Summary Of The Sociopath Next Door

Not all sociopaths are criminals, they do not feel remorse or guilt for their wrongdoings because of their inability to to emotionally connect with people. it is not known as to how exactly how or why people become sociopathic yet man sociopaths go on to lead very normal lives. Sociopaths are nurtured and not natural. This means that they are not born the way that they are. What causes sociopaths to be sociopaths has nothing to do with genes. Unlike the commonly sociopath with physocopath. sociopaths are in fact able to emmotionally connect with humans unlike physcopaths. With this in mind a sociopaths brain is actually nuerolically not the same as t than the average person. Interestlingly enough it could be both nutured and natural. for example. In a study sociopathic patients amygdala located in the brain does not light up like it is

While growing up the words, “ Think before speaking,” were placed in people’s mind. There are few people that don’t consider this and this phrase is meaningless to them. The thoughtless words they speak may sometimes affect the people around them. Being thoughtless makes people be selfish and cruel too because they only care about themselves. They don’t show consideration for the needs of others. Sometimes these particular behaviors can consider a person to be a psychopath or it may not. Psychopathy is described as a personality behavior considered by suffering from antisocial behavior, lack of remorse and empathy, and not being afraid of any risk. To determine if someone is a psychopath there is psychological assessment. For instance, in the book The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, he informs the readers about a Canadian psychologist called Bob Hare; who designed a psychopath test to diagnose psychopaths (Ronson 59). This checklist test will help me diagnose if my older brother

12 Million Americans are sociopaths that means every time you find yourself in a group of 25 people you can expect there is at least one individual without a conscience.

The common sociopath has trouble with interactions through the early stages in life. An example being the social normality throughout school and adolescence. The social awkwardness perceived through peers can create the anxiety and paranoia through a sociopath’s mindset. Potentially turning paranoia and anxiety into a violent spurt. They rarely use their conscious when making decision that can affect other people. A majority, are in a constant state of traveling either as a runaway or living in shelters. Many are prideful about their anti-authoritative nature which can lead to a more sadistic lifestyle making rebellion a natural state of mind. As time progresses the condition gradually worsens. Generally, these people are satisfied with their

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.

The opposition asserts that the justice system in America says sociopaths are more likely to commit crimes, and have no remorse, and will commit the crime again if given the chance (Levy 1302). However, this assertion is inaccurate. The law is written to punish criminals based on the crime and not based on their personality. Also, it is not uncommon that the men and women who end up in jail for a crime committed come from low or poor income areas, and broken homes. It is unfair to say that someone will feel remorse or not, there is no way to truly prove this. For example, there are some people who have developed the ability to suppress their compassion at certain times in order to process other thoughts or emotions that they may be experiencing

Psychopaths are unable to put themselves in the shoes of another person. They are unable to understand the feelings of another person. The author of the article” Psychopathy, Sociopathy and Crime” David Lykken, stated that, “the psychopath is characterized by a lack of the restraining effect of conscience and of empathetic concern for people”(Lykken 3). In another interview Hare had with a female psychopath, she had allowed her boyfriend to molest her five year old daughter. She simply did not want to have sex that night and believed it was fine to let him have her daughter.

I’m not much of a complainer, but if we’re all comparing sob stories and tales of unfortunate events, I think I’d have an early lead. Born in California to two Guatemalan parents, my first obstacle I had to overcome was… my own birth. When I was still in my nine-month solitary, my mom was told that the best course of action for her was to abort me. Apparently the doctors had found all sorts of things that seemed to place me at the risk of physical deformities or mental impairments. Now, I wouldn’t be writing if my parents had gone that route, so let’s look behind door number two. Growing in Christian faith, my parents both prayed constantly all while

introduced to the psychopath as an individual, a person who has no conscience or remorse, has

Conceptualize a world in which you have no conscience, no feelings of guilt or remorse -no matter what actions you take- no sense of empathy or concern of the well being of friends, loved ones, or even family members. This is the world of a sociopath. This is the world of Tom Ripley in Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. Tom develops into an intelligent young man who eventually conjures a crime spree in Europe. His driving force behind this spree, though the spree may be sporadic, is freedom. His ability to be independent from a guilty conscience and the pleasure from concealing a false identity (characteristics of a sociopath) are his motives behind his acquisition for freedom.

In the book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us by Robert D Hare, the author described how those diagnosed with this have little capacity for seeing the consequences of their behavior (Hare 77). Psychopaths exhibit extreme emotions or none at all, and their function processing is slower than that of a person with little to no psychopathic tendencies.

The term sociopath is commonly used to describe someone who suffers from antisocial personality disorder. The afflicted often have no sense of what is wrong and what causes emotional grief, or have lack of a conscience. Studies and brain scans have been conducted on these arguably unlucky few, and there is a clear difference between the diagnosed and undiagnosed. Brain activity is decreased in the lower frontal lobe and orbital cortex, which is thought to be associated with emotions and impulses. Here we see that whether or not a person “has a conscience” depends on only a few chemical reactions that take place in the

The first main indicator that someone is a sociopath is that the person is often unable to control their anger and their expressions of annoyance, and they react to accusations with a dangerous attitude. Gene displays this unique lack of self control when visiting Leper in Vermont. Leper accuses Gene of crippling Finny and the conversation ends with this, Leper: “Like when you crippled him for life”[pg 145]. “I shoved my foot against the rung of his chair and kicked. Leper went over in his chair and collapsed against the floor”[pg 145]. Although Gene has repeatedly announced he jounced the limb on purpose, he gets vicious and kicks Leper and his chair over after Leper implicates that he did it. On another incidence Gene physically attacks the captain of the rowing club after a small argument. This exactly matches the psychological profile of a sociopaths response to accusatory tone or authoritative display. The rejection of guilt is also in line with another symptom of a sociopath, not feeling remorse after doing something bad.

In the article they research if psychopaths have the capacity empathy. This is connected with the human mirror neuron system and is basic to the capacity for moral reasoning. A lack of empathy is usually associated with alexithymia or with reduced mirror activity in the brain. They research this by measuring the degree of people’s empathy. They do this true a behavioral point of view; through verbal and nonverbal communication, the expression of Editorial empathy in feelings or comments, or in facial and bodily reactions to others. The results of their research indicated that psychopaths experience empathy and it may be a motivational factor in moral development.

The behavior of a sociopath is so close to normal it is extremely hard to diagnose. A sociopath is a person that acts against society and their sole purpose it seems is to act against the laws of the given land their end. The sociopath will in most cases become violent and abuse drugs and alcohol to facilitate the violent behavior. The violence in many cases is the result of sub-concious decisions that might lead to murdering or assaulting someone for no reason. When a sociopath is attacking someone they will inflict more pain if the victim fights back.