# Can you think like a psychopath?
**URL:** https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307
**Category:** Psychology and Mind
**Created:** [March 9, 2008, 4:31pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307 "2008-03-09T16:31:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Wonderer](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Wonderer)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2008, 4:31pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/1 "2008-03-09T16:31:35Z")
if you can answer this question correctly then you are mentally equipped to be a psychopath (apparently)
there was a woman whose uncle died. at the funeral she met the guy of her dreams and they had passionate sex all night…
the next day when he left they forgot to exchange numbers.
the next day the woman killed her father… why?
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### Author:  [@Wonderer](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Wonderer)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2008, 5:38pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/2 "2008-03-09T17:38:23Z")
did you get it?.. scroll down a bit…
it was in hopes she would meet him again at her fathers funeral…
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### Author:  [@MagsJ](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/MagsJ)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2008, 5:43pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/3 "2008-03-09T17:43:32Z")
…because she was a psycho? other than that, I don’t know…
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### Author:  [@MagsJ](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/MagsJ)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2008, 5:45pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/4 "2008-03-09T17:45:26Z")
Why not just ask everybody if they knew him/knew who he was? 😒
Pathetic!
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### Author:  [@tose](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/tose)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2008, 7:29pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/5 "2008-03-09T19:29:42Z")
She was upset over loss: the loss of her newfound lover, and the loss of her uncle.
Loss being a process whereby an outside power takes away something that you care about, and naturally brings about feelings of helplessness, despair, and impossible impediment.
This process was manifested through death and the combined forgetfulness of the two lovers.
To avoid suffering the same loss if she was to also lose her father, she killed him.
In this way there is no outside force taking something away from her; she is solely responsible, and thus able to avoid the same feelings that occurred with her uncle’s death and her lover’s departure.
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### Author:  [@Cyrene](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Cyrene)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2008, 9:04pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/6 "2008-03-09T21:04:28Z")
> [@Wonderer](#):
>
> if you can answer this question correctly then you are mentally equipped to be a psychopath (apparently)
>
> there was a woman whose uncle died. at the funeral she met the guy of her dreams and they had passionate sex all night…
>
> the next day when he left they forgot to exchange numbers.
>
> the next day the woman killed her father… why?
The idea that all psychopaths think alike or even remotely alike is questionable at best. They have similiar qualities like lack of empathy, lack of emotional control, etc, thats not the same though. Since people can/are genetically predisposed to psycopathy, who knows what she was thinking? environmental stimuli turn genes on and off on people, a gene turns on by some environmental situation, and maybe you go whacko, theres no way to say for certain.
They could have snapped under the stress, they could have had a previously bad relationship with their father, the loss of both people could have set of prefrontal cortex problems.
Theres no way to really tell.
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### Author:  [@bike\_seat](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/bike_seat)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2008, 1:07am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/7 "2008-03-10T01:07:09Z")
This question is flawed. It assumes sociopaths are all the same.
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### Author:  [@Wonderer](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Wonderer)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2008, 1:44am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/8 "2008-03-10T01:44:46Z")
oh yes i agree there is no one way to test sanity, and i suppose this question might be based in empathy.
but i think it would be interesting to see what kind of person would make the logical connection. the “psychopath” element is honestly for a little hype.
still though it is interesting; she killed him in hopes the man would attend her fathers funeral as well…
i know i didn’t make the connection… did anyone?
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### Author:  [@MagsJ](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/MagsJ)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2008, 1:48am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/9 "2008-03-10T01:48:06Z")
I didn’t make the connection either!
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### Author:  [@Faust](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Faust)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2008, 1:53am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/10 "2008-03-10T01:53:43Z")
I think I dated that woman once.
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### Author:  [@bike\_seat](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/bike_seat)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2008, 1:54am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/11 "2008-03-10T01:54:40Z")
Also, how exactly is this question supposed to validate whether or not you’re a sociopath? It’s more of a question of character and decision making and how you end up at the final decision made. Technically there isn’t a right or wrong answer…
at least to me
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### Author:  [@Wonderer](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Wonderer)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2008, 5:19am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/12 "2008-03-10T05:19:13Z")
well i never suggested their was a right or wrong answer, and i conceded the fact that the “sociopath” nature is somewhat hype.
you cannot learn if you don’t try or never ask questions.
