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
OMG, Wini, your former co-worker sounds just like the main character in “The Temp”. Creepy. I agree that we are all held accountable in a “higher court” for our actions. But in the case of a P, they don’t have to wait for death. Can you even imagine how meaningless and loveless their lives are? They are forced to go through life like this, only a shell of a human being. If that’s not hell on earth, I don’t know what is.
StarG: She’s the co-worker I went to H.S. with too. She was very quiet, even back then. Always standing in front of the building smoking cigarettes. She was in one of my English classes in junior year … it was at the time her boyfriend got arrested for murder. Everyone in the school felt sooooooooooooo sorry for her. Even the teachers mentioned in classes she attended, while she was out for a few days … to be nice to her while she went through this devastation in her life. So, of course, being young, we went along with this request. She ever even talked about him or anything. It was strange back then … she just went on with her life, started dating people right away … like nothing horrific happened in her life.
After H.S. she dated my sister’s best friend. They moved in together. He adored her. He went out and purchased a brand new dinning room set, kitchen set, washer/dryer, bedroom set and living room set. The day everything was delivered … she changed the locks on the apartment they shared and told him to get lost. He paid that stuff off for years … to this day he still loves her.
He found out that I was working with her … my sister called and told me to call him. Of course I did. He asked about “her” and how did she look, was she married? Was she single? Blah, blah, blah, blah … I said B, she’s the same way she always was … what you got is what everyone else gets … nothing has changed with her.
Then years even later B calls me right before “they” went after me in work and asked about “her” … that he ran into her at a local club (easy pick up joint where everyone scores … no matter who you are) so of course he was with her that evening… and told me that she was seeing a psychologist to figure out why her relationships never work and why she doesn’t feel love. I told B to tell her, come talk with me, I’ll save her the money to the shrink’s what she’s all about …. within months … they threw me out of work for 3 weeks paid leave … harassed me mercilessly for 6 years … this co-worker threw me off the events committee I was on with her for years … the same morning they started after me and threw me out … told me if I didn’t make it to the next meeting … which was in the middle of that week, I was off for good … well, daaaaaaaaaaaaa, you knew I was getting thrown out of work already … it was all disgusting how they all knew and all played sooooooooooo inocent … and while they all played their parts … I had to act like they didn’t know a thing and be nice to them … staying humble.
Funny, all the letters against me were written by everyone involved in her life … the boss she’s sleeping with now, her best bar stool buddy … this co-worker that she has a ring through their nose and this one and that one … even my boss listened to those co-workers and went after me because of them … then they all slink back into their cubbies and act like they know nothing is happening … give me a break …they all arranged this years in advanced and egged my boss into acting on their wishes.
Hey, now they have no competition … no one is left there that knows truth about what they are and how they gang up and destroy people and their careers… they wanted a clean slate and get rid of all the old timers so they could re-write history. And, the higher ups let them.
Peace.
I hope you’re out of that work environment. It sounds pretty dysfunctional. It’s amazing how much trauma and devastation one person can cause, isn’t it? Sometimes it’s overwhelming just how much injustice there is in the world, like how P’s can mobilize people to support them in their evil ways. And yet I still wouldn’t want to be like them for all the tea in China.
OxDrover,
There’s not two ways about it, we’re not supposed to understand them but so well. Our best bet is to set firm boundaries with them and their enablers.
As for the guards: many of them aren’t too different from the prisoners. Some “interesting” personalities are attracted to that work. Think about the nasty, miserable job for a minute or two and you realize that you’d have to be P, S, or N to want it. Therein lies the rub.
“She must have been pretty twisted to be having an affair with an inmate since she would have been prosecuted for rape, lost her job and gone to prison herself if they had been caught. Pretty risky behavior for some thrills I would think. ”
Not if you’re an S. They have a fatal attraction to what the rest of humanity thinks of as “stupid chit”. You can’t know from the one bad choice, but couple it with an attraction to prison work, and you gotta wonder.
All of the kookies are not in the jar!
