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Sociopathy In Serial Killers

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The television show You demonstrates many aspects of sociopathy throughout its four seasons. Protagonist, Joe Goldberg, has fallen into deep obsessions with women, often leading to stalking, violence, and even murder because of the “love” he claims to possess for them. A sociopath is an individual with a history of serious and usually violent criminal activity. It is very similar to psychopathy, but the main distinguishing factor is that sociopaths can be capable of feeling some remorse after their crimes, unlike psychopaths. Sociopathy also seems to stem from the environment rather than biological. In the first couple of seasons of the show, Joe’s backstory consists of being taken from his mother, living in an abusive household, causing him …show more content…

Serial killers often appear to be innocent or even high status, which allows them to lure their victims with that charm (Levin & Fox, 2008). They use this to their advantage, helping them fulfill the strong impulsive desires they cannot shake off. Although they cannot truly have compassion, they know socially acceptable ways of behavior after lots of observation. This ability is usually through processes of compartmentalization and dehumanization of their victims. Sociopaths already have a lessened sense of emotion but a bit more than psychopaths, who cannot feel anything at all. Dehumanization is often used by killers in the aspect where they see their victims as subhuman parts of society (Levin & Fox, 2008). They may use this as a reason why they killed people and said they were cleaning the world from them. They are able to overcome the usual aspects of conscience that help other human beings know when to stop themselves from doing something wrong. Then compartmentalization also goes along with this. This is a process used as a defense mechanism for separating conflicting conflicts to avoid certain feelings. Compartmentalizing helps dampen any signs of remorse that a killer can have. As stated earlier, psychopaths have no sense of emotion at all, but sociopaths can have a small amount. They have these abilities to push away any little emotion all while acting innocent to those around

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