What is the single most powerful signifier of sociopathy?
How about, lack of empathy?
I don’t think so.
As an isolated factor, I don’t think lack of empathy best nails the sociopath.
Many millions of people, after all, lack empathy and aren’t sociopaths. Also, exactly what constitutes empathy is a subject of some disagreement. Some LoveFraud members, in fact, question whether sociopaths even lack empathy (some asserting, to the contrary, that the sociopaths they’ve known have used their capacity for empathy to exploit them).
But the biggest problem with lack of empathy is its weakeness in explaining the single, truly best signifier of sociopathy—the characterological exploitiveness of the sociopath.
It is a high level of exploitiveness that most singularly exposes the sociopath.
Now exploitiveness is also associated with the narcissistic personality. For this reason extremely destructive (“malignant”) narcissists can be hard to distinguish from sociopaths. Still, a high level of exploitiveness is rarely the single best signifier of narcissistic personality disorder, whereas it is, I suggest, the best single indicator of sociopathy.
Why does lack of empathy fail to explain the sociopath’s exploitiveness? It fails because most people who lack empathy are not exploitive. Just consider the autistic spectrum disorders: Lack of empathy is commonly associated with these disorders, but exploitive behavior is not.
Now it is true that empathic individuals will generally be nonexploitive. Why? Because their empathy will prove a deterrent against exploitative impulses or ideas. Empathy, in other words, surely is a powerful deterrent against exploitation.
But in someone nonexploitative (someone, say, with Asperger’s Syndrome), empathy will not be needed for its deterrent effect. However, in someone inclined to exploitation, lack of empathy will be a missing deterrent in a situation where deterrence is urgent.
Effectively, the sociopath’s exploitive nature is undeterred by empathy, which is missing, thus liberating him to exploit. And it is the sociopath’s tendency, or compulsion, to exploit, I propose, that best characterizes his sociopathy.
I’d be remiss not to clarify my working definition of empathy. Empathy, as I use it, is an experience, or appreciation, of another’s experience that, depending on the situation, elicits a thoughtful, respectful, perhaps nurturing, but never exploitive, response.
While some sociopaths may possess an evolved capacity to read others’ vulnerabilities, this doesn’t make them empathic.
It is the particular response to someone’s vulnerability that indicates the presence of empathy, or exploitation. It is the particular response, or pattern of responses, to someone’s vulnerability that separates the empathic individual from the predator.
In this respect, I regard the sociopath as seriously, and given his exploitive personality, dangerously deficient in empathy.
What about his remorselessness? Certainly the sociopath’s remorselessness is quite notable and diagnostically significant. However, I would argue that the sociopath’s remorselessness is a byproduct not of his lack of empathy, but of his exploitive personality.
Many people who lack empathy are remorseful, for instance when informed that an action they took, or something they said, left someone else feeling damaged. They may struggle to relate emotionally (or even intellectually) to the effect their behavior had on the wounded party (their deficient empathy); but they are upset to learn that their action caused damage.
In other words, they feel remorseful even though their empathy is deficient.
However, exploitation and remorselessness go hand in hand. The essence of exploitation is the intentional violation of another’s vulnerability. The exploiter knows, on some level, that his behavior is exploitive.
By definition, the exploiter is grossly indifferent to the damaging effect of his behavior on his victim. All that matters is his perceived gain, his demanded, greedy satisfaction. There is indifference to the loss and damage to others resulting from his self-centered, aggressive behaviors.
This sounds a lot like callousness; and we recognize callousness as another of the sociopath’s telling qualities. But I would suggest, again, that the sociopath’s callousness derives not from his defective empathy, but rather from his characterological exploitiveness. Most people with deficits in empathy are not callous. On the other hand, the exploitive mentality will engender a callous perspective.
I discussed in a prior post the audacity of the sociopath. I suggested a correspondence between audacity and sociopathy. But here, too, we want to get the causality correct: audacity doesn’t make for sociopathy; but the exploitive mentality will make for staggering audacity.
(My use of “he” in this post is for convenience’s sake, not to suggest that men have a patent on sociopathy. This article is copyrighted (c) 2008 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
You’re not different from an S/P in that you are operating from a goal-directed state, and you are trying to be persuasive in favor of your personal goals.
