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Intro:
Jingle
Hello! My name is Michelle and I am a senior from New Jersey and today I will be your main host for today. On the 11th episode of A POP of Psych, I will be discussing a topic that is a bit out of the ordinary and nothing like our past topics—we will be talking about psychopaths and sociopaths! I anticipate that this will be on the lengthier side, so sit tight and get ready to gain some insight into this unusual topic.
Segment 1: How Michelle Became Invested in This Topic
Before I start to delve in the nitty gritty info regarding distinctions and signs of psychopaths and sociopaths, I will be discussing my personal interest in this peculiar topic as a starting point.
So, I was asking my psychology teacher for some book recommendations, and one of the books was The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry. Before I describe my thoughts on it: here is the Wikipedia synopsis
“The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry is a 2011 book written by British author Jon Ronson in which he explores the concept of psychopathy, along with the broader mental health "industry" including mental health professionals and the mass media.”
First things first: Book is written in a conversational / non-academic tone —anyone can read it - very insightful; gets you thinking about the possible people in your life who display symptoms of psychopathy → for a while, I was like hyper-aware of psychopathic symptoms everywhere—in TV, literature and whatnot → now, I am just mildly invested and interested in this topic → I have to say it is quite fascinating and intriguing.
I don’t want to spoil anything, but before I talk about some non-spoiler points of the book, I do want to mention that for whatever reason you don’t have time to invest in a book, then definitely listen to Ronson’s TED Talk on this topic → it’s equally engaging and gripping.
In the book, Ronson visits and talks with many psychopaths, psychologists, and psychiatrists who have studied psychopaths. In particular, he meets Canadian psychologist Robert D. Hare, who is the creator of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, a 20-item test that is administered to detect psychopathy
After taking a look at this checklist, Ronson entertains a thought → perhaps many corporate and governmental leaders are psychopaths whose actions towards those around them can be inexplicable but only explainable by taking the fact they are perhaps psychopaths into account
The book also goes into some unorthodox and controversial treatments → not quite related to our topic today, but definitely interesting to read about.
I think a great point that I want to highlight Ronson makes towards the conclusion of the book is that it's difficult to draw a line between sanity, insanity, and eccentricity. Essentially, we should not judge others solely by their “maddest edges” or basically, weird idiosyncrasies.
I will stop here → I highly recommend it in order find out more about Ronson’s journey in this realm of psychopathy and his qualms about diagnosing people as psychopaths. So, this is how I cultivated an interest in this topic. Now, in this the upcoming segment, I’ll be sharing information that I found out about differentiating between psychopaths and sociopaths.
Segment 2: Differences between psychopaths and sociopaths
Now, I think it is important to start this talk with a preface that definitions of psychopath and sociopath are NOT in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) which is the official handbook periodically released and updated by the American Psychiatric Association.
The 5th edition of the DSM, which was released in 2013, lists both sociopathy and psychopathy under the heading of Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD)
Experts state that there are common behavioral traits that characterize ASPD, which can lead to some confusion when people just use psychopath and sociopath as interchangeable terminology. The following are the key shared traits of people who fall under the aforementioned category in the DSM:
Disregard for laws and social mores
Disregard for the rights of others
Failure to feel remorse or guilt most of the time
Tendency to display violent or aggressive behavior
⇒ basically there is a startling lack of empathy for others on a basic, humane level & there is a general lack of conscience, or that little voice in our head that let’s guides our moral compass, telling us that something is wrong or right
While not officially in the DSM, experts in the field of psychopathy and sociopathy say that the fundamental difference between the two have to do with the notion of nature versus nurture. First, I’ll discuss the characteristics of psychopaths and then sociopaths.
Psychopaths
Psychopathy is result of nature (genetics) while sociopathy is result of nurture (environment)
Psychopathy is related to a physiological defect that results in underdevelopment of part of brain responsible for impulse control and emotions
Recent research suggests a psychopath’s brain is not like other people’s → physical differences that make it hard for the person to identify with someone else’s distress
Differences can even change basic body functions
When most ppl see blood or violence in a movie, their hearts beat faster, breathing quickens, and palms get sweaty
Psychopath has opposite reaction → gets calmer; this quality helps psychopaths be fearless and engage in risky behavior → no fear of consequences of their actions
AS A RESULT: Tend to be aggressive and predatory in nature
View others as objects for their amusement
Although they lack empathy, psychopaths often have disarming or even charming personalities
Manipulative and can easily gain people’s trust
Learn to mimic emotions, despite their inability to actually feel them and will appear normal to unsuspecting people
Often well-educated and hold steady jobs
Some are so good at manipulation and mimicry that they have families and other long-term relationships without those around them ever suspecting their true nature
When committing crimes, psychopaths carefully plan every detail in advance and often have contingency plans in place → do well during crisis
Unlike sociopaths, psychopathic criminals are cool, calm, and meticulous → make them effective criminals → generally more difficult to identify than sociopaths
Hard to know when a psychopathic predator has targeted you for exploitation
Sociopaths
Sociopathy is more likely the product of childhood trauma and physical or emotional abuse
Sociopathy appears to be learned rather than innate → sociopaths are capable of empathy in certain circumstances and with certain individuals
Volatile and prone to emotional outbursts, including fits of rage
More likely than psychopaths to be uneducated and live on the fringes of society
Sometimes unable to hold down a steady job or to stay in one place for very long
Difficult, not impossible, for sociopaths to form attachments with others
Many sociopaths are Able to form attachment to a particular individual or group, although they have no regard for society or its rules in general
Meaningful attachments of any sociopath will be few in number and limited in scope → struggle with relationships in general
Eyes of other: sociopaths will generally appear disturbed or erratic; any crimes they commit will tend to be haphazard & spontaneous rather than planned
Ultimately, from a diagnostic standpoint, Psychopathy is RARER than sociopathy and is considered to be the most dangerous of ASD
Also, for the sake of time, I’ll quickly summarize one last thing:
I encourage you guys to read about James Fallon. He is an expert on psychopaths. He is a neuroscientist at the UC Irvine School of Medicine. Basically, First began studying the brains of murderers, rapists, and other criminals in the mid 1990s, when university got its first PET brain-imaging machine → didn’t start focusing on this area of research until about 10 years ago, when something happened that made him rethink his entire career focus
One day, Fallon's technician brought him a stack of brain scans from an unrelated Alzheimer's study. As he was going through the scans of healthy participants, they all looked normal. But then he got to the last scan.
