Psychopaths Versus Sociopaths: Comparative Analysis

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Psychopaths Versus Sociopaths: Comparative Analysis

Psychopaths vs. Sociopaths

Every person behaves differently, the way they were affected by their environment or the way they think it’s best. People judge others by their behavior and often call them psychopaths or sociopaths without knowing what those two words truly mean. Psychopathy and sociopathy are both dissocial personality disorders.

Main characteristics of psychopathy: emotional dysfunction, lack of empathy and guilt, pathological lying; and abandoning relationships. (1 Tassy, Sebastien) Signs and symptoms of psychopathy are mostly: callousness, manipulation, low control over their conduct, superficial charm, glibness, impulsiveness, and pathological lying. (2 Psychopathy: Definition, Symptoms, Signs, and Causes)

Sociopaths, on the other hand, are characterized by a lack of conscience and empathy and exhibit antisocial behavior and attitudes. Signs and symptoms of sociopathy: lack of morals, emotions, lack of empathy, and mostly antisocial behavior that leads to criminal acts, exploit others for personal gain, and disregard for the rights and feelings of others. (3 Khan, Nadia)

Differences between psychopathy and sociopathy

Sociopaths and psychopaths are people, who seem to be totally similar to others, but the truth is different. Psychopathy and sociopathy have typical characteristics, which are different for each.

‘While the traits of each may seem similar, it is thought that sociopaths have a less severe form of lack of empathy and lack of guilt. Sociopaths can form some deep bonds ( such as, possibly, with family) while a psychopath cannot.'(4 Tracy, Natasha)

It means that sociopaths deal with people variously. If they hurt their family members or close friends, they might feel guilty, but if it’s a strange person, they show no guilt. Regarding psychopaths, it doesn’t matter if acts of theirs hurt people, even those close ones. Secondly, sociopaths react impulsively. They´re driven by emotions: fear, anger, thoughts, and by a need to control something interesting for them. (5 Changingminds.) These factors lead to a conclusion that sociopaths have a low level of self-control since their acts drove by emotions mostly aggression, and that psychopaths have a high level of self-control since they’re more intelligent and don’t feel emotions like other people.

Similarities between psychopathy and sociopathy

Psychopathy and sociopathy are mostly different, but they still have a couple of similarities. One of the similarities is that both don’t feel guilty when they hurt someone strange or do the crime. (4Tracy, Natasha), (5 Changingminds.) That shows the lack of guilt they have, mentioned before. Secondly, they are both little regard for rules and social values. (5 Changingminds.) For them, people are not equal, and it can be seen by how do psychopaths and sociopaths treat them. The third similarity is the lack of concern for the well-being of others. (5 Changingminds.) All these similarities are related to each other, and they all tell, how psychopaths and sociopaths do not care about individuals.

Causes

Genetic factors cause psychopathy, but it can be provoked by environmental and interpersonal factors, which are less likely to be the reasons for psychopathy. (15 Castillo, Michelle.)The genetic factor, psychopathy treats appear mostly to the teens with signs of lying and being selfish, but it can also appear in later age as for example when a person is 30.

In history, there were just a few cases when environmental and interpersonal factors caused psychopathy. One of the cases was Ted Bundy, normal man till his girlfriend, he loved so much, left him because he wasn´t marriage material.(11 Fink, Jeri) The whole situation broke him, and something changed in his brain, and he started to kill young women, who looked the same as his girlfriend.

Genetic factors do not cause of sociopathy, but biological and environmental factors do. The biological factor is when the brain starts to react faster to emotionally charged words, such as love, happy or hate, than neutral words, such as television, grass or sky. (12 Leidenfrost, Corey) It´s a sign of a non-sociopathic person slowly becoming a sociopath. Their minds start to work differently from others´ minds

The environmental factor is trauma from abuse or rejection from the past. By the studies, scientists found an out those people who became sociopaths because of environmental factor are much more violent than the sociopaths from a stable background. (6 Peterson, Tanya J.) If the child had a good relationship with both parents, and they would divorce after time, the child can take it the worst way and it can lead to sociopathy.

Types of psychopaths and sociopaths

Psychopathy is divided into three groups: low psychopathy, moderate psychopathy, and high psychopathy. Low psychopathy or primary psychopathy is a term for manipulative and motivated behavior by personal gain. (16Dean, Andy C) High psychopathy also called as secondary psychopathy is when the behavior of psychopath is a result of high anxiety and negativity coupled with a lack of behavioral and emotional control. (16Dean, Andy C)

We divide sociopaths into 7 groups: the common one, alienated, disaffiliated, hostile, disempathetic type, cheated & and aggressive and dissocial sociopath. (7 McGee, Faith)(17Positivagirl) The common sociopath is the one that which doesn’t care about how his actions will affect others, generally, he only cares about his life and tries to avoid any responsibility for his actions.

