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.)
Dear Matt,
Your mother sounds like a master manipulator and you obviously have a good grasp of her and handle the situation well. I am glad for you, for SURE!!! LOL
The emotional hurts and the betrayals with mine preclude any contact with mine. I wish I could do what you do with yours, but my mother damned near got me killed, and is in the process of putting my life in danger again by financiing my incarcerated son (cold blooded, pre meditated murder for revenge) She has lied to me while pretending to be this pious Christian who uses her “religion,” or rather I should say pretense of one, to justify her hypocritical behavior. If it all wasn’t true it would be a big JOKE.
I think I could have a relationship with her if she was just a bossy witch, or mild drama but the drama on the level that it is is just more than I can tolerate.
I’m actually glad (at least after the fact) that I did run into her yesterday, because though it was a painful few hours, it did solidify that there is no emotional blackmail, no way in heck I can get her to stop sending money to my P son. No promise will be kept for long. She is deceitful and controlling and “oppositionally defiant”–if I wanted her to go north, she would go south, and vice versa.
She is so trauma bonded to the male psychopaths in the family that she would do ANYTHING to protect them and to sucor them.
Manipulating me in public, actually, didn’t bother me at all. I am not “up tight” about the “in public”–she is actually the one that is uptight about “public image.” I have had the “what would the neighbors think?” crammed down my throat for so long that I actually don’t give a rat’s behind about what my neighbors think. The ones that know me well don’t believe it all (the smear campaign) and the ones that do believe her are not important in my life so I just really don’t care. Fortunately, I live in such a remote area and my home is deeply hidden by a dense hedge of trees (and is quite far off the public roads) that no one can tell if I am here or not. I’m retired and so can be very selective about who I associate with and I am. The neighbors that I care about have been quite supportive (even spied on what was going on at my mom’s house with the Trojan HOrse Psychopath after I fled my home, after I realized he was out to kill me and why.) The neighbors were the ones that informed me that as soon as my older son left for work, the TH-P hot footed it from my mom’s house to my son’s house every day..that was the first tip off that my mother’s “live in caregiver” was spending significant time with my son’s wife.
Yes, I do realize now that there is NOTHING I can ever do to stop her doing what she is doing. I just have to leave it up to God to manage the situation. I ADMIT THAT I AM POWERLESS in this situation. Accepting that is sometimes difficult, but I find that as I am more able to do that, and to just quit butting my head into the stone wall and jousting at windmills, things work out in the end. When I ‘retired” from the battle field before, and they didn’t have a victim to unite against, they ended up self destructing. My mom is 79, be 80 in the spring, and frankly she couold live for another 10 yrs, or another 1 or 2. It wouldn’t supriise me if she hung on by force of sheer will until January 2011, when my son comes back up for parole. I figure when (if) he doesn’t get it, she will very quickly decide to die. In my years of working with the elderly in hospitals, rehabs and nursing homes, I have seen people hold on to life for months or years with grim determination until some event that they were waiting for took place and then peacefully passed away. She is so intent on him coming home to live with her that I think that might be the case. Our faily history is age 80-83 as the age of death. For four generations that I know of it has held completely steady at those ages. But I imagine she will leave him “well fixed” financially when she dies so that will be the time for me to sell the farm and move on. For a long time that would have been unthinkable, but now that “spell” is broken, and the farm is now just another piece of real estate, not any longer “sacred.”
Thanks for the book referral, I will check amazon for it. They usually have about anything you can name.
Matt,
The reliability issue, I have learned, is a BIG one for me. I was married for 22 years to a guy who was unreliable, not in small ways, but BIG ways. We lived our life planning how things were going to be until it was his turn to put out and keep his word and he basically gave me the finger and decided HE was changing the plan. It benefited him of course but not me. I have always worked at his demand and basically got to the point where I was earning more than he. he liked that. Then he told me he would never support me financially or otherwise. The lan was that I was quitting my job and starting my own consulting firm in the years my kids would be in HS. Didn’t work that way so I told him to get out. Here’s the kicker: he met a hairdresser on line and as soon as she moved in with him she quit her job. (I believe in karma now).
