Test of Psychopathy 2
Each card has a color on one side and an alphanumeric symbol on the other.
Rule: If it is blue on one side, it is a 5 on the other.
Which card(s) do you need to flip over to test the rule?
However, most people do get the question half right. They mess up the "not q." Almost everyone picks p. And rarely does anyone pick "not p" (purple.)
Enter matching bias: people pick the choices that are actually written in the question, i.e. "blue" and "5." This can be exemplified by rewriting the question:
If it is blue on one side, it is NOT a 5 on the other.
Written this way, people still choose the blue and the 5, because those appear in the question.
Another example:
If it is blue...
is logically the same as
If it is not purple...
But the second way increases the rates of choosing purple, because "purple" is a match.
II.
Does it overwhelm logic? No.
TA= true antecedent (p)FA= false antecedent (not p)
TC=true consequent (q)
FC= false consequent (not q)
In all of the above examples, the purple card (FA) is wrong. Though it is chosen more often when it matches the question ("if the card is not purple...") it still is the least chosen card by far, because humans are generally good enough at logic to understand that to test the rule, the antecedent has to be true.
III.
So the situation is that people are typically bad at logic, but they are good enough to know that in order for the rule to be tested, p (the antecedent) has to be true.
Matching bias can affect choices, but even that isn't enough to extinguish p as the most commonly chosen answer. They may, or may not, also pick other choices (not p, q, not q, or a combination) but everyone picks p-- especially if it matches the question.
Everyone, that is, except psychopaths.
Review: psychopaths are worse at social contract and precautionary logic than are normals. But what mistake did they make? Did they all choose q? Not choose "not q?"
For that, we'd need access to the raw data. Fortunately, my writing partner, Elisa, is a female, and she was able to email the authors of the study to get the raw data.
And this is what she found:
- Descriptives (did not choose p): psychopaths 42% normals: 34%
- Precautions (did not choose p): psychopaths 38% normals:13%
- Social Contract (did not choose p): psychopaths 42% normals: 21%
Psychopaths are remarkably terrible at choosing what should be both the logical choice and the one the matching bias should have nudged them to choose anyway.
You might want to give psychopaths the benefit of the doubt-- maybe they just got overwhelmed by all of the choices?
No; in fact, their version of the test was easier than my version, above. They were shown each card independently, with a leading question:
It seems, well, obvious that if "Helen borrowed the car" there's a chance she could violate the rule by not returning it. The back of that card could say "returned it" or "didn't return it." By contrast, Screen 5 "Dave did not borrow the car" is pointless to choose.
But psychopaths don't see t like that. It seems that they read the question as "SINCE Helen borrowed the car, she is at least halfway honoring the rule"-- so she didn't violate it.
What we are coming to is not a fault in logic, per se, but a different understanding of what a rule is.
Part 3 soon
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December 21, 2010 11:48 AM | Posted by : | Reply
These logic posts remind me of a quote by GK Chesteron. Writing of English writer Thomas Carlyle, he said this:
"The supreme value of Carlyle to English literature was that he was the founder of modern irrationalism; a movement fully as important as modern rationalism. A great deal is said in these days about the value or valuelessness of logic. In the main, indeed, logic is not a productive tool so much as a weapon of defence. A man building up an intellectual system has to build like Nehemiah, with the sword in one hand and the trowel in the other. The imagination, the constructive quality, is the trowel, and argument is the sword. A wide experience of actual intellectual affairs will lead most people to the conclusion that logic is mainly valuable as a weapon wherewith to exterminate logicians.
But though this may be true enough in practice, it scarcely clears up the position of logic in human affairs. Logic is a machine of the mind, and if it is used honestly it ought to bring out an honest conclusion. When people say that you can prove anything by logic, they are not using words in a fair sense. What they mean is that you can prove anything by bad logic. Deep in the mystic ingratitude of the soul of man there is an extraordinary tendency to use the name for an organ, when what is meant is the abuse or decay of that organ. Thus we speak of a man suffering from ‘nerves,’ which is about as sensible as talking about a man suffering from ten fingers. We speak of ‘liver’ and ‘digestion’ when we mean the failure of liver and the absence of digestion. And in the same manner we speak of the dangers of logic, when what we really mean is the danger of fallacy.