The difference is that your fundamental emotional structure is dedicated to winning something for yourself at all costs. You are there to do something for the common good. If he told you that he couldn’t move more quickly, because he had some serious issues of his own (like caring for a sick wife), you’d accept that or you’d look for some win-win solution (like offering to sit with her for an afternoon) to help him accomplish what you ask without harm to himself.
There’s a book that I found very enlightening called “Thick Face Black Heart.” It’s about the virtue of ruthlessness, and the first couple of chapter are really all you have to read to get the point.
The author, a Chinese management consultant, talks about the definition of ruthlessness. Which I’m going to have give in my own words — but it’s basically making a decision to pursue an outcome that is cost other people, often without their agreement or knowledge. Your objective is not necessarily to cost them, but your decision is made knowing that this will be part of the outcome. Collateral damage.
She gives a number of examples. One is if I invent a “better mousetrap” and proceed to successfully build and market it, my goal will have the impact of stealing customers away from the makers of older style mousetraps. Another is if I am an army general or ruler of a country, and I must go to war for reasons of the common good, I know that many of my soldiers were will injured or killed. But many less dramatic and far-reaching decisions also involve damage to other people. Such as deciding to date someone who is divorced, and knowing that if the relationship becomes serious, it is likely to cause difficult feelings for the ex-wife or the children.
That last example shows how easily the question of “ruthlessness” morphs into questions about where caring about other people starts to intrude on caring for ourselves. These are extremely difficult and subtle issues that people approach from a lot of values-based platforms.
However the author of “Thick Face Black Heart” does offer one analysis of whether ruthlessness is honorable or not. That is based on the concept of who benefits, and the spiritual/ethical issues associated with that.
You brought up common good in your post, so your efforts to move this man to action are, at least partly, altruistic. (I say partly, because there are also more personal rewards that usually come from a project like this — satisfaction, gratitude from the people you help, maybe some public acknowledgment.) But clearly your effort and the project are justified by an effort to benefit more people than yourself.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with just trying to benefit yourself. We’re supposed to be doing that in the process of surviving and developing ourselves, as well as accumulating resources that will support our families, communities, etc. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with becoming wealthy or powerful either, because it means that a larger capability exists to do good.
But when we decide to be ruthless (that is, not letting our awareness of potential collateral damage stop us) for purposes that serve nothing but ourselves, this is the lowest form of ruthlessness. And this is what all of us have become familiar with in our dealings with sociopaths. Their ruthlessness is “low.” Their ruthlessness is of the same sort as any criminal.
I think in recovering from a relationship with a sociopath, and thinking about becoming more responsible for our own wellbeing, we start to think about this issue. We may not call it ruthlessness, but at minimum, we learn that in order to deal with sociopathic elements in our lives, we have to shut off our natural concern about the impact of our actions on someone else’s life. We stop caring about hurting their feelings or disappointing them. We stop caring about our responsibility, if any, to keep any promises we made to them. We become ruthless about taking care of ourselves, whatever it costs them, because we’ve learned that caring about them at all is an invitation to damage and loss.
So there are a lot of subtle ethical issues that we have to think about. But to get back to your original question, which I would rephrase as whether you have the right or whether it’s ethical to manipulate this person to pursue your goal, I have a very unsatisfactory answer that I use.
Every time I act in any way at all, I change the world. Just by breathing, I change it. My writing on this blog changes it. What I buy at the grocery store changes it. We are aware that people in power carry a huge burden, not just to figure out the right decisions and actions, but to live with knowledge of the results. Imagine the later years of an army general that has seen battle. Many writers have written about their regrets in their later years for how they behaved in relationships and the pain they caused.
The hard fact is that as long as we have the power to act, we also carry the burden of that power. And all we can do is the best we can. We try to figure out the right thing, moment by moment. We live with truth that our actions may have unintended consequences, no matter how good our intentions. And that, as my wise sister would says, “is a life.”
