As we think about sociopaths, let’s remember that they can make diverse presentations, which can make it hard to know if (and when) you’re dealing with one.
Although sociopathy is a personality disorder, it’s complicated by the fact that sociopaths have widely diverse personalities.
There are smart sociopaths and dumb sociopaths; gregarious sociopaths and more withdrawn sociopaths; engaging sociopaths and paranoid sociopaths; calculating sociopaths and more impulsive sociopaths; socially skilled, and socially unskilled sociopaths.
There are charismatic sociopaths and sociopaths with dull personalities. There are sociopaths who may leave you feeling remarkably comfortable, and sociopaths who may leave you feeling extremely creeped-out.
Some sociopaths are physically violent personalities, while others are no more prone to violence than you or I.
Given this diversity among them, what, then, do sociopaths have in common?
I take a stab, below, at answering this question, which itself isn’t so cut and dried. But what follow are some qualities that I believe all sociopaths have in common.
All sociopaths are emotionally shallow.
While sociopaths don’t have a patent on emotional shallowness (nonsociopaths can be emotionally shallow), they do have this terrain thoroughly covered. All sociopaths, without exception, are emotionally shallow.
It’s not that sociopaths don’t have and feel emotions. They are human beings, inclined as they are to transgress others. They want things. They feel their discomforts, pleasures, cravings.
But what sociopaths lack, fundamentally, is emotional interest in others. They may be interested in what others have [for them]; that is, what others have [for them] may evoke, and even stimulate, their emotions. However, they are not interested, genuinely, in who others are.
The sociopath, for instance, may recognize, and even pay very close attention, to your mood. But his interest in your mood will hinge on how your mood affects his agenda.
He is like the amoral child who, watching his mother and shrewdly detecting her vigilant energy, decides it’s not a good time to lift the five-dollar bill off the kitchen counter. He has read her carefully, and perhaps accurately. But his interest in her state of mind, and emotions, is limited to the advancement of his agenda.
All sociopaths are disloyal individuals.
I see this as a truism about sociopaths. Sociopaths may seem and even act loyal, but only so long as they calculate that the cost of their loyalty hasn’t yet exceeded its benefit [to them].
As soon as the sociopath discerns that the cost of his loyalty exceeds the advantage, he betrays those to whom he’d apparently been “loyal.”
His self-interest, in other words, is paramount, and supercedes his capacity for self-sacrifice.
All sociopaths are habitual transgressors (without meaningful remorse) of others’ boundaries.
Whether calculating or more impulse-driven, sociopaths are habitual boundary violators, without genuine remorse for their hurtful effect on others. Some (not all) sociopaths “get off” on their exploitation—meaning that, for them, the process of exploiting is the motive force that drives their exploitation.
Sociopaths may be childishly fascinated by the exercising of their power to “push the envelope,” to “pull off” capers and dodge accountability.
Their lack of remorse—lack, indeed, of any form of genuine accountability—is one of the perplexing aspects of this personality disorder. And there’s probaby not a single explanation for this.
All sociopaths grossly lack compassion.
A lack of empathy is commonly ascribed to sociopaths, but I sometimes wonder if the sociopath’s lack of compassion isn’t a more germane descriptor.
Part of the problem with empathy is that people view it differently—arguably, there are different “types” of empathy that elude a single, unifying definition.
You will sometimes hear people say about sociopaths that, rather than lacking empathy, they actually use their empathy exploitively. I don’t see it that way. I view a mindset of empathy as the antithesis of the exploitive mindset—thus, someone feeling empathic (by my definition of empathy) could not use his empathy to exploit. That would be logically impossible.
But I think we escape this definitional confusion altogether when we consider sociopaths and the issue of compassion. In this regard, I assert that all sociopaths lack genuine compassion for others.
I’m suggesting that, even more than his empathic deficiency, the sociopath’s gross lack of compassion enables his infamous abuse of others’ dignity and space.