But the real point about the limitation of logic and the partial overthrow of logic by writers like Carlyle is deeper and somewhat different. The fault of the great mass of logicians is not that they bring out a false result, or, in other words, are not logicians at all. Their fault is that by an inevitable psychological habit they tend to forget that there are two parts of a logical process–the first the choosing of an assumption, and the second the arguing upon it; and humanity, if it devotes itself too persistently to the study of sound reasoning, has a certain tendency to lose the faculty of sound assumption. It is astonishing how constantly one may hear from rational and even rationalistic persons such a phrase as ‘He did not prove the very thing with which he started,’ or ‘The whole of his case rested upon a pure assumption,’ two peculiarities which may be found by the curious in the works of Euclid. It is astonishing, again, how constantly one hears rationalists arguing upon some deep topic, apparently without troubling about the deep assumptions involved, having lost their sense, as it were, of the real colour and character of a man’s assumption. For instance, two men will argue about whether patriotism is a good thing and never discover until the end, if at all, that the cosmopolitan is basing his whole case upon the idea that man should, if he can, become as God, with equal sympathies and no prejudices, while the nationalist denies any such duty at the very start, and regards man as an animal who has preferences, as a bird has feathers."
Score: 10 (14 votes cast)
December 21, 2010 12:40 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Oh, please add something to say that cards are colors on one side and not colors on the other. This example is still broken by the possibility of a card that is blue on one side and purple on the other.
Score: 6 (18 votes cast)
December 21, 2010 12:53 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"Oh, please add something to say that cards are colors on one side and not colors on the other. This example is still broken by the possibility of a card that is blue on one side and purple on the other."
Seems Last Psych either didn't read the comments after the first post, or didn't care what anyone had to say.
Score: 8 (12 votes cast)
December 21, 2010 1:17 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I picked purple, because I didn't make the assumption that cards have one color on one side and a number/letter on the other. So I thought, if the card is purple/blue than the rule is violated. Did anywhere in your description said that cards have color/letter(or number) pair? These are not regular playing cards, they could have blue on one side and purple on the other if it's not clearly declared in the description.
As for "Helen borrowed the car" (I'm probably psychopath) I thought that, maybe she hasn't returned it yet, so if she hasn't filled the tank that doesn't necessary means that she broke the rule.
Score: 2 (6 votes cast)
December 21, 2010 2:41 PM | Posted by : | Reply
So how did they define 'psychopath' for the purposes of this study? Isn't that just as important as the results? What test determined if the subjects were psychopaths?
It's possible that the way we define 'psychopath' would skew the results of this study; in other words, perhaps a psychopath by *definition* is a person who is bad at social reasoning. A psychopath doesn't come tattooed with the label on their head, it's something we've given them. Maybe our definition is biased toward people who are bad at social reasoning, in which case this study is pointless.
I'm not a psychiatrist or psychologist, so maybe I'm missing something obvious here. Maybe the definition should be well known to me.
Score: 11 (13 votes cast)
December 21, 2010 3:15 PM | Posted by : | Reply
@Adrian:
The question was not: "Is it possible that this teenager didn't violate the rule?" It was "Could this teenager have violated the rule?"
Agreed on the purple thing, though.
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
December 21, 2010 3:49 PM | Posted by : | Reply
@mwigdahl:
My mistake, didn't read the question too attentively. Was just thinking about flipping the card and I thought the question was "Did this teenager violate the rule?" or something along that line...
Score: -1 (1 votes cast)
December 21, 2010 4:09 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"Fortunately, my writing partner, Elisa, is a female, and she was able to email the authors of the study to get the raw data."
I knew it! Behind every great man is a woman. And since you are supposedly a psychiatrist, I bet she is your ghostwriter and you just put your name to the posts just like those psychiatrists who write textbooks and other literature for drug companies.
Nice to meet you, Elisa! Keep up the good work- you are a great writer. I encourage you to step out of the shadow here and strike out on your own...but, I understand that you might need to stay here for financial reasons...perhaps an extra generous donation by me today will do the trick!
Score: -17 (21 votes cast)
December 21, 2010 5:09 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I could say something snarky about your failed logic and your sex here but I won't. Rather I will posit that Elisa is an alias Alone used to get the data HE wanted.
Sorry to disappoint. You should have read the other article and thought about it a little bit.