My parents were of very meager means and I went to college and earned a Masters degree despite the fact that my parents wanted me to get married right out of high school. I have always relied on ME. i paid my own way since I was 13. Buying my own close, tuition etc…..
I have read some of your posts and I did not experience the kidn of abuse you did and I am so sorry these things happened. Despite what has happened to us with these S/P idiots, you seem successful in your own right and should be poud of that. I think we lose trust but we also want SO BADLY to have someone in our lives to be a partner to us as we have the capability of being to others and it’s disappointing when it doesn’t work out.
What i have found through this exerience is that I have friends who are/were very supportive and defensive of me. I have some who RAN from me when I needed them the most. I have come to appreciate those friendships more than I would have if this had not happened. One friend in particular, who lives with his partner, who also came from an abusive family, who I CAN RELY ON and he knows the same of me. THAT is a friendship that will last forever and I would do anything for him.
We will trust again, you and I, but we won’t take the pain and bad behavior as we did before. We will be cautiously optomistic ! That’s what I hope for us both.
Ms. Faith……………..
Enjoyed hearing about the life of another self sufficient boot strapper. We could be sisters.
I often wonder why I have found and accepted less than repsonsible men? A point to ponder…..But it won’t happen AGAIN!
Narrisstic people seem to feel they are entitled to be taken care of. That applies to both men and women. I know so many women who are leery of men who are looking for a meal ticket. I know of very few women who are seeking this!
I now know that I am seeking a responsible partner and loving person. Must not settle for less. I think the depression really hits when you realize that you have settled. The good news is that you don’t have to stay on that path.
Thank you for these thoughts that give a much needed perspective on how I need to be working my mind. It all starts in the Mind.
peaceatlast,
I absolutely LOVE that you called me a boot strapper. what a huge compliment.
I think the stress and shock still to this day come from the way I see him as he is and lives and behaves. he portrayed himself so completely differently to me.
and thank you for reminding me that it does all start in the mind and I need to get a grip on my own thoughts and memories of him and start tossing them aside as yesterdays news !!
keeping_faith and peaceatlast:
The reliability issue is HUGE with me. The problem is, every time I would get involved with someone who was less than reliable, I would jump in and take over their share of the load, rather than telling them to shape up or ship out.
For awhile I wondered of my need for reliability was masking a need for control. Then I finally realized that I had a right to ask for the same thing I was givining.
My ex-S had such a sense of entitlement. Prior to me he had 2 long-term-relationships which lasted 8 years each. I know for a fact he bled each of them financially.
Hell, I know for a fact he still continues to bleed his second-ex. The poor fool continues to pay for his storage bin and hell only knows what else — he’s still determined to “win back” my ex-S. Used to drive me crazy. Now I see that HE WAS DRIVEN CRAZY by S.
S is now staring 40 in the face. His looks are gone. He’s an ex-con. His career is going nowhere. He’s back on cocaine or meth. The only reason he’s not sleeping on a park bench is because his employer stepped in and paid 7 months back rent after I finally said no and drove him off.
Don’t ask me why, but today I had the wierdest thought — if S doesn’t end up back in prison, I see another Andrew Kunanen the one who killed Gianni Versace and all those others in a cross-country killing spree) in the making. I think S iss going to shortly wake up, realize that his days as a boy-toy are behind him, realize the opportunities that he’s squandered and relize that his odds of finding a sugar daddy to support him are over. Don’t want to be around when that happens, thank you kindly.
I thought I found a caring, responsible and loving partner. Instead I found a human piranha. However, I have finally decided it’s time I want the best for myself and not settle for less. Or, to put it another way, if I’m done with remodelling projects.
Matt – I can relate with the control issue. I think my X wanted me to be in control of everything, finances, decision’s, everything. He even gave me his money and said you take care of thing’s. As long as all his need’s were met, he controled me by putting me in control, if that makes any sense. And when he became bored with me and was ready for greener pasture’s all the problem’s we had had fell on my shoulder’s. They have it all planned from the beginning – ride this wave as long as it’s good and when it isn’t they just move on to the next. Meanwhile we are turning ourselves inside out with all the responsibility of taking care of them. I sure wish I had not of driven by his place of work the other nite, it has opened some wound’s, but only have myself to blame. I agree with you Matt – no more project’s.
