Look around the room. In one lifetime, the average person has met at least two or three sociopaths. Look around the room again. It could be someone in the same room, watching for signs of threat. In the study of psychosocial personality disorders, the origin of the sociopath has historically been the most mysterious. It has been a constant debate, and researchers have looked into both nature and nurture. In the end, however, sociopaths are most definitely the product of nurture, especially the adverse conditions of early childhood trauma. Sociopaths are prevalent among society, and some researchers, like Martha Stout, claim that one out of every twenty-five people is a sociopath. However, this statistic is incorrect. This statistic is based on the assumption that sociopaths and psychopaths are the same people—which is untrue. While the sociopathic and psychopathic traits overlap, sociopaths differ in that they are obviously nervous and agitated, unable to create the illusions that psychopaths are so proud of. They live on the fringes of society, uneducated and unable to keep a steady job. Psychopaths, unlike sociopaths, are suave and able to maintain an illusion of conformity and maintain relationships on a superficial level. Both, however, are dominantly male, tend to disregard the rights and social mores of others, and have a tendency display violent and disruptive outbursts without remorse. Unlike psychopaths, who completely lack remorse and the ability to love, sociopaths may attach themselves to certain people, though they still remain contemptuous of the rest of humanity (7). There is a pervasive pattern of childhood abuse or some form of neglect in studied cases of sociopaths. “Son of Sam” David Berkowitz’s, adoptive mot... ... middle of paper ... ... Library. truTV. N.d. Web. 6 Feb. 2012. 4. Kellerman, Jonathan. Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children. New York: The Ballantine Publishing Group, 1999. Print. 5. Kiehl, Kent A., Robert D. Hare, John J. McDonald, and Johann Brink. “Semantic and affective processing in psychopaths: An event related potential (ERP) study.” Psychophysiology Volume 36 (1999): 765-774. PDF. 6. Montaldo, Charles. “Gary Ridgway: The Green River Killer.” Crime/Punishment. About.com. 8 Feb. 2012. Web. 6 Feb. 2012. 7. Olivarez, Brittany. “Sociopath v. Psychopath: What’s the Difference?” Helping Psychology. Education Maverick. 12 Dec. 2010. Web. 25 Jan. 2012. 8. Stout, Martha. “Inside the Mind of a Sociopath.” The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless vs. the Rest of Us. New York: Broadway Books, 2005. Web. 9. Pinker, Steven. The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. Print.
Vronsky, Peter. "A "Typical" Serial Killer: Gary Leon Ridgway, "The Green River Killer"."Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters. New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 2004. . Print.
Identifying the mystery of the psychopath can prove to help the them and the general public. Early awareness of the common psychopaths among us will reduce the impact on society. Further research is still needed to better help the psychopath and the general population.
Down the street, in our workplaces, seemingly under our beds- Harvard Medical Professor Martha Stout’s Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless vs. The Rest of Us sends the reader into a state of frightful paranoia when she mentions that a staggering 1 in 25, 4%, persons is, in fact, a sociopath. A sociopath, as Stout asserts, is a person with the lack of a conscience, thus a person not concerned with the suffering of others, to worry only about itself. She goes on to tell us that, because the rate of sociopaths in our society is so high, we must have already met hundreds without knowing it, due to the elusive and enigmatic nature of this psychological disease.
Hare, R. and Schalling, D. Psychopathic Behaviour: Approaches to Research. New York: John Wiley and Sons. 1978.
Triarchic Conceptualization of Psychopathy: Developmental Origins of Disinhibition, Boldness, and Meanness. " Development and Psychopathology 21.03 (2009): 913–9. Cambridge Journals. 7 July 2009. Web.
Philippe Pinel once described psychopathy as “insanity without delirium.” Meanwhile, other psychologists refer to them as “morally insane, which is considered by many pure evil” (Jones 2011). Psychopaths are psychologically classified as having a lack of remorse or shame, being pathological liars, failing to follow a life plan, relatively unresponsive in general interpersonal relations, insincere, and fail to learn from experiences (Hirstein, 2013). For years psychologists chose to push off the idea of psychopathy, as they believed it was an incurable condition that could only be worsened by therapy. Tests and studies are run often to discover the genetic trait in a psychopaths mind in an attempt to discover where it comes from and how to control it, appropriately.