Score: 11 (13 votes cast)
December 21, 2010 5:23 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Feel free to say something snarky, I've heard it all. I will just say to you that I did read the other article AND that Alone would like you to believe that Elisa is simply an alias...that's what men do- take credit when it's not theirs to take.
Score: -13 (17 votes cast)
December 21, 2010 5:46 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Ok just to point out the obvious, but while psychopaths tend to do poorly on these, it does not mean there is an opposite association (at least this here doesn't prove that!)
It makes me really sad when I think of people like me who suck at logic like this being considered a horrible person that is not safe to society just because we failed a logic test.
And there's going to be so much more of that. : (
Psychopaths are messed up, but not all messed up people are psychopaths. Some of us just have cognitive deficits.
Score: 3 (5 votes cast)
December 21, 2010 5:58 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
I am a psychopath-I'm currently in jail-yet I scored perfectly on this test. What's up with that?
Score: 4 (4 votes cast)
December 21, 2010 6:39 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
What's up with that? You're a psychopath who understands logic. Go figure.
Score: 2 (4 votes cast)
December 21, 2010 7:23 PM | Posted by : | Reply
So what's the practical difference between a psychopath and an autistic person? Neither of them can really empathize or acknowledge other people as really real.
Score: 2 (2 votes cast)
December 21, 2010 8:47 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"Neither of them can really empathize or acknowledge other people as really real" Are you sure that's int he definition of autistic? Autism spectrum is a pretty huge varience. It's speculated (as I understood) that in many cases (I'm not sure what portion); people with austism may have the ability to feel emotions, but they lack the ability to cognitively or verbally express themselves in a way that others can relate and they lack the ability to pick up on social ques(?) and facial expressions to understand the feelings of others. This and they lack certain internal ability to explore their internal feelings in the same way that "normal" people can.
This is a different thing than not believing that others exist or not caring about them. With autism, it's more not understand HOW to care about them even though knowing others exists, whereas with psychopathy, as I understand it; the feelings of others may be understood, but they are considered to not matter because the only person that matters is the psychopaths self.
I haven't researched psychopathy because quite frankly it's rather upsetting subject matter. I have a problem lumping psychopaths who are capable of unspeakable cruelty in with general cognitive deficits or the whole of autism spectrum disorders because they simply are not one and the same, and the last thing we need is more stigma against people who are just different but do not pose any harm to others.
Score: 1 (3 votes cast)
December 21, 2010 9:58 PM | Posted by : | Reply
"Dave did not borrow the car." OK, so if Dave just decides to stop by my house and fill my tank with gas, that's cool? How well do I know Dave? If psychopaths are turning over that card and "normals" aren't, maybe we need to rethink these results. Iff/if, yadayada
Score: -3 (3 votes cast)
December 22, 2010 12:39 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Great Test , I realy Liked it ......the way it was explained this is womderful :)
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 22, 2010 12:46 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
It's assumed that all cars must have a color on one side and a number on another side. This was never explicitly stated as a rule, but it was intuitive and implied that this was a rule. True, if this was a proper logical puzzle it would be broken, but it's sort of a rough sketch - don't split hairs, the point stands.
Score: 1 (3 votes cast)
December 22, 2010 12:51 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
(same anon above) and I would add that this rule would have to specify all cards have ONLY a colored side and a lettered side and nothing else. Otherwise the possibility exists it could be a symbol or it could be a pattern or it could be a word or anything at all.
But like I said, it was IMPLIED that one side is colored and one side has a letter/number. It wasn't explicitly stated that no card had a picture of a rainbow on it either, for that matter, but no one was looking out for rainbows. Why then would you look out for a double colored card? Ur usin' yer human brain.
Score: 1 (3 votes cast)
December 22, 2010 12:56 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Gettin some wicked second hand embarrassment right now.
Only a man would think to use a woman to get information. Only a man would think this because as a man he knows what it is like to desire and be powerless before a young co-ed female who is oh so interested and infatuated in you (-r work).
No woman would write the sexist tripe frequently spewing from TLPs keyboard.
Score: -4 (8 votes cast)
December 22, 2010 1:03 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Hello little anon who failed the logic test ...