Henry:
Isn’t it strange how sociopaths use OUR money to CONTROL us?
I shelled out more and more and got less and less. I realized today that this coming weekend is a long weekend and remembered back to last year when I decided to treat S to a weekend out of town. Why I was so hot to do this after he had tanked our New Year’s holiday out of town (which I of course paid for) I haven’t a clue.
In any case I remember how he already had me so crazy that I actually checked his wallet. And of course I got caught. The fact that I chose to ignore that I found something incriminating makes me now wonder why I didn’t get rid of him then because obviously I couldn’t trust him. In any case, he made me pay. Dearly.
I now realize that 2 weeks later when he hit me up for the first “loan” to help pay his rent that he had it all planned out. Get me hooked, drive me crazy, and keep me grovelling for the so-called pleasure of his company. I cringe with humiliation when I think back on how desperate I was to keep him in my life.
I was deleting emails today and stumbled across one from him — perfectly timed 3 days before I was taking him to Greece. The landlord was going to carry out the eviction (he was behind 5 months then) the day we were leaving. And the way he worded it “I’m going to need your HELP again.”
Help. Something I always gave freely. Not only to him, but to others.
That was the first time I said no. And that was the trip from hell. I’ll give him credit — he tried his damndest to get that money out of me — the day he was locked out he tried to get 10 grand out of me.
My policy now is no more help. Financial or otherwise, unless I see the asker has made a real effort to resolve his problem first.
Matt,
It’s so odd that you talked about the cross country killing spree. I had so much drama with his 25 yr old daughter and all she could do is berate him constantly and tell him she hated me. Then physically hang on him and kiss him like a four year old. I met the girl three times and the third time she would not look at, acknowledge, or speak to me. I recall thinking that she could potentially be like the astronaut that drove thousands of miles to kill the woman that her boyfriend was seeing.
The whole thing was f’d up and the whole family is a mess. Why i thought that might even be half way ok or normal is beyond me and I think it’s best behind me.
Very early on in my relationship with him, a very good friend, who had been stalked by a sociopath boyfriend, who eventually stabbed her several times, had asked me if I liked what I saw in his daughters after the first meeting. I remember thinking well his oldest is in law school and seems smart with her pink hair and piercings…..but she could not establish eye contact and she was very socially inappropriate. She called her father five times per day. He paid he over a thousand a month to survive and still she needed much more to live every month. (parking tickets, unpaid light bills, cell bills etc…..)…… then I told her how he kept discarding me and she said….”Look up information regarding anti-social personality disorder. I think this is what you are dealing with.” I would have saved myself almost a full year if I had listened to her then. In fact I recall him telling me his daughter doesn’t have a “social filter” and I said that there is no such thing, but it might be anti social disorder……well apparently he had been told this before…… It was just another big red flag that I dismissed.
I was lucky in that I wasted some money but didn’t lose thousands on him. But Matt, I think in the end some people have bad things happen to them and some people get what they deserve. My XS?P is now living in the house we built, which he can’t afford, with his x stripper girlfriend and her criminal brother and he was just fired form his job. Again, I don’t wish bad things on people but sometimes the result of your behavior comes back to haunt you. As one of my friend’s said. it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy !!
Thanks for responding. You are right. Time to focus on me and get my life jump started. With that said, I had a great meeting with my boss today. I had an excellent performance review. I got a hefty increase in pay, which is unheard of right now in my organization. ANd I have a good opportunity for an even better job in a new location. What could be better than a fresh start in a new location away from his sorry ass? Right? Thanks for bearing with my ridiculous stories…..true as they are.