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### Author:  [@Gaiaguerrilla](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Gaiaguerrilla)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2008, 3:31pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/13 "2008-03-10T15:31:22Z")
I think there is some reason to the test you describe.
A psychopath can think calmly like a puzzle in the face of any sort of violent or deadly incident. We automatically think the story is absurd. So all we come up with is more absurdity. To the psychopath there’s nothing absurd about it. So he easily moves beyond the question to consider possibilities.
Our general reaction is even a hint of humour. To the psychopath there’s nothing even humourous there. It’s just . . . there. Violence and killing are not acts of anger. They are simple means to appropriate whatever they want.
I think the test is quite brilliant. Certainly not enough to declare someone a psychopath. I assumed she just wanted to kill some random person out of rage for her loss. But as a psychopath she wouldn’t do it out of anger. So what other reason. I see.
For the record a psychopath doesn’t have empathy for human suffering or prosperity. A sociopath targets a specific group of people and develops the same sort of relationship to them as the psychopath.
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### Author:  [@Maytacera](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Maytacera)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2008, 7:08pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/14 "2008-03-10T19:08:27Z")
I took this test as some point…under a different name. It’s a criminology test to see if you are capable of making connections that people would normally not think of. Understanding the mind of a killer is a complicated thing, in that they DO make these connections sometimes.
She killed her father because she believed that since this stranger had shown up and the funeral of one of her family members, he might show up at her fathers. In her mind, this man is linked to deaths in her family.
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### Author:  [@koifer](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/koifer)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2008, 7:49pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/15 "2008-03-10T19:49:49Z")
Was the test online? Care to share results?
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### Author:  [@Maytacera](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Maytacera)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2008, 8:10pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/16 "2008-03-10T20:10:13Z")
No, not online. It was just one of a few stories that a teacher of mine presented to us in school.
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### Author:  [@Wonderer](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Wonderer)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2008, 9:53pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/17 "2008-03-10T21:53:00Z")
i was similarly intrigued by the afterwards evident connection and that i was not myself able to make the connection. and i do think there is something to be said in terms of how a psychopath would solve the question differently from normal people, but i also think that is far to narrow of a sample and too subjective to be conclusive, yet it remains intriguing…
I’ve never seen anyone answer the question right… have you?
if they answered it right would you feel the same about that person?
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### Author:  [@Maytacera](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Maytacera)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2008, 5:26pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/18 "2008-03-11T17:26:49Z")
I actually answered it right the first time it was presented to me. Several other members in my class arrived at the same conclusion.
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### Author:  [@Gaiaguerrilla](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Gaiaguerrilla)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2008, 11:39pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/19 "2008-03-11T23:39:01Z")
I think the act of group thinking distorted the results. This is a question you would tend to alone.
I wouldn’t think differently about the person. I’d applaud their quick thinking. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve encountered dozens of psychopaths but they didn’t cause me problems, just remained strangers to my sociopathic tendency.
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### Author:  [@nano-bug](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/nano-bug)
#### Post date: [March 12, 2008, 12:16am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/can-you-think-like-a-psychopath/20307/20 "2008-03-12T00:16:22Z")
I have fantasized about watching someone leave their house, i’m mean staking it out, then when they leave breaking in during the daytime when neighbors might see me, and going directly in the kitchen, opening the refridgerator door and looking for lunch meat. If i find the lunch meat i rip the bag open like a savage and start eating it all by the handful. Mind you, i dont know how long the homeowner is gone for, could come back anytime, but that doesn’t matter because I exit right away, touching nothing, stealing nothing, except a toothpick, if they happened to have one, and leaving out the front door, quite naturally, and walking down the middle of the road, cleaning my teeth with the tooth pick, then whistling, listening for police sirens, but hearing none, getting home safe and sound. I have thought about this often, but I hardly feel I would ever do it. Does that make me a psychopath or sociopath or just a turkey meat thief?
No need to call local authorites 
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