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There seems to be a pop-psychology obsession with sociopaths which doesn’t seem much based on reality. One’s ability for empathy is something of a spectrum, and

There seems to be a pop-psychology obsession with sociopaths which doesn’t seem much based on reality. One’s ability for empathy is something of a spectrum, and there’s no magic number where a specific lack of empathy renders someone a sociopath. Further, lack of empathy doesn’t necessarily render someone a sociopath; they also need to be aggressive and cruel. (Many people who lack empathy are perfectly nice, and are simply socially awkward-but-well-intending) People seem to be afraid of the “sociopath” in their midst, but I wonder what they’re not just misidentifying people who disrespect them, or don’t get along with them very well. For instance, perhaps the “sociopath” bullies a victim, but is perfectly empathetic to some of the other people in his life. His empathy is applied at least somewhat selectively. And selectively applying empathy seems to me to be a description which could fit almost anyone.

throwaway743 3y ago
Sure the use of the term may be inflated these days, but if one is level headed, they'll really know when they've encountered one. I pray never to allow one to slip into my life ever again after personal experiences. If you find yourself praying, and I'm not religious by any length and I'm confident enough to consider myself pretty resilient, then yeah... Edit: Just to note, my experience isn't limited to actions that just affected me directly, but also from observation of actions/behavior towards others on a daily basis.
suoduandao3 3y ago
I don't think sociopathy is simply a lack of empathy, rather, it's a stress-response characterized (among other things) by an inability to express and possibly experience empathy. It's probably perfectly adaptive in many situations, I wouldn't want e.g. a sniper for my country's military to express empathy for the enemy in his sights (whether I'd want my country to have a military is a separate question here). The trouble more seems to be that a lot of organizations trigger this stress response particularly among its leadership. We talk about sociopaths as being born bad and then getting drawn to CEO positions, but what if we have it backwards? What if it's really difficult to be a CEO without eventually displaying sociopathic characteristics?
- yoav 3y ago
  Because my mother, and the last mentee I had, are both dark triad people and neither of them came close to CEO. It’s quite the opposite their behavior is self defeating and they accomplish little in life because it’s more like a disability. They’re unable to experience empathy, are convinced others who do are just pretending and are foolish for pretending, and they prey on those that do for thrill of superiority at great personal cost. The feeling of superiority is only in their own mind as any objective observer would note that they’re harming themselves and coming across as weaker.
  - suoduandao3 3y ago
    Yeah, and to my understanding that kind of repeated failure is par for the course for dark triad types. None of the psychos I've come across are the type to make it to CEO in even the most negligent organization. But if dark triad behaviors are the result of handling stress poorly, CEOs becoming CEOs by being normal people capable of forming strong relationships first and then becoming psychopathic due to the stress of the job makes a lot more sense. And some people just handling stress so poorly that they become psychopathic from a normal adolescence, then stumble from failure to failure ever after (barring some kind of effective treatment. I formed this theory after reading about decompression therapy for psychopathy).
codeulike 3y ago
Yes. While I'm sure sociopaths exist, there's nothing more subjective and relative than one persons opinion of someone else. And its very easy to mislead oneself with an explanation of what is happening that pushes the problem onto the other. Any two people having a disagreement could call each other "bully" or "narcissist".
matthewdgreen 3y ago
On the other hand, there seem to be people who have extreme lack of empathy for others, and some subset of those are capable of doing moderate-to-extremely harmful things to those around them. Most people have probably met one of the more extreme examples once in their lives, and there was no doubt to you that the way that person approached the world (and other people) was very different than the way you did. We don't understand enough about the human brain to predict reliably who has these issues, but it's useful to know that for the extreme cases at least, it isn't just a disagreement.

throwaway743 3y ago

Sure the use of the term may be inflated these days, but if one is level headed, they'll really know when they've encountered one. I pray never to allow one to slip into my life ever again after personal experiences. If you find yourself praying, and I'm not religious by any length and I'm confident enough to consider myself pretty resilient, then yeah... Edit: Just to note, my experience isn't limited to actions that just affected me directly, but also from observation of actions/behavior towards others on a daily basis.

suoduandao3 3y ago

I don't think sociopathy is simply a lack of empathy, rather, it's a stress-response characterized (among other things) by an inability to express and possibly experience empathy. It's probably perfectly adaptive in many situations, I wouldn't want e.g. a sniper for my country's military to express empathy for the enemy in his sights (whether I'd want my country to have a military is a separate question here). The trouble more seems to be that a lot of organizations trigger this stress response particularly among its leadership. We talk about sociopaths as being born bad and then getting drawn to CEO positions, but what if we have it backwards? What if it's really difficult to be a CEO without eventually displaying sociopathic characteristics?

yoav 3y ago
Because my mother, and the last mentee I had, are both dark triad people and neither of them came close to CEO. It’s quite the opposite their behavior is self defeating and they accomplish little in life because it’s more like a disability. They’re unable to experience empathy, are convinced others who do are just pretending and are foolish for pretending, and they prey on those that do for thrill of superiority at great personal cost. The feeling of superiority is only in their own mind as any objective observer would note that they’re harming themselves and coming across as weaker.
- suoduandao3 3y ago
  Yeah, and to my understanding that kind of repeated failure is par for the course for dark triad types. None of the psychos I've come across are the type to make it to CEO in even the most negligent organization. But if dark triad behaviors are the result of handling stress poorly, CEOs becoming CEOs by being normal people capable of forming strong relationships first and then becoming psychopathic due to the stress of the job makes a lot more sense. And some people just handling stress so poorly that they become psychopathic from a normal adolescence, then stumble from failure to failure ever after (barring some kind of effective treatment. I formed this theory after reading about decompression therapy for psychopathy).

codeulike 3y ago

Yes. While I'm sure sociopaths exist, there's nothing more subjective and relative than one persons opinion of someone else. And its very easy to mislead oneself with an explanation of what is happening that pushes the problem onto the other. Any two people having a disagreement could call each other "bully" or "narcissist".

matthewdgreen 3y ago

On the other hand, there seem to be people who have extreme lack of empathy for others, and some subset of those are capable of doing moderate-to-extremely harmful things to those around them. Most people have probably met one of the more extreme examples once in their lives, and there was no doubt to you that the way that person approached the world (and other people) was very different than the way you did. We don't understand enough about the human brain to predict reliably who has these issues, but it's useful to know that for the extreme cases at least, it isn't just a disagreement.