These 3 terms seem to be used quite interchangeably. Anyone in a background of psychology can weigh in? I think narcissist is when someone has an excessive/grotesque admiration of themselves. Psychopath is someone with no conscience, no feelings for others. Sociopath I'm not sure.
shareA PSYCHOPATH IS INSANE AND VIOLENT...A SOCIOPATH IS SANE WITH NO CONSCIENCE.
shareThat is all incorrect.
Neither need to be "insane" because they can follow social norms well.
A psychopath is supposed to be born with a broken brain that has low emotions. They do not have to be violent. However, they only get stimulation from something dramatic. They don't care about what they do because caring is an emotion, and they don't feel much of it.
A sociopath is conditioned by growing up around people who don't care about them, to not care about others. They could never get their needs met unconditionally from important people, so they started acting in order to convince people to help them. This turns into a life pattern and they look at everyone cynically and believe they must play everyone. Sometimes, this turns violent but it's always destructive in some way. That is because they hate people and want to do harm.
They show little conscience because they dislike most people. So, it's normal to like a dog, but most people don't like mice, although they are very related, and don't mind killing mice badly. That is because the belief most have about mice is very negative.
I explain a lot of it in my posts.
OH MY GOD,DUDE...RELAX,WHO THE FUCK IS GONNA READ ALL THIS SHIT YOU JUST EJACULATED INTO THIS THREAD...WE GET IT,YOU READ A LOT AND WORK AMONGST HUMAN GARBAGE...JESUS.
shareThe OP asked!
I work with extreme human garbage and have to be nice to them, it's been a crazy life!
I have worked with some truly shockingly awful people.
Sounds a bit like strolling thru the local mall, sadly.
shareThere's TONS of people with serious personality disorders due to the disintegration of the family and two working parents.
I remember reading psych material from the Soviet Union. They encouraged working women for equality purposes. However, they found that kids in daycare tended to show sociopathic behaviors.
That's because kids were getting "special attention" like your mom would give. So, they must hustle to get attention and that leads to what I explained about sociopaths.
Imagine the effect in the US that all the "baby momma" stuff is having on kids.
Excellent detailed response. Thank you. Ted Bundy is an excellent example of both a psychopath and sociopath then. I don't think he was much of a narcissist.
shareThe narcissistic part of him came out when he wanted to be his own lawyer.
That is always a sign and deadly for your case. It's a grandiose thought where you don't see that you are insulting the judge, a lawyer, and the DA, who is a lawyer, by saying "I got dis yo". You don't got it because you aren't a lawyer and even if you know stuff, you haven't been practicing.
However, overall he wasn't a narcissist where he's putting people down left and right. But he had some as I've said. If he thought he was better than "the bitches" he killed then he certain was very self-focused and blind to the fact that he was a murderer worse than any grudge he had against women.
Anyway glad you liked my posts.
not all psychopaths are violent.
shareI MISSED THE OR FOR THE AND/OR I MEANT TO TYPE....I JUST LOOKED IT UP IN THE DICTIONARY..."a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior."
shareYes.
You can be one who just enjoys causing "drama" as they say.
Some people have proposed you can be a POSITIVE psychopath! That's where you get stimulation from doing positive things, but don't really care about the positive thing itself.
for instance, you work for a charity and you raise a lot of money for kids with no feet. You get them all new feet and give them a million each! However, you don't care about those fucking kids, you just care about the thrill of the win and all the excitement you see going on about it.
I think some guy just wrote a book about being a positive psychopath. Whatever the case, I thought that was interesting.
Ted Bundy was a conundrum. He was a narcissistic psychopath, but very intelligent...and sane. He was not insane by any means. He was very sociable and could meld himself into any situation or group. It was later learned his formative years were not healthy even though he said his early years were “uneventful”.
A good read:
https://www.biography.com/news/ted-bundy-childhood
You are basically correct about narcissists.
The idea is that they have an overblown sense of greatness. They tend to put others down, be showy with cars, clothes, etc. They will believe they are above the law and can "do coke" because they can handle it, etc. However, the thing about them is that they don't have much to back it all up.
So, if have someone who is an expert on something and they know nearly everything about it, and people ask them for advice and they say, "I am a great historian! I am an expert on the topic" they aren't being a narcissist. If they put people down for it and think they can do coke because of it, maybe they are.
If they have nothing really to be proud of and they do all of those things, then they likely have the personality disorder.
