Psychopath Vs Sociopaths

There is a lot of uncertainty for the average person in regards to understanding and identifying psychological disorders. For example, people may confuse disorders such as sociopathy and psychopathy with one another simply due to lack of basic understanding (Bonn). According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, psychopathy is defined as a “mental disorder especially when marked by egocentric and antisocial activity.” Based on the egocentric portion of this definition, a psychopath, or person with psychopathy, is essentially someone who is only focused on themselves with little regard for other’s emotions. Based on the antisocial portion, a psychopath is someone that goes against regular societal rules (Merriam-Webster). Overall,

The words “psychopath” and “sociopath” are thrown around quite often and commonly confused, but please bear with me as we dive deeper into the true meaning of the words. In the early 1800s, doctors who worked with mental patients began to notice that some of their patients who appeared outwardly normal had what they termed a “moral depravity” or “moral insanity,” in that they seemed to possess no sense of ethics or of the rights of other people. The term “psychopath” was first applied to these people. The term was changed to “sociopath” in the 1930s to emphasize the damage they do to society. Modern researchers and doctors have returned to using the term “psychopath”. Some of them use this term to refer to a more serious disorder, most of the

What drives a serial killer to their breaking point? What is it that makes them start killing? Nature and nurture are both key elements. They both play their part in turning a once innocent person, into a psychopath. Which drives a serial killer more though? Is it the nature of their lives and their surroundings? Is it their family genes and the way they grew up with their family? Many serial killers are affected differently. They aren’t all driven by the same thing though. There is something in each serial killer that makes them different. There is something inside that drives them into their psychotic rage. Even though nature and nurture both play a part in a serial killer’s life, nurture is more effective to a serial killer’s life than nature.

Psychopath and sociopath are two terms classified as antisocial personality disorders in the world of psychology. Although many people have heard of these two terms, quite often people do not know what sets them apart from one another. A sociopath is defined as a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience. The definition of psychopath is similar in being a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior. By looking at the definitions, these personality disorders appear very similar; however, there are specific attributes that are more specific to one of the two.

psychopath as an exaggerated narcissist lack of empathy and egocentrism. antisocial, disregard society 's social norms. disregard authority. eager. presses people for tangible and intangible goods.

Jennifer Koser Joe Sonsella General Psychology 4-22-16 Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) is one of 10 personality disorders in the manual of mental disorders. It is commonly characterized by a person who consistently shows no regard for right and wrong, and ignores the rights and feelings of others. They tend to manipulate or treat others harshly, and show no remorse for their behavior.1 The criteria for diagnosing this disorder differs depending on the version and source, but usually requires a lifelong pattern of symptoms. Scientific evidence shows individuals displaying anti social behavior from a young age and remaining this way for the span of their life. The population of people with ASPD is diverse.

Psychopathy is measured with a tool called PCL-R which has 4 dimensions: affective, antisocial, lifestyle and interpersonal (Mulcahy M., Cutinelli P., Warner J. and Woodruff T. (April 01, 2011). As a result you can see that Gary Ridgway is a serial killer and is a psychopath to a large extent because his psychopathy is evident in all areas of the PCL-R.

Many serial killers have psychopathic tendencies, which mean they have normal roles in society. If they are sociopaths, they are more likely to be

As a result, these individuals are incapacitated if their behavior related to crime is untreatable. The biological theory argues that individuals engage in crime due to genetic, neurological as well as biochemical deficits (Lionell & Rawlins, 2005). This way, Charles Manson’s criminal behavior could be explained by this theory since he is mostly emotionally withdrawn, skeptical, materialistic, over sensitive and inconsistent in attitudes and decisions. Psychological theories points out those individuals engage in crime due to personality disparities, which develops in early childhood. Reflecting to Manson’s case, he could be termed as clinically insane.

Overall empathy is great and everyone should be empathetic to

Introduction I. Look around this school and think about exactly how many students are here daily. How would you feel if I told you that one out of every twenty five people are sociopaths(Pratt 2006).The fact of the matter is that not everyone who is a sociopath is a serial killer but oddly enough it has been proven that all serial killers are sociopaths. II. I have chosen serial killers that I found intriguing and that I thought not many people would know a lot about.

(Serial Killers: Nature vs. Nurture, How Serial Killers are Born). The second part of this statement is accurate, they are really good at hiding their emotions. This allows them to appear among the population as normal. However, they are not doing this because they want to but because they have to. All they had to endure was tough so they must put up a shell or a front to keep people from seeing the harsh reality of what they have to go

) This means that they aren 't able to feel much empathy causing them to commit such violent crimes (Keysers, 2013). Conclusion: Review: Since we established that psychopath have certain characteristic or traits such as speech pattern, abnormal sexual behavior and lack of emotional control. You will now be able to identify a psychopath End-Statement

Harry Howard Holmes should not be classified as a psychopath, regardless of the fact he killed people and was arrested for insurance fraud. However, there are many other reason to why he is absolutely a psychopath. Even though he finished medical school, did not keep trophies from his past murders, and confessed to his crimes, Holmes is a psychopathic murderer. Money is the biggest reason to all of his crimes that lead to him eventually being diagnosed with a Psychopathic disorder.

A psychopath is classified as someone who shows no remorse and has no conscience, while a sociopath has some sort of conscience and sometimes shows some guilt or remorse ("What's the Difference Between a Sociopath and a Psychopath"). Psychopaths do not feel sorry for other people (“What’s the Difference Between a Sociopath and a Psychopath”) and Kuklinski certainly did not feel sorry for any of his victims (“Married to The Iceman”). During an interview with HBO, Kuklinski stated that he probably could have killed his father and wouldn’t have felt bad about it ("Richard Kuklinski The Iceman Mafia Hitman HBO Interview 2001 (Part 1)"). Richard Kuklinski also showed sociopathic traits. He only showed remorse when talking about his wife and kids ("Richard Kuklinski 'The Iceman' Part 12 of 12").