(See an upcoming post, Sociopathy: A Disorder of Compassion, for an elaboration of this idea.)
All sociopaths lack appropriate shame.
Sociopaths’ deficient levels of shame support their exploitive tendencies. Shame gives us pause, and sociopaths do very little “pausing.” Most of us contemplate the factor of shame, or prospective shame, in the decisions we make.
Our automatic, often unconscious review of how shameful we’re likely to feel following a chosen action allows us to think twice before executing it. It gives us room to cancel a plan whose execution we deem, on reflection and in anticipation, risks reigning shame down upon us.
Sociopaths lack shame to fear. Lacking shame to fear disinhibits them from pursuing destructive ideas that the rest of us, more often than not, will “pass” at.
Sociopaths are audacious personalties.
As I’ve indicated in several LoveFraud pieces, there is something audacious about the sociopath. He is prone to behaviors that leave the rest of us, whether as victims or witnesses, shaking one’s head. His levels of gall, hubrus are astonishing.
Where the nonsociopath, as just discussed, will find opportunities to scrap a bad plan, the sociopath is more likely to eschew prudent consideration (and reconsideration) and pursue the flawed plan, anyway.
His audacity—see my LoveFraud piece, The Audacity Of The Sociopath—is a curious and troubling aspect of his personality.
Sociopaths are liars and deceivers.
Lying and deceiving are close cousins, and sociopaths routinely do both. But this doesn’t make them necessary good at either (although they may be). A sociopath may assert, as if he really believes it, that he broke the world record in the mile, but this doesn’t make it a good lie.
The premise is preposterous; and so what’s most striking about the lie is its audacity, not its believability.
Sociopaths often, for instance, defend untenable positions from, it seems, sheer contempt for their audience. Consider this interaction:
Wife: I saw you with your secretary at Chile’s, today, at 12:15. You were kissing.
Sociopath: What are you talking about? I didn’t leave the office all day.
Wife: I saw you. Don’t bullshit me.
Sociopath: Yeah right. Ask Allen”¦we were in a meeting at 12:15. Go ahead. Why don’t you fucking call him and ask him?
Wife: I knew you’d say that. I already called the office. Allen’s in San Diego, and you know that.
Sociopath: You’re fucking crazy. You know what, stop fucking stalking me! That’s your problem. Maybe if you’d stop fucking stalking me you’d actually find something valid to accuse me of!
Wife: Don’t change the subject. You’re lying.
Sociopath: No”¦this is the subject. You’ve got a fucking stalking problem. So let’s not change that subject. You know what, honey? One of these days your fucking stalking’s gonna really drive me into someone else’s arms.
Wife: You were kissing her, John.
Sociopath: You know what? Fuck you. How ’bout that? Fuck you.
Rife with sociopathic machinations, this interaction starts with the assertion and insistence of a preposterous lie, then maneuvers quickly into deflection, gaslighting and other abusive strategies.
In upcoming posts, I’ll extend the list of traits that all sociopaths, I believe, share in common.
(My use of “he” in this article was for purposes of convenience, not to suggest that females aren’t capable of expressing the attitudes and behaviors discussed.)
(This article is copyrighted © 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW)
BTW, I got that link by posting on a chat forum just to see what came up! Lots of people responded with information about their own experiences. I referred some to here.
skylar,
I moved me to. But that is the PROBLEM. Here I am feeling like a complete piece of SHIT. Like shit under someone shoes.
Because he cried for a few seconds. But before and after the tears he said some terrible stuff to me…
witsend:
I don’t mean to sound like a hard-ass here, but I wouldn’t fall for the tears. S was a master of turning on the waterworks when it suited him. I always fell for it. And then came the last time he tried it. I remember watching all this sturm-und-drang. All I can remember thinking as I watched the performance was “there’s nothing going on below the surface. Absolutely nothing.” It was chilling. And then, he suddenly turned it off like flicking a light switch.