The Cluster Bs are the reason why I guard my simple, happy life so vigilantly. They and their stooopid drama suck the joy right out of living. Home schooling is a full time job. My son has an exotic medical condition that requires meds 4 times a day, weekly doctor visits and surgery every 3 months or so. My mother in law has COPD, and there’s never a dull moment. This month she’s hospitalized with MRSA. There are several handicapped adults in the family, and a sister in law with some unspecified “drama club” condition who stirs up chit every few weeks. Even if everyone else refrains from being used by her, she can always crazy-make with my husband’s emotionally vulnerable, terminally ill mother. Since everyone loves Mama, the crazy-mean broad still has her meathooks deep into an otherwise sane family.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s enough for this woman. Anyone who wants to act out, slander, backbite, fight over trifling nonsense, gaslight, manipulate or generally act high maintenance to further their own selfish ends can “talk to the hand”. If I don’t waste time on cluster Bs, then there is time left over to build each of my children up, bond with my husband and even stop to smell the roses from time to time.
I’m going to leverage time to goof off with a girlfriend Friday. Add one cluster B to my life, and I’d have no time or energy left for that sort of fun.
Wini,
Your Psycho waited two weeks or less before starting in on her next victim. Chances are she selected a coworker. Their hell is ongoing. Yours is over.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the man committing adultery with her doesn’t suffer the loss of everything he holds dear.
When people like me say that the Bible warns us against the behaviors that wreck lives, we’re accused of being self-righteous. I don’t mean to condemn. I just intend to point out this simple, straight-forward pattern: “If you think you can deviate from God’s plan for his people and not suffer, then you’re going to get your @zz handed to you.”
There are going to be more casualties of this women, some innocent, some complicit. I think the complicit victims will feel the pain worse than the innocent ones. That’s another “simple pattern” I’ve observed over the years.
Elizabeth Conley: What? Both my co-workers and that bosses as well as other bosses are all guilty of the same thing. The are the most selfish, self centered pricks on the face of the earth.
There was nothing that confused me about any one I worked with. What amazed me was how selfish they could go … no matter how greedy they were today, they always got greedier tomorrow … and thought the rest of us should move over so they can get their way.
Hey, it’s everyone’s tax dollars that pays their salaries … and now you know why our country is failing.
Most employees go to work to collect their paychecks. Period. They have no intention of doing any work while they are there.
Elizabeth Conley: That’s why God tells us to stay humble to learn about the world. If you don’t stay humble, what is the alternative? EGO … believing in your own ego … doesn’t allow you to feel any of what life has to offer cause you are too busy being greedy and selfish all the time.
Peace.
Elizabeth Conley: I’ve known this girl since 1971.
She was very quiet. Never really shared herself with anyone. When she did open her mouth, it was to ask a question, but never to really reveal herself. I did witness a few things over the years … over playing cards with them. They were my card partners. Their were four of us to play, hearts, spades, set back … whatever card game we were playing over the years … we’d have marathon card games that went on over the weekends …
Many conversations over said card games.
How they thought about men in general or relationships in general would make your head spin.
This one co-worker said and I quote “I don’t know why anyone would like a nice guy, they drive me crazy, always whining after you … you can’t get rid of them”… I’ll take a bad boy any time”. For which I interjected “you’re crazy, who would ever want a bad boy”?…. Grow up, you’re not in HS anymore! Her response “nice guys are boring and predicable, they call when they say they’ll call, they come over exactly when they say they’ll come over … “. My response, “you’ve got to be kidding me”? Then everyone in the card game wanted us to focus on the game … but this was the jest of that conversation for the day … or should I say, weekend.
Peace.
Indigoblue: your post from Tuesday is so funny!!! I’ve been laughin’ for 2 days and had to tell you thanks—-
Indigoblue says:
SNAP
UMMMM HELLO is anyone GETTING ME my BEER and CIGARETS ?????? I am waiting???!!!
Snap Snap snap!
I am still Here Hello! And I can’t seem to get You Winches attention !
I need BEER and Cigarettss and a New Porno so anytime would be good! especially NOW Winches! LOVE JJ