The concept of the sociopath as “masking sanity,” originally from Hervey Cleckley, MD, and since as confirmed and elaborated by other experts, is certainly chilling, great, profound and often-times apt.
But I’d suggest we be careful not to apply it too indiscriminately. In other words, not all sociopaths “wear masks” in the classic sense of Cleckley’s concept. For this reason, if you’re looking for “masks” as a prerequisite to confirming the sociopath, you risk missing the sociopath.
Some sociopaths are more manifestly who they are—sociopaths. They aren’t “masking” much of anything. They aren’t necessarily taking brilliant precautions to conceal themselves.
Like many human beings they aren’t wearing “neon signs” advertising their personality type or personality disorder—rather, they are who they are in their daily lives, not necessarily more consciously disguised in their personalities than anyone else.
The individual suffering from “panic disorder” who takes measures not to make his panic obvious isn’t necessarily wearing a “mask.” He may be effecting a certain normal, selective decision about which aspects of his personality or experience he is or isn’t comfortable making obvious or transparent in the moment.
Many sociopaths are surprisingly undisguised, or certainly no more disguised, about their personalities than non-sociopaths. In some cases I’d suggest the opposite is true: Because many sociopaths are adventure-seeking, under-inhibited and less anxious about the impression they make on others, on top of being inclined to grandiosity and thereby possessing a heightened sense of immunity from the consequences of their attitudes and behaviors, they may reveal even more transparently and less self-consciously aspects of their “real” personality than will non-sociopaths, whose greater self-consciousness around others and greater respect (in general) for others’ boundaries will have an inhibitory effect on what aspects of themselves they choose to reveal.
I’m not suggesting that many sociopaths aren’t master disguisers and impressively covert, calculating manipulators. Of course they are. But we don’t want to fall into the trap of assuming that all of them are, as this puts us, I am suggesting, at risk of missing the many exceptions to the classic sociopathic profile.
Thus we want to be careful to avoid making sweeping generalizations about the presentation of any personality disorder, including sociopaths.
For instance, some sociopaths aren’t even particularly disguised about how manipulative they are. They can be audaciously, almost blatantly manipulative, whether effectively or not. The less good they are, the more “transparent” their manipulativeness is. There’s not much “masking” going on here.
Same with lying: some sociopaths are bad liars. Lying itself doesn’t constitute the wearing of a mask. You can be a transparently bad liar; you can even admit you are a liar, or that you lie frequently and “get over” on others, or “try getting over” on others as a tendency; and while this may qualify you as having sociopathic characteristics, it does not, perforce, mean you are wearing a “mask.”
It may mean, quite simply, that you are being who you are, whether you are boldly, recklessly impulsive; shockingly insensitive and callous to someone else’s experience; or shameless and guiltless as you “steal something” from someone that isn’t yours.
In the latter case, you may make little disguise or pretense of your shamelessness, or lack of guilt. You might just be acting exactly as the sociopath acts. That is, there be very little to “unmask;” what may be primary in such cases is merely to identify the attitudes and behaviors themselves, which may be sociopathic.
I will advance this discussion in a near-term article.
(This article is copyrighted © 2012 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of the male gender pronoun is strictly for convenience’s sake and not to suggest that females aren’t capable of exhibiting the attitudes and behaviors discussed.)
Ooh. Very interesting. It raises lots of questions.
Which of the sociopath’s presentations aren’t masks?
I’m inclined to say that the smooth talking, smiling, all too friendly demeanor of a sociopath is the presentation most close to seeing the sociopath in his or her natural state of being.
My gut is saying that when the sociopath is manipulating, the presentation would become less fluid, meaning that we’d probably see less spontaneity. The smile might be a tad more forced. The breathing slowed down a bit. Everything about the presentation would be just a smidgen slower because the sociopath is in a calculating mode. There would be a tenseness in the body that the sociopath is trying to overcome. Something would feel unnatural/forced.
What other possibilities for presentations?
How about when the P is feeling threatened or challenged, but is not yet unmasked. Then, he or she would be in a defensive mode so what would that look like?
I’m using my P sister and S mother for references now, thinking back to when they aren’t switched on (if you will.) I’m envisioning them in their homes, relaxed, when they would most likely be themselves, and there would be no need for them to be in “action mode.”
Approaching them, I see a look of superiority in their eyes. They already know better before you’ve even opened your mouth.
They will listen politely, but with faint smirks on their mouths, again, they are superior to you. The “obvious” answer is on the tips of their tongues. They’ve already figured out what you can’t (because you are asking, aren’t you?)
There is a sense that they are tolerating/indulging you. It’s non-confrontational. They have deigned to hear you.
When would they be wearing the masks?
When they are on the hunt.
When they are manipulating.
When they have been challenged or are at extreme risk of being found out, such as when being questioned by the police.
How would that look?
Great topic.
Am looking forward to reading people’s thoughts and reading the follow-up article.
This is a fabulous. Here’s something that we all need to remember: When people tell you what they are, believe them.
Donna;
Online, my x-spath does not wear much of a mask. His profiles are juvenile, superficial and show a lack of any real interests other than “boys, beers and fooling around,” to paraphrase his own words. However, in person, his mask to me was one of a “reserved, shy and sorted” British guy.
His profile names are unique and the very same ones he uses for “serious” dating site he uses for various porn sites, some of which are fairly graphic.
The first time I came across one of his profiles was on a site called “OKCupid.” While primarily a straight website, it does have a small gay following. It was suggested to me by a friend as a “serious” dating and is nominally atypical of most gay “dating” sites.