So, hard-ass I may be, but with my feet on the ground and my eyes on my checkbook, I have concluded that they don’t shed a single tear unless they think there’s something in it for them.
yeah, its a coin toss with the odd being in favor of a con job.
you’re absolutely right Matt. I’ve seen it too. But if it’s real, look at the pay off and realize too that he is still young.
Odds are 90% it’s fake.
But witsend, you need to learn to feel nothing. You shouldn’t feel like a piece of shit because he cries. You did nothing wrong. KNOW THAT, OWN THAT. Don’t let him use your emotions against you. You must show no anger or frustration or anything other than love and firmness in discipline. Let the crap he flings roll off of you. You need to look at this as if it is your job to do your best job raising this kid and then wash your hands. If that means giving him a hug when he cries (as long as he isn’t holding a knife), hug him, but don’t change your resolve to remain stoic.
I know, it’s easier to say than to do and your odds aren’t that great…
Matt,
I get what your saying….The intelect gets it.
The intelect even gets the whole your a terrible parent thing…I know in my heart I am not a terrible parent.
But even his perception that I am a terrible parent hurts.
BECAUSE I believe he does believe this to be true. It is a big part of the fantasy world that he lives in. He also believes he doesn’t need an education because he is going to make it in life w/o an education.
If he is turning on the tears when he is telling others his “story” of his terrible mother at home….I can tell you, they are going to fall for it to….Because I almost did….And I’m the “terrible” mother.
Hello Steve,
This is an excellent article.
In one of my first posts on LF I was “complaining” that I thought both Hare & Cleckly’s definitions were missing “something”. Your article comes closer than any other I’ve read to describing the characteristics of the psychopaths/sociopaths I have repeatedly encountered in my life:
– women like my mother who was very much like Rosa’s sister-in-law (publicly a medical professional, a natural leader, congenial, largely respected and liked/admired, privately a cunning and sadistic abuser and terrorizer);
– the successful corporate types I encountered in both the financial services and medical technology industries (both the bullies/terrorizers/powercrazed, and the slick/smooth operators who lead their divisions into ruin and disaster before jumping ship).
Hare concentrated on violent male convicted offenders because that’s where he first encountered psychopaths, and had the means and opportunity to study them. It was in this environment he developed the PCL (-R). But I’ve always felt that his tool measures the characteristics of that particular type of psychopath (violent incarcerated, perhaps not-so-bright male), but largely leaves out most of the other types you’ve mentioned in your article, specifically the type who are cunning, far-sighted and thoughtful – not impetuous unless it suits their purpose. And especially those who are sadistic. He mentions those characteristics in his book, but doesn’t measure them in his tool.
More to the point, I was most impressed with your substitution of the term “compassion” in place of “empathy”. Stroke of brilliance that, in my opinion. You’ve hit the nail squarely on the head.
!!Geek alert here!!!
I’m a bit of a word geek – forever looking up the etymology of words if I’m not certain of their meaning. “Empathy” is a very difficult and complex word, only recently introduced into the English language (1909) as a direct translation of a German word used to describe a concept in art appreciation: “Einfühlung” (in feeling) – a subject/object relationship where the subject attributes an emotional state to an object – a work of art. Its current usage almost inverts its original meaning – which was much closer in meaning to the way you mentioned in your article:
“You will sometimes hear people say about sociopaths that, rather than lacking empathy, they actually use their empathy exploitively”
For any fellow geeks in the crowd, I’ve included some references:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=empathy
http://www.newcriterion.com/posts.cfm/Tea-and-Empathy-5885
http://www.culturalgadfly.com/?p=1600
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/empathy
Thanks Annie for those links, particularly the cultural gadfly one.
I did a search to try to pin down the meaning of empathy a few months ago. I’d been using the word in my writing, and suddenly started wondering if I had the differences between sympathy and empathy right. Well, that was a search I wished I’d never started. Both words seem to be weighted down by so many opinions and so little objective agreement that I’m came away knowing less than when I started.
