Many who have been hurt by sociopaths develop a general distrust of others. This distrust is understandable given how difficult it often is to tell if another person is a sociopath. However, going through life with distrust is not a pleasant way to live. Victims naturally then want to know in detail what sociopaths are about so they can identify the untrustables, and go back to trusting everyone else.
One of the purposes of this website is to describe sociopaths and teach people to identify them. Sociopaths are pathological liars who like to talk as experts on many topics. They manipulate others and generally have a high opinion of themselves. They also lack remorse for their actions and don’t seem to care about the pain they cause others. In fact they seem to enjoy inflicting all types pain (harm) on others.
The enjoyment of hurting another person is called sadism. Sadism usually refers to enjoying another’s physical pain. However, sociopaths enjoy inflicting all manner of pain on others including financial, emotional, psychological and social.
To sum it up sociopaths are in the business of reducing people to nothing and then taking glory in their accomplishment.
I have just described the most important “traits” of sociopaths. Many of you are saying, “Yes right on, that described mine exactly.” But are you satisfied?
You probably do not feel satisfied because you are left with wondering why. Why would someone do that? If you discover the answer to the “why question” you can go back to trusting everyone else again because you would understand the sick motives of sociopaths.
Normal people don’t enjoy watching other people suffer do they?
Here is where some get stuck, because many people secretly and not so secretly hope they live long enough to see the sociopath finally suffer. Well, if you can enjoy another’s suffering what makes you different from the sociopath?
If we examine the reasons why we would take pleasure in a sociopath’s suffering, we see there are two basic reasons. One is revenge and the other is our ability to consider the sociopath as “inhuman.” If a sociopath is not really human, then it is OK to enjoy that private moment of our imagined revenge.
There are therefore two basic routes to sadism. The first is through the power motive. Revenge is about reasserting power over someone who has robbed us of power. The power motive is also called the social dominance drive.
I am grateful to Caesar Milan the dog whisperer, for educating the public about dominance. We all know that a dominant dog has no problem inflicting pain on underlings to assert his dominance.
The second route to sadism is called “compartmentalization” by psychologists. A person who compartmentalizes has a motive (drive) to inflict pain on someone and so rationalizes it by saying that the other person is inhuman or “deserves it.”
Interestingly, both routes to sadism operate in sociopaths. Jack Levin and others have written a great deal about compartmentalization in sociopaths. Sociopaths are also ruled by the power motive and so enjoy hurting because it is confirmation they are achieving power.
That gets me to warped empathy. Many, including Jack Levin, have pointed to the faulty logic behind the idea that sociopaths lack empathy. If sociopaths lack empathy then how can they enjoy another’s suffering? If they can’t identify other’s emotions how can they know they are inflicting pain and so get enjoyment? Is there any question that the sociopath that hurt you knew you were suffering?
Most of us have seen clearly the sadism of sociopaths, so we know they must have some kind of warped empathy. Empathy should lead to sympathy with another’s suffering not pleasure in another’s suffering.
In 1982, while reporting the results of a very well done study in which he found that violent sociopaths of normal to high intelligence actually have increased empathy, Heilburn* made the following statement:
“One way to interpret these results would be in terms of a sadistic, effective-processing psychopathic model of violence in which inflicting pain or distress upon another is arousing and reinforcing (pleasurable). Such a model would assume that acts inflicting pain are more intentional than impulsive and that empathic skills promote arousal and sadistic reinforcement (pleasure) by enhancing the psychopath’s awareness of the pain and distress being experienced by the victim.”
Now in 2008 researchers have obtained results that confirm Heilburn’s theory.
Researcher Jean Decety from the University of Chicago found that young sociopath’s brains light up with pleasure when they experience another’s suffering. In this study, the pleasure was especially present when the suffering was being inflicted by another person. How did the researchers demonstrate this? They showed violent movie clips to sociopaths and non-sociopaths then used fMRI to scan their brains.
Most importantly, the study showed no abnormality of the brain pathways involved in empathy. Sociopath’s empathy centers appeared to function just fine.
So how can I help you feel comfortable trusting the 90% of the rest of humanity who are not significantly sociopathic when I have already said that that most people can be sadistic under certain circumstances?