OKCupid employs a “matching” algorithm and I came across the x-spath because he happened to be one of my “matches.” I found this odd, given that OKCupid is largely American and he is not.
I will never forget that night. First, when going thru my “matches,” I actually skipped over him! One, because the profile was very juvenile and two, because the photo looked way too young for a 35-year old. While I thought to myself that this person looked like a younger x-spath, it did not first register that it was him. Something went off in my head and only when I looked at all of the profile’s details, I realized it was him.
As I said, none of it added it. As Skylar says, 180 degrees opposite from the person I thought I knew. A quick Googling revealed a porn trail, much of which was about unsafe sex.
Then it all clicked…
Same here. I just about spit out my coffee when I read my email with matches from match.com. My ex husbands profile popped up. This wasn’t the person I knew for 23 years . He sat with me and our sons in church for years. His profile said that he did not believe in God . I about died . It then clicked the same as you . We cannot say that they lied to us because there is no one under the mask. They are everybody yet they are no one . What a shame , this is how they function . I do have pity though . They did not ask to be this way .
GReat article, Steve.
Making broad sweeping generalizations about ALL psychopaths (or any other group) is like making broad sweeping generalizations about blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Yankees, Southerners, etc.
We may have known one Yankee and he/she was the “stereotypical” “Yankee” but not all people who would qualify as a “Yankee” will meet that stereotype.
Yes, some psychopaths are very good at masking their behaviors, at pretending to be something they are not, and want to present a persona that makes them appear kind and caring, professional, or whatever “mask” they are trying to portray. Others could care less what you, me or anyone else thinks about them.
To some psychopaths I have known, the persona they present to the public is very important to them. Their position in the social community, the political community, the professional community, or the religious community in which they function is very important. Coach Sandusky is a perfect example of this “masked” persona.
The mask is what allows them to get close enough to their potential victim supply to “pounce” where as with out the mask the victims would not allow them close enough to “pounce.”
Not many women would be interested in a man who approached them and said, “Look, biatch, I like rough sex, and I want to beat you up and you support me financially, and I’ll drink and drug and lay out for days with other women, how about a date?” The mask, at least for a time, can be used to cover a history of bad behavior in order to get close enough to get their hooks into the potential victim.
The guy I dated after my husband’s death didn’t present to me that he was interested in another “respectable wife” to keep his harem from wanting him to marry them, or to only have one girl friend. Only after he had his hooks into me (and I was very vulnerable and still in grief) was I finally able to see what he was up to. To this day, I still don’t know how I had the strength to kick him to the curb. I am very glad I did, however.
Some people besides psychopaths, though, wear masks and present themselves as things they are not…for various reasons, from shame to anxiety.
Psychopaths though have many similarities but they are not identical by any means. they range from Ted Bundy and John Edwards to Bernie Madoff and Charlie Manson.
Ox;
I believe to this day that online, my x-spath left enough of a trail to answer questions he did not want to directly answer. From videos he posted of himself masturbating and from his choice in porn, one would have to be very dense not too draw the following conclusions: 1) attractive face, but not much of a body; 2) small willy (I always need to throw that in, lol…) ; 3) HIV+.
Donna, I read something in Mademoiselle magazine years and years ago that said when a man tells you that he doesn’t deserve you, believe him. He knows himself better than you do.
I would say that when mine was alone with me and drunk, that’s when the mask fell off altogether. I was behind a door in our apartment one New Year’s Eve, after he’d gone out without me and had, as he proudly told me, four beers and a margarita. I had gone into the room to get away from Spath, but he followed me and, just as I was closing the door, he pushed it open from the other side. “You hurt my hand,” I told him. His chilling, non-sequitur response: “I’m in my own apartment.” In other words, I had no right to privacy and should expect to be hurt if I tried to exercise one. His right to enter any room for any reason — especially to follow me and continue a fight — overrode my right to bodily autonomy.
Then, of course, eight months later when I had a broken wrist from a cycling accident and was dizzy, sick, and nearly immobile from the Percocet I had to take, and he took the opportunity to rape me… that was the most real him I ever saw. Total opportunity to take by force the sex I had started to refuse him, and to put me in my place. THAT was him absolutely maskless.
He spoke of his Mode of Operations, how he thought, his perceptions….in retrospec, these words were far greater than the surface words as I knew them…he was being truthful of who he was…in my naiveness, I could not fathom the depth of the truth in the words he used to express his character…it was out of my thought realm…it was ignorance, it was belief in all people have a good core…BUT at the same time, I do not believe he knew himself as a disordered individual either..he saw himself as a wise king or god and the rest of us as “puny mortals”…..he did take precautions to hide himself to others but he told me that I knew the real him and i was a danger to him..to expose him…
“When would they be wearing the masks?
When they are on the hunt.
When they are manipulating.
When they have been challenged or are at extreme risk of being found out… ”
I very much second this list, especially when at the risk of being found out, in the case of my x-spath his HIV status.
Mine put on a mask when he needed to reel me, make me bond initially, when I was ready to walk out on him or make him leave. But otherwise I don’t think he was wearing much of a mask at all. I just didn’t put 2 and 2 together for a long time.
When he was threatening me 3 weeks ago he wasn’t wearing a mask at all. He was trying to threaten, insult and bully to get his way. I actually told him: wear a polite mask and maybe you’ll get your way. Of course his polite request was a mask. It would fool any reader who doesn’t know the actual background. It just didn’t fool me at all. But the times he wore that mask were not frequent. Most of the time he just did what he wanted in blatant sight, supposing he didn’t need to wear a mask at all.
I guess I asked him to put it on to test whether it would fool me now. Luckily for myself, it doesn’t at all.