Matt – Where do I even begin with this? Your talking Greece – 10 grand – helping him out financially. My situation is so different than your’s and many here. I am a self employed landscaper, I support my self, I own my home and am making pymt’s on my truck. My X worked at a casino for little more than 10 bucks and hour when I met him. I live out in the country on a small acerage. My X was an aquaintance that lived about 5 miles from me, he was in an (abusive) relationship of 6 years and had me convinced his partner was the (evil) one. Well I enjoyed the occasional company and companionship but there were never any sparks with my X. Well one nite X shows up on foot at my door step all drunk and ruffed up, says his partner beat him up and kicked him out. Well I say ‘you can stay here awhile until you figure out what your gonna do’ that was my first mistake. I ain’t braggin but I have no problem gettin laid or hooking up, but X was so pityful and had no one and nothing – not even a vehicle – so I start driving him to work – picking him up hoping that soon he will figure something out. Well he stay’s 3 weeks and one day he tell’s me his going back to the (evil) partner. I say ok – glad I could help. I do kinda miss him (alot) but except the fact that he is gone – hell we had never even kissed at this point. Two weeks go by and he calls me late one nite, the (evil) partner has kicked him out again and my X is hiding in a ditch and could I come get him? Mistake number 20 at this point. Well here I am with a homeless pityful lanky cowboy, that obviously needs a helping hand. But this is where it went wrong – he says you know ‘your a real sweetheart’ and your the kind of guy I have dreamed of all my life. Yep I am hooked – picked my dream man up out of a bar ditch. What really hurt’s is my X never loved me – hell he really never even liked me, until he was homeless. So for the first year he is very little help financially or otherwise. Out of sheer exhaustion I offer to help him get a vehicle. For some reason he neglected to tell me he had no DL. So after weeks of living a life that I never thought I would I kicked him out and took back the vehicle. One week goes by and he shows up at my house crying and sobbing at what a mistake he has made and he does not want to lose me, I say hey – this is not what I want – well he takes a razor and cut’s his wrist (because I dont believe he loves me) – I call his estranged mother and tell her I cant handle him and she says “Oh he can’t come here he is a Booger” I give it one more try and he gives me all his money every month – meanwhile he’s turning tricks in my house while I am at work and it seems to go from bad to worse. After almost 3 years of this I am just a shell of who I was, so confused, so convinced he is the one, but I cant function anymore because of the stress, anxiety etc etc. He meets a new man and on his way out the door he looks at me and say’s ( I have been miserable ever since I came here ). Yeah I beat myself up all the time for being such an idiot. But this has been a life lesson, a very tuff one , to say I am embarrased and humiliated is an understatement. And even to this day I miss that mirror, that illusion, but finally I can look at my own reflection in the mirror and say ” Hey I am a good guy” I just got in the path of a user. I dunno if he is a socio or a borderline or what, he is a mess, I hope he is Ok, I don’t want to see him or know anything about him, but I still look over my shoulder and keep my doors locked . Call me a sugar daddy if you want because he did leave here better off then when he arrived, but I never knew a stranger could just walk into my life and take over the way he did.
DEar Henry,
“A stranger?”—they are STRANGERS even if they came out of your loins! Or if you came out of theirs…they are stranger than anything I have ever thought existed that resenbled a human being.
The missing piece in them makes them totally strange to us.
I know that your mother and Matt’s mother and mine were hatched in the same incubator, so there is a common denominator there for sure. We were taught early on that this “strangeness” is what we should expect and that it is “normal” and somehow we bought that for a while at least.
We were willing to SHARE everything we had with them. It doesn’t matter if it is a penthouse apartment in NY or a tent on the railroad right of way, we shared EVERYTHING we had with them. But that wasn’t enough, they wanted it all….just not us along with it.
Henry, you ARE a “good guy” and so is Matt and I am a good person as well, but being “good” in our cases and willing to share made us patsies for users, but WE WILL NEVER BE PATSIES AGAIN. It isn’t about money it is about their greed for something they didnt’ earn, it is about their feelings of entitlement to something from someone else.
Like Matt pointed out, they are getting to where they are no longer “desirable” or boyish, and there will come a time when they wind up with nothing, turning tricks in alleys for cigarettes and beer or sleeping at the wino shelter, and in the case of my son, being the old broken convict with all his teeth rotted out and his joints arthritic and crippled from fights.
“What goes round, comes round.” They will run out of victims and become victims themselves. Their slide downhill will accelerate rapidly as they age and their bodies deteriorate and victims are no longer willing to pay for their company.
I would rather be US than one of them. (((hugs to you both))))