I’ve gotten to the point where I mostly trust myself (except when it comes to chocolate, QVC and hi-test men). But I also am willing to admit when I made a mistake, and learn from it. Today I’m learning how to be healthily self-interested and to be dispassionately compassionate. I expect to have some learning experiences along the way.
Rune, I posted that by mistake before I proofed it. Your emotional structure is NOT dedicated to winning at all costs.
Doing a little reading this afternoon and I saw the comments about engaging the self-proclaimed S.
A couple of thoughts….this is not a message board! While there is a lot of helpful and interesting conversation on the blogs between and among community members, the opportunity to post comments is mainly related to the blog topic article. Claiming to be an S, posting an e-mail address, and inviting contact from members is a very transparent tactic and could have dangerous consequences for anyone foolish enough to respond.
I’m sure there are many professionals in the mental health community who would love to study a self-proclaimed S, so let him go there along with his e-mail address and his offer to reveal how he thinks! We’ve already had our first hand opportunities to get up close and personal with N/P/S types. We don’t need or want more! When a self-proclaimed S comes on this site and brazenly posts an e-mail address and invites off-site contact, he is not even bothering to bait the hook!
KH: I agree with your post, EXCEPT — I don’t actually think the S/P is goal-directed. At least not as we define goals. Yes, probably a leech, user, gleeful at manipulating. But somehow getting a thrill off of things that would never occur to me or you. Making a child uncomfortable by talking about inappropriate topics. “Mishandling” a gun. (“Ooops. I thought it wasn’t loaded.”) Seeing how far you can emotionally manipulate someone into self-doubt and despair. Etc.
Again, this is where I disagree with Steve: this isn’t “exploitation” as we generally define it.
PleasedSociopath
“Ok, I just have to speak up and tell you that I feel that most of you people, though you feel you are healing by letting these stories out, are fueling the very fires you wish to extinguish.”
With this statement along you couldn’t be more wrong. By expression our pain and negative feeling it allow us to break it down and understand the source and then learn from this experience. It is from these emotional memories that our healing begins and our knowledge or “ourselves” begin. These actions are for ourselves not for the ex S/P that were in our lives. Only I can bring change and happiness for myself just as only you can bring any type of positive change and growth to yourself. But it began with accepting our own responsibility and accountability for what happen between the S and ourselves. But by ignoring it and hoping these “feeling” i.e EM’s will just go away on their own which will teach us nothing. We learn more when in distressful and hard situations. When all is right in our personal lives we learn very little or nothing..
“The Sociopath WANTS you to remember. The Sociopath WANTS you to look over your shoulder every day the rest of your life and compare everyone to them. It dosnt matter if its in a positive or negative way they just want that thought and emotion of yours.”
No PS the sociopath wants us to forget (the negative history anyway) not remember. This statement by you is false. A Sociopath wants to hide away the lies manipulation and negative past history of those they cheated and hurt.. PS not one of us “look over our shoulders” for our ex S/P but guess what? Sometimes we do and guess who is standing right behind us? Yes it our ex S/P who refuses to give us total and complete NC! It the ex sociopath that doesn’t want no contact not those of us here..
With this statement now I have to giggle and laugh….
“I create a new name and pose as someone hurt by a sociopath, and then Im sure I would be welcomed with open arms as someone devistated by a sociopath couldnt possibly be one, right?”
Like one member already stated yes you can but again only for a little while for Sociopaths always yes always give away their true nature sooner or later.. But yea! Go ahead and try..
“I really am new at realizing that I am a sociopath, I never knew there was a word for the way I am. And all I really want is some thought provoking conversation. Im also trying to offer myself up to anyone who wants to ask me anything.”
This itself is imprudent for Sociopath are pathological liars. So as someone new (comes here) albeit a sociopath or not asking for unconditional trust before earning it is themselves is in fact a very sociopathic approach i.e. personality trait. Which again brings me to believe that if you aren’t a sociopath you do suffer from some type of cognitive mental disorder.. So with you I will ask you just “one” question which is “how is your deep limbic system doing today?”
“teach us a lesson’ that hit a nerve, is your name Mike Winkler?”
Henry.. maybe you did “hit a nerve” there..