Are psychopaths like Alice, “mad or bad?” (page 21). The question whether psychopaths are mentally ill or just a bad seed has caused much debate. Dr. Hare explains that the problem is not only labeling them mad or bad, but who deals with them. “Does the treatment or control of the psychopath rightly fall to mental health professionals or to the correctional system?” (page 21). Not only are professionals confused on how to classify psychopaths, but the media also creates confusion. Psychopath means mental illness and the media uses the word to classify someone as, “insane or crazy”, (page 22). Dr. Hare explains that even though psychopaths, “cannot be understood in terms of traditional views of mental illness”, they, “are not disoriented or out of touch with reality, nor do they experience the delusions, hallucinations, or intense subjective distress that characterize most other mental disorders…psychopaths are rational and aware of what they are doing and why.” (page 22). Most professionals use the term psychopath and sociopath as one in the same. Since DSM-III, antisocial personality disorder has been used in place of psychopath and sociopath. Philippe Pinel was the first psychiatrist describe a psychopath and Harvey Cleckley was one of the first successful publish a book describing a psychopath to the general public . Pinel used the term, “insanity without delirium”, (page 25). Cleckley wrote The Mask of Sanity, which influenced researchers in North America. Dr. Robert Hare explained that WWII was the first time clinicians felt a need to diagnosis people with psychopathy. Due to the draft, there was a need to weed out the people could disrupt or harm the military structure. Dr. Robert Hare realized how hard it was to identify a true psychopaths from rule breakers and developed the Psychopathy Checklist. This checklist is used world wide to help clinicians identify true
...res of the psychopaths and gives the reader various examples of these individuals playing out these characteristics in everyday life. A widely used checklist is provided so the reader can get a wide spanning view of what is accounted for when scoring a psychopath. This form of research is very important within the deceitfulness of this population; it allows the professional to ignore their words and examine their actions. Hare made it clear that it is not uncommon for there to be an emotional and verbal disconnect from their actions. With virtually no emotional functioning psychopaths feel no remorse for the offenses that they commit and it is very important that we work towards using the opportunities we have to study and assist these populations; not only for them but for ourselves.
Both psychopaths and sociopaths lack a moral compass. They are normally unable of sympathizing with the feelings of others, and an absence the set of integrities that tend to keep society from liquefying into a chaotic mess where everyone only looks out for themselves.
Kerns, Jeanne M. "Sociopath Vs. Psychopath: There Is a Difference." Yahoo Contributor Network. Www.yahoo.com, 15 Sept. 2008. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
What is a psychopath? What type of person can be characterized by this and how do they come to be? But first before we can answer these questions we must first know what a psychopath is. Psychopaths are people suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behaviors; clinically it is a person who has a lack of what we would consider a conscience. Psychopaths are seen to suffer from a lack of empathy because of psychological, genetic and environmental factors. Scientists have many theories concerning psychopaths. Scientist do not have a definite clear cut answer on what is the cause for psychopathy but they have many ideas; nature and the nurture of the person. Nature is the genes that the person carries. The nurture of the person when they were a child is simply means how they were treated when they were growing up and/or how they were raised. Some scientists even consider it a possibility that it could be a mixture of the two.
Robinson, Lori S, and Jimmie Briggs “Kids and Violence” Emerge November. 1993:44+ Seifert, Kathryn. A.
Many people with antisocial personality disorder are taught to have a lack of empathy in early childhood. There is a high number of serial killers with abusive pasts. Parents who abuse their children both mentally and physically at an early age are training their child to be cold and emotionless. Many killers suffered this fate at childhood and became heartless creatures with little to no remorse for their actions. In the article “What makes Serial Killers Tick?” it is said that Serial Killer Albert Desalvo was sold into slavery by his father and was sexually and physically abused for most of his you...
This paper is talking about “The Serial Killer,” but focus on Gary Ridgway- “The Green River Serial Killer.” He earned his nickname because the first five victims that he killed were found in the Green River. He was one of the most famous serial killers in the United States. Ridgway raped, chocked, killer and discarded 48 women, including many teenagers as young as 15 years old (Silja J, 2003). In Ridgway’s mind, he even believed that he was helping the police out, as he admitted in one interview with investigators (Silja J, 2003).
Psychopaths can be divided into different categories depending on their traits and characteristics. The basic definition given to psychopaths is a person who displays a group of behaviors that are seen in certain criminals. They include shallow charm, pretentious sense of self-worth, lack of behavioral control, pathological lying, need for stimulation, lack of guilt, repentance, and empathy, criminal resourcefulness, and a manipulative manner (Cassel and Bernstein 295). The Primary psychopath is described as the true psychopath. He/she is the individual that displays the behaviors that represent psychopathy (Bartol 419). There is also a secondary psychopath. They are the people that participate in antisocial behavior because of environmental causes. They pick up this behavior at developmental stages beyond infancy; they often fo...