The thing is, a person with a cognitive deficit will score poorly across ALL measures of logic, meaning to say they will fail logical questions about social contracts just as miserably as non-social contract questions. What makes psychopaths special is that they have a specific cognitive deficit which is centered ONLY ON SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND CONTRACTS. When the question is not socially motivated, they understand as well as anyone else (with the bell curve deviations and all, with some doing well and some doing poorly and most being in the middle)... however, they hav ea specific reasoning/rule acknowledgment deficit when specifically dealing with social behavior.
I would say when someone has a very wide gap between their social reasoning and general reasoning, it is safe to say you are dealing with a potentially shitty shitty shitty human being.
When someone fails all logical tests equally, they aren't necessarily shitty person, it is much more likely that they are just bad at logic.
I would argue that this is yet more evidence psychopathy may share some similar cognitive/neurological traits with autism (a general retardation of the social brain), and it would explain why both are vastly overrepresented among males (less developed social brain as evolution tends to rewards males who do not necessarily follow the status quo, who are capable of leadership and some degree of social apathy/indifference... when these traits are expressed pathologically they become a neuropsych disorder)
Score: -1 (3 votes cast)
December 22, 2010 1:12 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Yes, as I said in the previous discussion, what makes someone a "psychopath" must be more than a deficit of the social brain in acknowledging/understanding rules. It is probably this, as well as other personality traits (such as aggression, impulsivity, novelty seeking) and social factors (lack of socialization/relationships, deprivation, abuse?)
Although, going by this information, it is a good prospect to assume that psychopaths are going to be overrepresented among autistic spectrum individuals. This fits very much with the whole "crazy psychopathic engineer" stereotype of serial killers and others who routinely violate peoples rights for self gratification.
It would also explain why psychopaths are so often men as it is well researched that autistic spectrum brains are overwhelmingly male ones and there seems to be something specific about testosterone prenatally which can potentially really fuck up the social brain. When you imagine a serial killer who eats peoples brains for fun and then has sex with the cavity left behind, and can't understand or care why it' a problem, do you imagine a woman, or do you imagine a man? How much money do you place on your guess that this person is a man? I know I would bet my life savings and I am sure I would be that much richer , lol. Not a shot in hell that person is a biological female. Prenatal testosterone does this to the brain.
Score: 0 (2 votes cast)
December 22, 2010 1:18 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Or more succinctly...
An autistic person has profound social brain deficit but does not habitually violate social rules on purpose.
A psychopath has a milder social brain deficit which is explicitly focused on contracts and reciprocity (rules, obligations, caring about the impact your behavior has on others).
It's sort of the difference between a person with no legs (thus unable to walk to the store), and a person who's brain makes them too lazy to get up and walk to the store. Both have biologically real deficits in their ability to get up and go to the store, but the former person has a complete and total inability to do it (no equipment, no legs) whereas the latter has a milder personality trait which makes their behavior push them toward slothfulness and laziness (a lack of ability to use their legs properly due to their trait stable biologically influenced tendency to be "lazy").
Score: 0 (0 votes cast)
December 22, 2010 1:31 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Watch a psychopath vex the "What not to wear" hosts. It was like watching a textbook come to life. "I feel.... I feel...":
http://blogs.discovery.com/tlc-what-not-to-wear/2010/12/and-then-there-was-sarah-.html
Score: -2 (2 votes cast)
December 22, 2010 2:01 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Autistic people can empathize but lack the instinctive ability to comprehend social cues/rules. Psychopaths cannot empathize but can comprehend social cues/rules. IQ determines how each will compensate for the deficit, but you can tease out the psychopaths the way these researchers did by creating logic puzzles with a moral pretext. Both successful psychopaths and aspergers' sufferers learn social rules by rote instead of relying on instinct, but only aspergers' care about the end result.
Score: 5 (5 votes cast)
December 22, 2010 3:27 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Psychopaths you envy, autistics you feel sorry for.
Score: 1 (3 votes cast)
December 22, 2010 3:36 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Social rules are really complicated.
"If you borrow the car, then you have to fill up the tank with gas".
Who does "you" refer to in that sentence?
"You" is tricky, because it's meaning depends on who is being spoken to (and some people - e.g. some people with autism - can't even get that right). But this use of "you" is worse.
Naive reading:
1. "You" -> "Susan" (i.e. me, the person reading the rule).
2. "If you borrow the car, then you have to fill up the tank with gas". -> "If Susan borrows the car, then Susan has to fill up the tank with gas."
3. "Helen borrowed the car" does not match p in the p->q form (as "Helen"
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