JaneSmith
I have to agree and this is just a waste of time and resources…
Kathleen Hawks: Thank you for being concerned for me … but, I wasn’t sucked in … for the likes of him. I justed wanted to know if he knows or any of them know that how they live is devoid of everything substantial. One, being able to feel down to your own soul!
That’s all. No big deal. Like I told you before, there are many that have blogged with us in the past (whether admittedly so, or disguised as a victim wanting to heal).
But, I thank you for your concern and no I haven’t gone off my rocker.
Peace.
“Indigoblue says:
I prefer they study them where they always have ! State institutions , Let them Volentier for Guinepig assesment!:)~”
LMAO!!! 🙂
James: GREAT post. For those that want to heal, can and will. For those that don’t know they need to heal … all I can say is your existence is sad beyond anyone’s imagination.
Peace James, Peace.
Indi, Indi, Indi … how’s my buddy today?
Piece of cake, piece of pie … does anyone have a dog bone?
Rune, your experience must have been a lot different than mine. Mine ex was relentlessly goal directed.
When he met me, he immediately started sizing me up as potential solution for some specific large or lifetime objectives he had. They all related to his grandiose idea of who he “really” was, as opposed to the unsatisfactory circumstances in which he found himself.
Though many of his personal habits were disorganized and disgusting, he was very organized about this. Some of our interactions during the time he was recruiting me were unbelievably clever — not just in the way he used my interests and inclinations to reel me in, but in the structure of these interactions.
I knew I’d been hooked, but I didn’t really understand the whole process until I looked back at in later, and saw how he got me to volunteer for everything. I actually was proud of my involvement with him initially, thinking I was doing something good with the money I was earning at the time. That was before it turned sexual, and my feelings got out of control.
There were other things going on than his objectives. He was driven to be the boss. (It was a joke at first, because he was working for me, but it wasn’t a joke to him, and he manipulated me and circumstances to make sure that it would be extremely difficult for me to regain the upper hand.)
He also had faulty impulse control. So there were various minor stories inside this larger story. But the big story was that he was there to extract money from me so that he didn’t have to work for long periods of time. To get the money, he had to put in time with me. When he got enough money, the cost of getting more would become less interesting to him, and he’d disappear until he needed more.
In the midst of all this, he’d leave for sex weekends with other women, and then have to deal with me afterwards. Which he usually accomplished, because I was susceptible to thinking that it was my fault that I was feeling so bad, and if I wasn’t happy I could always go find someone else.
And then there was the non-stop belittling activities, which at first I couldn’t believe, but which gradually broke me down. And this, I believe, was intentional, though also part of his character, because it made it easier to manipulate me and get me to agree to whatever he wanted, when he came up which the next scheme to extract money.
From my perspective it was terribly confusing. First because I was emotionally bonded. And second, because he kept coming back with a very loving and caring shtick. I kept interpreting it from my own perspective — like why is he being so awful to me, doesn’t he understand that we could accomplish so much more for him if I wasn’t embittered and in tears all the time?
He was doing exactly what he planned to do, and getting exactly what he wanted out of it. It didn’t all work the way he planned. I made it more expensive for him than he’d hoped it would be, because I resisted a lot of his plans and he had to work for his agreements. But then, he probably got some wins that he never thought he’d get, because i was the biggest fish he’d ever caught and he was learning as he went along what he could get away with.
When I finally threw him out of my life, because he had another girlfriend and because I couldn’t stand the pain of loving him and dealing with his constant belittling, the last conversations with him involved these things:
1. Why can’t you have casual sex? It would make you feel so much better.
2. How can you throw me out when you know I have no money. What will I do? (He went on to live for six month or so with the money he had when he left.)
3. Do you know how humiliating it’s been for me to be involved with you? Don’t all your friends tell you how lucky you are to be involved with someone like me?
4. (Said with something like the tone of an apology) I would do anything, including murder, to get my writing done and published.
5. (And this one is the zinger) As he walked out of my door for the last time, he whined, “But you said you loved me.”
This guy knew exactly what he was doing, what he wanted out of it, and what it cost me. As I said, there were some sub-plots that may not have been so intentional or were more driven by forces in his character that were not so planned and controlled. But overall, he was organized and purposeful.