was sweet, as I've joked before I don't know how my ex is still alive... he must have a cast iron stomach. That was for hitting my son, I remember it as clear as day it was like a switch, all the love I had for him vanished in an instant and I just wanted him dead. :hehe:

Too much mario cart 64 maybe? haha!

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...f-a-psychopath

It's good to get it out Vicky....

That'll be £250 please, see you next Sunday for our next session?

:joker:

From that article I searched for this hare psychopathy checklist..as the wiki link didn't have the actual questions. I found this

http://uk.businessinsider.com/hare-p...ficial-charm-1

And I score 17/20 on it

So thats scary.

So maybe psychopath instead of sociopath. Which is nice...

Only ones that don't apply to me are
Do you have a grandiose sense of self-worth? (though I do very often feel that I should have more than I have, even from not working for it...so maybe?)
Have you had many short-term "marital" relationships?
Do you have a "parasitic lifestyle"? (though this one does kind of apply to me at the moment due to illness. But when I am not ill its a no so I don't think its right to apply this one for sake of the test)

One of the comments on the guardian link is interesting to me 'I've often wondered if psychopathy could not be treated with MDMA (ecstasy), a drug renowned for massively increasing empathy.'. As my own experiences with MDMA made me feel like a complete different person, which is why I was so heavily into it as a teenager as it was so...alien to me.

I've got to go with what Kizzy says here. Its not always there. Whilst its true that sociopathy/psychopathy is usually predisposed to the gene pool, its not always the case. Frontal lobe injuries often cause the recovered person to show sociopathic traits that weren't previously there.

But back to being born with sociopathic genes. Modern thinking say it’s the environment that is often the catalyst that nurtures those genes. Therefore, a child born with a sociopathic genes, brought up in a healthy environment is less likely to exhibit traits as an adult but a child brought up in an abusive environment is more likely to go through the ripple effect that can lead to psychopathic behavior.

Its interesting what you say about your self diagnosis. There are a lot of people with sociopathic traits amongst us but don’t have enough traits to have a diagnosis and are therefore not sociopaths.

I was well under at 20, many of the things that referred to childhood kept me below 30 so maybe something happened in my early adult life that flipped me?
I can think of a few things... :/

Its not a self-diagnosis. It came first from, my counselor, then from my psychiatrist, who I only actually went to after thinking a lot about what my counselor said :laugh:

The rest just kind of fell into place after that. And I can now see how it all ties together.

Yeah, I just answered the questions as they were posted. Realized afterwards it was meant to be done on a never/sometimes/always basis. And my total score that way is 35.

(Still put 0 for parasitic lifestyle though. As while technically it applies right now, its not by choice and I would change that tomorrow if I could)

What did your counselor call it?

She said I sounded like a sociopath. (her job was not to actually diagnose or anything, but to help me through my gambling issues, though I basically only went to her in the first place as I knew if it looked like I was getting some form of treatment, the court would go easier on me)
I asked why this was. And she went into quite a bit of detail about how I don't appear to feel guilt at all for what I did. In short I ripped off a bunch of people and the only bit that mattered to me was that I was caught and was going to be punished. When she had asked me how I felt about it all now and what I regret, I was honest and said the only part I regret is that I was caught. She said how would I think the people on the recieving end of my crime would feel and I said 'stupid' as they were obviously not intelligent enough to realize that it was all bogus. I still try to blame them in some way, and still do not feel guilty. Or even see them as 'real people' to be quite honest.

My shrink has gone into it all a fair bit more (obviously) and she has mentioned both Sociopathic Personality Disorder and Antisocial personality disorder. Reckons theres no actual treatment though :S And I have never done that test or anything before today. It seems to be just on observations from telling her about my life that she has decided this.

Noone besides my husband know about this. Except y'all now :laugh:

10/20.

Surprising, I always thought I had some tendencies but perhaps it's not as bad as I thought it was.

That's probably the issue here.

There's a world of difference between a trigger and a cause.

A trigger sets off something already wrong, and can come from a multitude of things. A cause is something different and suggests something like a video game can cause a mentally healthy person to change.

I believe they can trigger, like many things in life can trigger unwell people to do irrational and violent things. I don't believe they're a cause in any way shape or form.

Out of the millions upon millions of people who have watched Chuckie of all ages and backgrounds, 2 kids using it as inspiration for the despicable acts they'd have committed with or without it is no evidence that horror movies or video games cause these things.

I did't put forward the chuckie analogy.

Could it not be a trigger for those who do have issues and a cause for those who don't?

I genuinely do not believe that playing violent videogames can turn an otherwise normal person into a killer. I really don't. Is this what you mean by this?

I never said you did. I used the point about triggers vs cause to add my thoughts to the threads conversation which included the Bulger case.

In answer to your question, no I don't think so. As I've never come across any such crimes committed by people without issues and I've never come across anyone nor have any studies highlighted an individual who became mentally unbalanced due to a video game, movie or other.

I agree with Vicky on the Scream quote.
Movies and games might give psychos ideas but they were a psycho beforehand. Bulger's killers were apparently influenced by Chucky, if that film didn't exist they'd have used other methods. Chucky didn't make them kill.

It's like the other point someone made about kids play fighting. Kids use their imaginations and play make believe anyway. So if they didn't have the idea from watching TV to play "Power Rangers" for example, they'd be messing about and playing something of their own creation.

The same goes for psychos IMO.

Also, remind me not to get on Vicky's bad side.

No game, film, book, song, TV show etc can make someone a killer, they can (like all things) can TRIGGER violent behavior in violent individuals but they are never the cause of violent incidents.

Blaming video games for violent behavior is essentially vindicating violent people for their actions.

Well we won't go into that whole cause and effect debate again :)

It's not a debate though, a psychologically healthy individual can't be prompted to commit murder by an external source like a movie or game. It's just not even a realistic claim. An already disturbed individual might be "triggered by", or get specific ideas from, something like a game, movie or book but that's sort of a moot point... because the same could be said of myriad sources. They could be triggered by or get ideas from the 6 o'clock news, or something as simple as a word-of-mouth story. Should we ban news broadcasts and conversation?

In fact - if you care to have a look into some of the world's most notorious serial killers - there are a very large numbers who were inspired by other real-life killers more than anything else... so, by reading the news, basically. Mass shootings and things like that, especially, are often inspired by the infamy of previous mass-shooters, and the vast amount of media attention.

I maintain that there are far more disturbing and horrific stories in the real world / real news every single day than I have ever seen in any movie or video game.

Potential triggers of all sorts of things are absolutely everywhere, and you can't even fully identify each one until hindsight. Some people may be tempted to "ban everything!!" in an attempt to remove those triggers and keep people "safer" but not only would it be logically impossible - it would also be ineffective. If it's not one thing, it'll only be something else that no one had considered.

It's an interesting read but it does note that there's no real evidence to link violent games to actual real life violence (it also implies that games like the one this thread is about could actually benefit children :laugh: )

The other thing in all of this is that noone is ever forced to play a violent game and they're not imposed onto us by game manufacturers, they exist because we want them to. There's something within us that makes us want to play them and enact fake/fictional violence, so are violent video games influencing us or are we influencing them? What's the real cause and effect in all of this? I sort of wonder what makes someone want to play one in the first place (I'm one of those people incase anyone thinks I'm trying to imply something) but it is a curious thing. I've enjoyed violence within games but I've never been a violent person in real life. Any link could just be that violent people may enjoy playing fictional violence and because of issues they already have, may relate them to real experiences, whereas non-violent people would play them without relating them to real experiences. But the cause of those violent peoples tendencies still wouldn't be the game itself.