The answer is found again with motives, specifically the power motive. Learn to recognize the signs of excessive power orientation. It is OK to want a certain amount of power, but the pursuit of interpersonal power should not occupy a person’s every waking moment.
Well balanced people enjoy love and affection more than they enjoy power and control. I encourage you to learn to tune into love motives in others. I have found that consciously choosing to notice loving behavior in others has also helped me better recognize the power motive.
Avoid people who dehumanize others because whether or not one who dehumanizes is a sociopath, this compartmentalization is an important contributor to man’s inhumanity to man.
Lastly, I encourage you to stop supporting violent entertainment with your consumer dollar. Such “entertainment” fosters the development of sociopathy in at-risk youth. It also brings out the worst in everyone else.
*Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1982, Vol. 50, No. 4, 546-557
Why should the psychopaths get to live on a tropical island? I think they should be sent to a prison camp in Siberia and let their recovering victims have our own island! It would certainly be interesting to see what would happen in a society of psychopaths. I guess the closest thing we have to that is the prison system.
Dear Sarah I do not believe I anywhere at anytime implied or said the survivor was at “fault” or to blame at all. In fact in one of my posts I made the comment that psychopaths take use a persons strengths against them. A person who cares deeply about others is someone who a psychopath will try to use that strength against them and warp it. I did talk about some people that have DPD and are used by a psychopath. But I dont see where I ever, anywhere fell into blaming the victim.
BloggerT7165: My bosses blamed all their faults on me. All their accusations towards me was what they were guilty of. It was incredible. I knew they were revealing themselves to me for every trumped up charge they threw at me…. just trying to get one of their evils to stick.
Amazing how they spin the tables on someone. Then they got away with it, cause they were just slapped on the wrist … told that they couldn’t work were we work any more … and basically that taught them … don’t get caught next time you do your EVIL. No psychological evaluation what-so-ever on any of these folks before they exited into the world of new victims to conquer. What? Do you really think they learned anything or will change their ways?
And where did they jump to … to the folks that they put down and kept down through their careers … they just did a little boo-hoo routine, and the new organization took them in.
Gheeeeeeezzzz, what a world. I’m the only one that had to pay. I had to pay for having to work for anti-social personalities that should have been put in prison years ago and never allowed to climb the ranks … I had to endure their wrath because spineless politicians wouldn’t step in and tell those bosses to stop or else be fired because what they were doing was illegal. I was punished by the attorney who so called was to represent me and got paid off by the same politicians with a cushiony political position. I can no longer work there because why? I’m decent and I had the balls to fight for my rights??? So tell me crime doesn’t pay today? The whole system in our country is backwards … virtue takes a back seat while vice enjoy the fruits of this earth,
Peace.
I typically have a problem with people who do not take responsibility for themselves. Many of the people like this in my life also do not take good care of themselves, have a lot of repressed issues, and project these issues on others. I usually find my energy levels drop when I’m around such negative people. Sometimes they are my massage clients, sometimes my co-workers. When I tune in, I always feel either energized or de-energized by whoever I’m around. The tricky thing about the psychopath was that he faked the positive energy. It tricked my body and my inuition. I actually felt energized being around him. It’s very clever what they do, that they can hide their intentions and motivations. Normal people aren’t so good at that, and you can usually tell by HOW YOU FEEL around them. Not so with psychopaths. They have an ability to make you feel wonderful.
Dear Blogger,
What you said (that I take issue with) was
“anything, including loving someone, can be taken to far and become a serious problem. SOME people that get involved in these relationships have dependent personality disorder.”
I do not consider it a disorder to “love to much”. I do not think that these people have dependent personality disorder.
I think they are being manipulated and abused, and are sometimes not clued into how EVIL, PREDATORY, & PSYCHOPATHIC, some people can be.
This is not in any way the fault of the very loving person.
Ok. I still did not imply fault or blame the victim. I stand by what I said though. I have seen quite a few mothers who “loved” their husband so much that when their spouse was accused, charged and convicted of molesting their own daughter they blamed the child and have the child removed from the home so they can stay with the spouse. That is an example of what I mean. Now you can argue that this is not really love (and I would agree) but to the woman it is love and that is how they say it.