But in my own mind, sympathy is when I stand outside of another person’s experience, but feel for them. Like I’m happy for someone who wins a prize. Or I want to comfort someone who is hurt. To me, sympathy also risks edging into the territory of sentimentality or cheap emotion without a lot of subtlety. But it can be important, as a bonding element, when someone around us in need.
Empathy on the other hand is getting right into another person’s experience. I have a habit, when I listen to classic music of imagining I’m writing it, so that I understand the composer’s intention as much as I can. Likewise in looking at visual art. To me, empathy is enriching, because it introduces us to realities that may not be common to us. When I was living with the sociopath, one of the reasons I learned so much from him was that I deliberately tried to put myself into his experience of life. (Something I did at an entirely different level that the place where I was suffering because of his inability to connect emotionally.)
Because empathy is such an opening experience, I could feel that it sometimes made me vulnerable. ‘ve learned to deliberately shut down my empathetic inclinations when I feel internal alerts that I’m dealing with someone who is predatory or simply draining. It’s hard to do. It feels like I’m working with half my brain shut off, and it gives me great motivation to get away from these people ASAP.
Hello Kathleen (and Steve, and well, everyone here on LF!),
!!! Word geek alert!!!
I’m glad that you found the links interesting. I hear you about the confusion and wishing you’d never started looking! I think that sympathy/empathy are two words which have largely moved away from their origins and where my etymological habit just added to the confusion.
I think the way you’ve described them is in line with the most widely accepted common usage, and the way I understood them before I started digging, but appears to be almost ‘flipped’ from the way they were used years prior.
Funny thing about the English language – with the thousands of words at our disposal, often the most important and resonant concepts of human interaction are poorly served by language. Like “love”. So very many types of “love” – parent/child, sibling/sibling, friends, lovers, partners (e.g. cops, paramedics, etc…), close relations, owners/pets – and yet only one word to cover so many different things.
Years ago a friend of ours often used the question “What is the difference between sympathy and empathy?” in interviews. This is what started my etymological digging. So when I first encountered Hare’s work on psychopathy my radar went up when I saw the word empathy – and I always felt uncomfortable with it.
I’ve read several blogs/articles on empathy/sympathy (using meaning closer to the etymological roots) that assert that sympathy has more to do with feeling “with” another (specifically wanting to soothe and take away the sufferers pain), and empathy has more to do with “understanding” another’s emotion – without judgement. I’ve also heard the “tuning fork” analogy used here (more about that later.) I think this version/definition, regardless of its accuracy, comes closer to what may be going on with psychopaths/sociopaths – in my experience they are finely tuned to pick up others emotions – and here Steve’s reference to “lack of compassion” is most relevant. I believe they are finely tuned to pick up on and understand other’s emotions but they don’t interpret them the way others do. Instead of feeling that the other person is “like me”, they see the sufferer as “other” and a target.
!!! End of word Geek alert !!!
Re: the tuning fork analogy: We have two cats that we love to pieces, that have very different personalities. When my husband or I are feeling distress one of them (the most affectionate one) literally picks up and ‘vibrates’ our emotions back – he’ll start howling in the most discomfiting way and we have to comfort him! The other cat who is more aloof will try to comfort us! She’ll crawl into our laps and refuse to budge, and will purr loud enough to wake the dead. She’ll also come up and put her paw on our shoulder – just like a human would do!
This tuning fork analogy feels very familiar to me: my mother could pick up and amplify the smallest distress vibrations. Except that, unlike our cat who feels distress when we feel distress, my mother would feel joy and satisfaction at another’s distress. But like our cat, or a tuning fork, my mother couldn’t control it or stop herself. My mother would be drawn to distress like a shark is drawn to blood in the water. The most telling sign would be the subtle cold “smile” which she tried to but could never quite hide, which I now know from reading books on crime detection is a flexing of the “biting” muscles around one’s mouth. Using the word “empathy” to describe this is very much out of place with its current usage. But I feel that we need a word or term to describe it nonetheless.