Strange Example: I had a very beautiful friend. She was extremely hard to be around because men would just constantly try to get at her, I mean like monkeys. We would be out talking and dudes would just try to butt in like crazy. It reminded me of being at a zoo. She would eat it up. Guys would buy her 3k dresses, give her cars, and it was nuts.
She was dating some rich old coke dealer I hated and I stopped talking to her. Several years later we got in contact. He got her pregnant and made her have an abortion. She then tried to kill herself. I went to visit her and stayed in her parents house, who were both blind (crazy). She came to my room with the DSM-IV (diagnosis book) and showed me what her diagnosis was.
Histrionic Personality Disorder. I laughed HARD!! That is one where you believe, falsely, that you are the center of attention. The reason it was funny was because SHE REALLY WAS the center of attention. She told her story to the therapist and he thought she was crazy!!
She was not crazy.
So, a person who is proud of themselves, without beating others down, without breaking the law, etc is not a narcissist.
Origin: Being a narcissist is seen as a cover for low self-esteem.
Sociopath: Antisocial Personality Disorder.
This means Sick (path) Socially (socio)
This is a "Player" meaning someone who tricks people to get their needs met and they don't care who they hurt in the process. Typically, they have learned how to study people and simulate a positive personality to achieve their goals.
They can do this through charm, violence, leading people on, using drugs, or whatever works. They might be very brutal and sadistic, once they get people where they want them and drop the fake charm, or they can be someone like a golddigger type who uses people "gently" and never quite lets them know.
My friend that talked about above, she is into money. She slept with lots of guys. Then she meets this simple construction guy who owns his own business. She wouldn't have sex with him until marriage (fake virtue). They get married, she has sex with him and finds him disgusting, he is not good looking at all, but she says nothing. She has a couple of kids, as anchors, then stops sex altogether. She does whatever she wants with his money, will not leave, and started her own business.
He now masturbates to porn a lot and looks totally confused like a child.
That's low level sociopath. High levels ones, which I have worked with many, are serial killers, rapists, etc.
Origin: It's thought that inconsistent parents/authority figures (Female friends parents were blind alcoholics) create this personality in kids. The kid cannot get needs met by asking or just having their parents figure it out, thus making life comfortable. Rather, the kid must learn to ACT in order to get people to respond. This makes the kid HATE ALL PEOPLE and see the world as a war like challenge. So, they are the heroes of their own world playing people who suck in order to survive.
Sociopaths used to be considered psychopaths.
However, sociopath is a humanistic explanation that has the person starting out good, then turning bad, due to negative environmental forces. Psychopath isn't used in psychology in general, but is still used in forensic psych (criminal).
I am not sure it exists.
Anyway, a psychopath is supposed to be born that way. I have a problem with "born that way" because it's Nazish to me. But, they are supposed to be born with a brain that doesn't function well. They are simple thinkers who have very low functioning emotions.
So, they don't sit around thinking about the nature of the universe, life, and how amazing a butterfly is. Even if they did, it would be boring. They see a puppy, and it's not cute to them, it's a thing.
It's a big deal in psych evals if a person doesn't think cute animals are cute. They will "not understand them" or just not like them.
So, the thing that really stimulates them is a dramatic event. So, kicking a puppy is a great thing to them because the puppy loudly squeals, barks, runs around, walks funny, it's all loud, new and novel! That gets their brain going.
These people become addicted to causing what we see at trouble and hurt. Again, this could be high or low level. They may enjoy spreading gossip and harming people like that or they may enjoy torturing people. It's all for the excitement, not hate or because they are emotionally hurt people. They view life like we would a videogame.
I'm suspicious of any biological claim where there's only negative behavior. Your brain doesn't know positive or negative, only beliefs and intentions do. That's why the Sociopath term came into being. But, recently I read stuff about it being possible to be a positive psychopath. That might be a charity worker who doesn't care about the charity, but love the "win" of having raised money, etc. There could be many doctors like that.
I think if these people exist, they are rare.
There seems to be evidence that shows increasing instances of psychopathy as we examine higher and higher levels of management. Speaking Only of my experience in the insurance industry in south Florida, and as a layman in the field of psychology, I've found this to be true and self evident.
The management, all the way up to the owners, showed, to me, steadily decreasing humanity.
One thing that puzzles me is that the owners didn't appear this way until their coffers began to overflow.
That's probably Antisocial Personality Disorder though.