I am not sure who exactly you mean by “these people”. My comment was that some people in these relationships have DPD. And that is not an opinion, the studies they did showed that yes some people indeed do have that before they even met.
And either way nothing I said implied fault or blame on the victim which was your original comment to me.
BloggerT7165: I think those women are the most selfish of individuals to choose the husband over their children’s welfare. They are selfish in the fact, that being in a relationship or having a roof over their heads means more to them out of fear of having to provide for themselves and ensuring that the spouse stays with them. Get a grip … how selfish can you be. The only thing I have to say is once you have children … they are your first priority and get over yourself and your selfish wants and desires. Grow up already.
I worked with a woman that for 10 years bent my ears about her physically abusive husband and how she could never be brave and be like me (getting a divorce) and making a life for myself. I talked until I was blue in the face with this woman … every week her husband’s fuse blew and he would smack her around … and she always stayed and took it. Finally, after 10 years of talking with me about her abusive husband she finally gave me the reason she stayed …
What was her reasoning or her excuse? Her parents were abusive to her and she was used to abuse, she knew nothing else. What a crock of doo-doo. If she didn’t know any difference, how was she to have this conversation over and over again with me for over 10 years??? Daaaaaaaaaaa.
To me, she was just selfish … she didn’t want to be alone and she knew it… so she just laid in the bed that she made. She was one of my co-workers who wrote a letter complaining about me when she got pressured into writing the letter by her boss. Then months later she retracted her statement. What a wishy washy personality … no backbone. What was her complaint about me? I told her it was OK to tell the truth about what she witnessed in the office about her boss sexually harassing a co-worker/friend of hers. Funny thing about this same boss, he grew up with my EX and I found that out researching where my ex’s grandparents farm was … verus this boss’ parents farm. They were neighbors … same street, different downs … about 7 houses away from each other now … but before they sold off the land to the farms, they were next door neighbors. Coincidence? I don’t think so. God does work in mysterious ways.
Peace. I always found it odd that my EX remembered all the players I mentioned in work. How he never goofed up names or titles. Mmmmmmhhh. Me thinks I smell a ringer.
Takes all kinds to make the world go round.
Peace.
Wow, that woman sounds a lot like my mother except my mother was not the one being abused by her husband–he was abusing us. She stayed with him till the day he died. Then she married an alcoholic who solicited underaged girls. He died in jail. She is now with a guy for many years now who is not intimate with her (by his choice). She just does not want to be alone.
StarG: People can say any excuse they want for why they do irrational things in life that they do not want to admit that does not benefit another. When you keep deducting it … it does come down to their own selfishness … pure and simple. Yet, they believe their own lies that they tell themselves over and over … and eventually, the lies they tell so often becomes the truth to them and it becomes blurred in their psyches. It reminds me of alcoholics lying about why they drink … then after drinking so much, the drinking itself becomes a problem … so they focus on that they have a problem and conveniently tuck the truth of why they are self medicating themselves in the first place. That and alcoholism takes on a life of its own and blurrs the memory of the person so conveniently. I could remember like it was yesterday having conversations with friends of mine, when they first started drinking and what they said to me at the time of what the real problem was that they wanted to supress… they don’t remember, but I do … I can even see the outfits they wore during the conversations. Today, years after drinking all the time and it becomes a way of life with them… they just chalk it up that they are alcoholics and haven’t a clue if I remind them why they started drinking. Of course they argue the facts with me … and I just drop it … no use kicking an old dog that doesn’t want to learn new tricks. Such a waste though. most alcoholics I’ve met are some of the nicest people in the world, very sensitive… and can’t cope with stress or conflict… which is why they self medicate themselves … they always need a crutch to go through life.
Peace.
I agree. My parents could be characterized as “dry alcoholics”. It is sad and ironic that as lonely as my mother is, she has alienated both her children and will never have their comfort in her later years. One of the reasons I never wanted children is that I never wanted to put them through what I went through. I knew when I was in my 20’s I didn’t have the capacity to put a child’s needs first. The legacy of dysfunction is very tragic.