I actually just read that book a few months ago. People like that are indeed scary, especially since by most indications, there's not much you can do to change them.

Yeah, it's creeping me out.

Yeah, I'd believe it. But I remember not being impressed by that book. If you're interested, I'll tell you why after you finish the book.

But moonshine, I don't want to read the book. Will you tell me right now?

Oh. My. God. A lot of this (Antisocial Personality Disorder, Dissocial Personality Disorder, Oppositional Defiance Disorder) describe my stepson to a tee. Life is just so much harder since he came to live with us. He doesn't exhibit all the signs (he's very affectionate to animals) but he does exhibit enough of them. We've tried to get him in counseling, but insurance won't pay, the school won't pay, and we can't afford to pay. He seems fine for a while, but every couple of months we have a very hard time. He's also 15, soon enough to be 16, not the easiest years anyway. And he sees nothing wrong with himself or his actions.

1 in 25? I think the number is much higher than that, say 1 in 15, maybe even 1 in 10. Then again, I think sociopathy is a sliding scale, not black and white.

Here in Vegas the ratio is probably 1 in 5.

I am also beginning to suspect that sociopathy is not so much a mental disorder as it is just another normal frame of mind. What the subject eventually boils down to is whether a conscience is innate or learned.

My niece has Oppositional Defiance. I just experienced a boatload of it trying to get her to vacuum the kitchen, one of the very few substantial chores my parents (her guardians) have ever succeeded in making her do on a regular basis. She would rather put twice as much energy into fighting you (and going around pulling things off shelves and tossing fragile things into the next room) than doing the chore without arguing.

The trick is usually to get her to do it on her own time, or invoke a consequence at a random later point. But that doesn't help if you need the kitchen clean by a certain time. That's her golden opportunity to oppose/defy you.

That said, I now understand this is not something that "grows" into classical sociopathy. In fact, in the right circumstances, she can be quite sweet.

Color me paranoid, but some of it does make sense - and if only 20% are incarcerated, the remaining majority are out here with us.

You're misreading that: the quote claims that 1 in 5 people in prison are sociopaths; this tells us nothing about what percentage of sociopaths are incarcerated (other than it's a non-zero percentage).

That melts my brain, ortho. The resulting point is still that most of the sociopaths in existence *aren't* incarcerated. So it becomes a sticky question of legality and morality that gets blurry really fast.

Since the woman who wrote the book seems to have decent credentials, my tendency is to believe her, even if the book is regarded as written on the surface for the lay person to read.

I'd have to disagree with mischief that a "normal frame of mind" includes someone who has no conscience and will manipulate or hurt anyone any time for the sheer hell of it. I dont' think I could do it and not feel guilty about it.

Depends on how you define "conscience" which this author does struggle with. She does make a connection between conscience and affect, in this case, love. Not necessarily romantic, but generally caring.

Also - the number she gives is 4% of the population, 4 people in 100 or 1 in 25. Not sure what Robert Hare's book says, haven't read it yet. If I try to think of 100 people I know, I could probably pick a few out of the bunch I'd suspect, but I don't know if I'd get to 4.

The U.S. pop. is 300 million. If 1 in 25 (4%) are sociopaths then the total number is 12 million. The prison pop. is 2 million and 20% of them are sociopaths or 400,000. So only 3.3 percent of all U.S. sociopaths are incarcerated. Over 96 percent of them are free.

20% of US prison populations are sociopaths

The rest are probably nonviolent drug offenders.

Uh, how 'bout looking up some statistics before making speeches:

Percent of sentenced
State inmates

Most serious offense

1995 2002

Total 100 % 100 %
Violent 47% 51%
Property 23% 20%
Drug 22% 21%
Public-order 9% 7%

Violent offenses include murder, negligent and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, sexual assault, robbery, assault, extortion, intimidation, criminal endangerment, and other violent offenses.

Property offenses include burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, fraud, possession and selling of stolen property, destruction of property, trespassing, vandalism, criminal tampering, and other property offenses.

Drug offenses include possession, manufacturing, trafficking, and other drug offenses.

Public-order offenses include weapons, drunk driving, escape/flight to avoid prosecution, court offenses, obstruction, commercialized vice, morals and decency charges, liquor law violations, and other public-order offenses.

The statistics about drug offenders are from Federal Prisons, and many narcotics statutes are Federal not State law. (and State prisoners far outnumber federal ones). This is not to say that the War On Drugs isn't a fiasco, but let's not lose our credibility by overstating things.

A lot of sociopaths aren't necessarily the Hannibal Lecter element. You won't have to worry about their posing a physical threat to you. They're just not what you'd call human.

Let me put it to you this way: Imagine a room that's familiar to you. Like your bedroom, for example. You know where the clock radio is, where the condoms are, where you put your glasses down before you go to sleep. Now imagine someone moves something in this ultra-familiar environment. They switch a pair of lamps or something. You enter the room and something doesn't seem quite right. You can't put your finger on it. But something's different in a subtle way that bugs you. The smile is too intense. They ingratiate themselves too quickly. The laugh is a little reptilian. Everything is too perfect. You feel a little fear, a sense that you're sharing drinks with a predator. But you don't know why.

That's what being around a sociopath is like. On an unconscious level, you realize that there's something missing, that they're not the same as you. But you find it hard to articulate exactly what it is that disturbs you.

j_p describes perfectly what I call a pseudo-conscience. Sociopaths may not have a conscience but that does not necessarily blind them to the societal-imposed consequences of their actions; society's threat of punishment outweighs the individual's apathy toward others.

If conscience is learned, then it is a social construct like any other. No parent can teach their children to respect every social construct (see religion); in the case of sociopaths, their parents simply did not or could not teach them to feel guilt.

The shrinks can speculate, draw conclusions from studies and whatnot, but in the end, like depression, it takes one to know one. ;-P

You can't put your finger on it. But something's different in a subtle way that bugs you. The smile is too intense. They ingratiate themselves too quickly. The laugh is a little reptilian. Everything is too perfect. You feel a little fear, a sense that you're sharing drinks with a predator.

You're saying all used-car salesmen are sociopaths?

You're saying all used-car salesmen are sociopaths?

Nope. But sociopaths tend to do pretty well in the consumer-capitalist society. They can form superficial relationships quickly. They're good at projecting a strong, charismatic image. And they don't give a rusty fuck about anybody but themselves. Your departure from this world or my departure from this world means about as much to them as a crushed beercan by the side of the highway. And they'd try to reduce you an equivalent state if you posed a threat to them or stood in their way.

j_p nailed it.

At the end of the book there's an interesting discussion about conscience and evolution. Along the lines of, if 100 people were stranded on a deserted island, whod' be most likely to survive? The sociopaths, because they're better equipped to manipulate. So then why are they not dominant?

According to some theorists, because group behavior trumps individual behavior. If a chimp shares fruit with his cousins, he may be shortening his own lifespan by going without, but he is strengthening the long term endurance of the *group's* genes with his benevolent behavior. So good vs. evil is somehow weirdly embedded in evolution.

Coupled with that is the observation that most sociopaths burn out or off themselves. When they run out of stimulation (they're chronically bored, so they seek stimulation constantly) they move on.

I'm not doing a great job of relaying what she says in the book, but I found it a really interesting read. So much of it rang true with this guy I'm dealing with.

Not to mention I L'dOL when I read the first rule on how to deal with sociopaths:

"Rarely do they look like Charles Manson or a Ferengi bartender. They look like us."