A woman did a study years ago where she out and ad in a paper asking for people with most of the qualities of a sociopath to show up for some kind of special event. She didn't say "sociopath" but just listed the qualities. Most of them were business people.
I have only sold one thing in my life which is a painting. I have always worked for publically funded places. A few years ago I got bored with psych and wanted to go into business. I got a job in sales and quit fairly quickly because you have to lie and I almost never lie.
So, capitalism is all about lying and doing it calmly. I have apples for a dollar, but you really bought them for 10 cents. You say, these are premium apples well worth the price! But you bought them off the back of a truck, etc.
Smooth liars that what to get the most out of others are sociopaths. You can't love people and be a capitalist. So, the more power you get the less other people mean to you so the more hate comes out.
I was quite successful as an insurance agent. I managed at one point to sign off on 55 term life policies in a month. I was exhausted.
But like you I don't like to lie. I do it so seldom that I'm just not very good at it. So sales was... difficult. Ten years in I was burnt out beyond recognition and thoroughly disgusted.
I went back to working with my hands... and working for myself.
I can't do it.
I lasted like a two weeks and I went back to my career. In fact, this customer who used to work for 60 Minutes talked me into it.
She did a story that I saw years ago on DMSO and I remembered it. We got to talking and she thought I was too smart for sales and I told her what I really did. She thought I was burn out but needed to go back, so I did!
Also, wearing suits and stuff is so corny to me. I grew up in a blue collar area and they were seen as a sign of evil and I can't shake it.
Ah costumes. That's really what they are. I prefer cotton and leather but I'm told I clean up well. Back in that career choice I wore nice suits, ties and wingtips. Gold watch and cufflinks, diamond earing and tie clip.
It helped with sales and... well, it looked good!😃 No one wants to buy from someone that doesn't look like he's good at it.
If we get right down to the basics, every affectation is part of a costume.
Yes.
I look good in a suit, but feel weird wearing one. Women get excited by it but that turns me off too lol!
Philly get REALLY HOT AND HUMID in the summer. I am a large man that's been in the gym since a teen and am always hot. I had this one great job I loved. I had to travel around and do psych evals on mental patients so unusual no one could figure them out. So, my team would do the evals and figure the cases out. I enjoyed it a lot.
However, my supervisor, was this really cool black lady who insisted we dress up. I was swimming in sweat most of the time in a suit and it was gross. It was hard to think.
I now dress casual because I mostly deal with poor people and they will think engatively of you if you are dressed up too much. So, I am happy about that.
People who are impressed by Things and appearances as opposed to personality don't do anything for me either. I find them to be shallow and usually fairly low in IQ. The former is definitely a negative trait and the latter makes it hard to relate.
shareFascinating response. This sounds like most politicians. Thank you again. Did you study psychology in university?
shareYes. I have several grad degrees on the topic and decades of clinical/work experience.
I have loved the subject since age ten and have done a lot more study than required.
I am tired of criminals though.
Damn good question. The answer regrettably seems to be pretty fluid. Every few years, it seems, the definitions expand and contract. Narcissism appears to be a marker for the other two.
sharePseudo science is what we have today.
shareIt's not "science" it's just descriptions of types of people and behavior.
For instance, we could all probably make a list of what a "nice" person is and they would all be similar.
These are just traits of people most people don't get to meet and understand.
Very simple!
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Dude, that is what I said only I said it better.
The article comes from the work of Theodore Millon, which is doesn't say, but look him up.
He has the fucking writer should have referenced him because he is a genius and no one else came up with the subtypes of personality disorder.
Also, this is a random website open to anyone. It's not just for retards I assume. I am highly educated on the topic of psych and have 30 years clinical experience. I like movies which is why I'm here. There can be all kinds of people here.
a narcissist can be a normal person while sociopaths and psychopaht are bad guys.
shareOne huge difference with psychopaths and sociopaths is that psychopaths are more brave than sociopaths. Psychopaths often took risks and attack even bigger and crazier then themselfes. While,sociopaths only attack when they are 100% sure they can win,
Street criminals,boxers are great examples of psychopaths,
Politicians are easily best example of sociopaths.
Yes I agree with this also. I think in order to be a successful, ruthless businessperson, you do have to be sociopath.
Psychopaths are people like Paul Bernardo/Karla Homolka, Ted Bundy, etc.
You don't have to be sociopath to be successful. It's totally wrong. Most people just burn out after becoming rich and successful.
share