The alienated type of sociopath is one that has a problem to empathize with other people, and it more likely that they show more feelings toward a pet or a thing than a human being. This type of sociopathy is caused mostly because of the environment during youth. (7McGee, Faith)(17Positivagirl)

The hostile type is a constantly angry, violent, and aggressive person that feels like being completely abandoned by society. (7McGee, Faith)(17Positivagirl) Because of that feeling, they act so aggressively. It’s the way they think they can survive in this world.

The disempathetic type is the emotional type. These sociopaths have a small group of people. They care about that group the most, and they have strong bonds with them. Others, who are outside the group treat as an object, and can´t feel empathy towards them. (7McGee, Faith)(17Positivagirl)

The cheated sociopaths are ones that feel as they were cheated. They think that the rules they have to follow are trying to take away their good lives. The aggressive ones use violence to get what they want, they want to have control over their victims. (7McGee, Faith)(17Positivagirl)

The dyssocial sociopath is psychologically normal, only think thing that makes him sociopath is that he likes to be part of a violent group of people and committing crimes. The dyssocial sociopath takes care of his friends, but does not care about people outside the group. (7McGee, Faith)(17Positivagirl)

Problems they face in society

Everyone is afraid of something, that does not meet human standards. They’re most scared of sociopaths and psychopaths because they don´t know what to expect from them and sometimes it’s hard to find out who is the sociopath or psychopath because they´re intelligent enough to hide.

Is it hard to find a job as a sociopath or a psychopath? The truth is that psychopaths are those at the top, like CEO or leader as we know some from the history, where we had some psychopaths. (20Dodgson, Lindsay.) The same goes for sociopaths, but they’re not at the top. It’s easy for them to find a job, but their problem is that they can’t do one job for too long. They can´t stay and do one thing for a long time.

Are they dangerous?

They´re seen as dangerous beings in the eyes of others. Sociopaths are seen like that because of their violent behavior and lack of empathy. But psychopaths are more dangerous and scarier than sociopaths. It´s harder to notice a psychopath than a sociopath, that’s because they can manipulate people, they´re very educated and think before they act, it’s easy for them to get anything they want, to get to power and control without notice.

In the past, we had many cases when psychopaths or sociopaths became dangerous for us, for this world, especially rulers and kings, while nowadays psychopaths are represented by serial killers, CEOs, lawyers, chefs, and police officers.

Percentage of psychopaths and sociopaths

Normally, when we step out of our houses, we don’t meet sociopaths and psychopaths that often.

Because psychopathy is a more genetic disorder, there aren’t many psychopaths present in this world. The percentage of psychopaths is around 1% of the total population. (18 How to Spot Psychopaths: Speech Patterns Give Them Away.) It was the same for sociopaths before, but because sociopathy is caused by environmental and interpersonal factors the percentage of sociopaths is still growing. The actual percentage is 4% of the total population. (19Psychologia) The total percentage of psychopaths may grow as the total percentage of sociopaths, but it all depends on how people going to deal with this problem.

Famous psychopaths and sociopaths

We had many psychopaths and sociopaths who were trying to take over countries, control people, kill people for their own happiness, and a lot more. History´s most famous psychopaths were, for example, King Leopold II, who was a king of Belgium. He controlled the Congo Free

State in central Africa and because he wanted the rubber and ivory from the Congo region, millions of people died. As a punishment for not doing as he said, he would amputate workers hands, and if the worker needed his hands, they would amputate his wife’s and children’s hands. (8-allthatsinteresting.com/famous-psychopaths/1.)

Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge who committed mass of executions using hammers, axes or sharpened bamboo sticks. Around 2 million people died during his time. (9-allthatsinteresting.com/famous-psychopaths/2.)

Elizabeth Bathory, a woman that killed hundreds of girls forcing to eat their own flesh, torture them for weeks and at the end, burn them or let them starve themselves to death. (10-allthatsinteresting.com/famous-psychopaths/3.) Or other psychopaths like Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann, Tomás de Torquemada, Josef Mengele, Vlad The Impaler or Jim Jones.

We had some famous sociopaths in history as John Gacy who murdered about 32 young men and buried them under his house. ( 14 Most Famous Sociopaths To Ever Walk The Earth) Jeffrey MacDonald, narcissistic sociopath, that murdered his pregnant wife and his two daughters he had. (14) These sociopaths were serial killers, but we had also sociopaths, who were not serial killer or murderers. Jack Henry Abbott was sociopath, who ended in prison. To get out he stabbed someone and got back to prison for robbery. Joey Buttafuoco, another sociopath, that never committed murder.

People should not say, that someone is a sociopath or a psychopath based on one of the characteristics mentioned before. It´s more about a person´s behavior in a certain, longer time. If a person has more than one of these dissocial personality disorders´ characteristics, he or she´s more likely be one.

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