Back to Kathleen’s post: I’m fascinated by what you wrote about empathy making you more vulnerable, and being able to turn it off around predators. You seem to have developed both a built-in warning system, and a method of self-defence. I would love to hear more if you’d care to elaborate. You may have given me a clue to why I seem to have so little detection ability – almost the polar opposite of my mother, even though I’m highly intuitive and very affectionate with people I trust. I’m starting to wonder if I may have unconsciously turned mine off as a child as a similar defence mechanism. I’ll have to think more about that… I used to have 0 radar for many predators (particularly types other than the ones I’d been exposed to as a child), and even now I have to intellectually work my way through situational cues to ‘see’ them. Unfortunately since I’ve been able to develop my detection skills and finally see them, I’ve ended up being more frightened and becoming almost house-bound, because I know that seeing them (if they know that you see them) makes you much more vulnerable.
I need a defence system to go along with my newly acquired predator radar! I’ve never felt comfortable with the advice given by Hare, Babiak, Stout, etc… that the only defence is to run away. That just isn’t possible in so many circumstances. I think we need a psychopath/sociopath self-defence course – a version based on women’s self-defence training courses: awareness, detection, avoidance, deterance – based on predator type.
I’ve been learning a lot from Erin B’s posts re: her court case. Perhaps she and Matt (or Steve, or Donna, or Oxdrover, …) might consider putting together a Sociopath self-defence training manual…?
Dear Annie,
I’m also a bit of a WORD GEEK! The one that was most recent for me was WRATH vs. ANGER. The thing that got me to thinking about these two was a minister who told me (wrongly I believe) that “anger” is a SIN!
I didn’t go back to this minister (actually I think he is an N) and confront him, but settled the question myself to my own satisfaction. Jesus said “be ye angry and sin not.” Christ himself was angry, so I don’t figure that is a sin.
Jesus also said “don’t let the sun go down upon your WRATH”
Having thought that wrath=anger most of my life, I looked up WRATH and found that anger is only one component of it, it is a vengeful hateful bitterness that you nurse for a “long period” of time. It doesn’t hurt the person you are justifiably angry at for what they did, but it HURTS YOU. As the article here about when does “bitterness become a disorder” the WRATFUL feelings that some of us (me included) have nurtured and fed for long periods of time inhibit our ability to heal ourselves by focusing on the injustice the others have done. It literally poisons us.
I get a daily e mail from Dr. Goodword with a study of a word and this is quite interesting; where they come from and the expanded meanings. It is interesting too in that some of the words that I commonly use or hear I didn’t really have the exact meaning correct.
My egg donor who used to be an English teacher and I used to debate the meanings of various words, and my late husband and I did. It is really quite interesting when you study them in depth. so I don’t think you are way off by liking to know the meanings of different words. the more of a language we know, the better we are able to express ourselves. Unfortunately, the person we are expressing ourselves to also has to understand the meanings of those words.
You are so right about the word “love” in English, it can mean so many different things, I think in the end, it sometimes means NOTHING. I do not fluently speak any other language, but I ahve been exposed to many other languages and studied some of the characteristics of them, how they have words to convey meanings that English doesn’t have. Or even SOUNDS that the English trained ear cannot “hear” (like the clicks of the Bantu language and some sounds in Arabic for example, I am sure there are others.) Our language shapes our thinking in so many ways, without language we would not be much above any other animal’s ability to think.
Thank you for your contrabutions to our discussion. (((hugs))))
Oxy!
OK if I say I “love” you for that post? Two quotes I thought you might like:
“The Eskimo has fifty-two names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for love.”
“War is what happens when language fails.”
– Margaret Atwood
(((hugs back))))
Annie