It looked just like those of the murderers’ brain scan.
Turns out, the image wasn't a scan of just any random participant — it was a scan of his very own brain.
So, I hope this piqued your interest → definitely check articles about him out, it’s pretty cool
If you are interested in doing more reading, make sure to check out our website, linked in the podcast description. For this episode in particular, I have included a lot of links that I encountered while doing research for this episode - all are pretty interesting so definitely take the time to skim through whenever your time allows. On that note, I’ll be giving some examples of psychopaths and sociopaths in news and pop culture.
Segment 3: Examples of Psychopaths & Sociopaths
Now, I’ll be listing some examples of psychopaths and sociopaths in pop culture to give more insight into what psychopaths and sociopaths may look like in our media. I am doing this so that this topic is at least a bit less distant- many of our other topics are relatable so the goal of me giving these examples is to make this topic more approachable as well.
Psychopath pop culture examples: Dexter, Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, Henry in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Patrick Baterman in American Psycho
Sociopath pop culture examples: The Joker in The Dark Knight, JD in Heathers, Alex Delarge in A Clockwork Orange
I have not watched most of these films, so I cannot attest to all of this personally. However, the following examples are ones that I have researched more in depth so I will give more context and insight.
First, let me play an audio clip:
So this was Dennis Rader, who is a serial killer better known by his self-assigned pseudonym of “Bindd, Torture Kill” or BTK (which is just another example of psychopathic pride)
He murdered 10 people, which included men, women, and children between the years of 1874 and 1991.
He loved to played with authorities and he sent them numerous taunting letters. He avoided detection and capture until 2005.
In between murders, Rader lived a normal looking life with a wife and two children. He was perceived by people in the neighborhood as a pillar in his Wichita, Kansas, community.
Inwardly, however, Rader was satisfying his sexual needs and delaying his compulsion to kill for months and even years at a time by engaging in fantasies until the need to commit murder became overwhelming once again - all in a clandestine manner. He is Now in prison and serving 10 life sentences in isolation, he remains as unrepentant as ever as demonstrated by the audio clip I just played.
The one thing I want to emphasize with this example is the fact that this psychopathic serial killer wore a mask of sanity and appeared sane to others. I found this quite chilling. Moreover, he says he was dropped on his head. While I don’t know the details, I speculate that this perhaps changed something in his brain or maybe he was already born in this manner → but the point is that he displays all the signs of a psychopath → he was calculating in planning out his murders, he took pride in them and experienced no remorse, all while under the guise as a family man
Next up, I have an example for a sociopath.
While sociopaths seems like they would be easy to detect as criminal in the news, most are psychopaths → so I found a sociopath in literature
The Warden in Holes (childhood memories of reading this)
The warden is a descendent of Trout and Linda Walker, who are the original owners of Green Lake, and just like them, she's greedy, selfish, impatient, and abusive. The Warden, of course, is the villain of the story.
The book's portrayal of the Warden isn't entirely fair, of course – that is, she's not exactly a three-dimensional character.
Still the one telling part of the sociopathic aspect that the Warden displays is evident in the following quote: "Do you know how long…" Her voice trailed off, then started up again. "When I was little I'd watch my parents dig holes, every weekend and holiday. When I got bigger, I had to dig, too. Even on Christmas."
She is obsessed with finding the suitcase she was forced to dig for throughout her childhood. She won’t have peace until she finds that suitcase, and she doesn’t care who suffers along the way. In this scene, readers discover the Warden’s relationship to Trout and Linda Walker, a detail further strengthening the novel’s theme of fate.Essentially, through nurture, the Warden became a sociopath of sorts.
And that’s all I have for today, onto the closing!
Closing:
In this episode, I discussed the differences between psychopaths and sociopaths and also provided some examples in the media and the news.
Through this episode, I also wanted to highlight the importance of empathy towards others, especially during these times. I talked about psychopaths and sociopaths to provide inside about them, but also convey what happens when there is lack of regard and empathy towards others. I hope this episode just highlighted the importance of empathy.
And, as usual, please feel free to send in audio messages or requests through our Anchor link.
Thank you for listening and we’ll be back soon with another engaging episode within the next 2 weeks.
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