WEBVTT - 344. Sociopathy 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:09.240 Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:12.240 the podcast where we talk through some of the big 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:16.840 life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.360 mean for our psychology. 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.759 Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:26.600 the podcast. 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:27.800 Today. 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.400 I've got another little bonus episode for you guys. So 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:35.080 these shorter episodes are a little bit different from our 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:37.880 usual deep dives. Think of them as like little coffee 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.800 break chats where we tend to just unpack a single term, 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:46.400 a single theory, a single psychological concept that is probably 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:50.600 misunderstood or just thrown around pretty casually. And the goal 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:52.360 here is just to give you something that you can 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:54.760 kind of listen to on the go, to give you, 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:57.680 like just enough clarity to be a little bit more 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:01.320 confident when you hear these terms pop up, but also 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:03.840 just like for your commute, when you don't want to 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.240 listen to like a forty five minute hour long episode. 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:11.280 This is the this is the alternative. Today's topic though, 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:17.520 is one I get asked about all the time. Sociopathy. 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.640 This is a term that is floating around everywhere at 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:24.880 the moment. It has been for a while on TikTok 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:28.640 when it comes to true crime content, even like in 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:33.399 dating advice, and often in ways that aren't exactly accurate. 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:35.360 So we're going to talk about it today. What is 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:41.080 sociopathy actually mean, what does it not mean? And how 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:44.960 does it different from somebody who's a psychopath or a narcissist. 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:47.040 There's so many different distinctions that we need to make. 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:53.600 But first things first, sociopathy isn't actually a clinical diagnosis 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.360 in modern psychology. You will not open the DSM five 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:03.800 and find sociopathy listed as a formal disorder. Anyone who 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:06.520 tells you that does not know what they're talking about. 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:14.200 What you will find, however, is antisocial personality disorder or ASPD. Sociopathy. 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:18.880 Calling someone a sociopath is more so a cultural term. 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:23.720 Historically it was used at times by a psychologists to 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:26.880 describe a particular kind of person. But now we call 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:32.640 it ASPD antisocial personality disorder. What does that disorder? What 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:36.480 does that come to describe? So the American Psychiatric Association 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:41.480 defines ASPD as a pattern of disregard for and the 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:45.440 violation of the rights of others. It often begins in 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:50.360 childhood or early adolescents. It continues into adulthood, and people 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:55.000 with ASPD may find it harder to develop empathy for people. 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:59.040 They have a lack of regard for social norms. They 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:04.079 are often sitful, highly irritable, have some kind of conduct 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:09.839 issue or disorder, and show more erratic or impulsive behaviors. 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:14.880 This is kind of what a sociopath is now seen 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:19.240 as now Because of this impulsivity, sociopaths are often seen 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:26.240 as people who are very reactive and very quick to 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:30.239 maybe anger or hurt others. It might also be unsurprising 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:33.360 that they also have a lot of substance use issues. 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.360 One survey found that they're almost seven to eight times 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.560 more likely to meet the criteria for alcohol dependence and 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.640 fifteen to seventeen more times likely to meet the criteria 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:47.920 for drug dependence, and the prevalence of ASPD in prison 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:53.360 settings is incredibly high. The amount of people that you 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:57.200 would find who have had interaction with the legal system 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:01.280 who would receive a diagnosis of anti social personality disorder 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.960 or sociopathy if you want to use the old term, 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.920 is around the one in three mark or In one 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:10.960 study they did in two thousand and one, they looked 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.360 at twenty three thousand prisoners. It was one in two, 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.960 almost fifty percent of people who are in prison. We 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.240 could flippantly call them sociopaths. They would have a lot 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:27.400 of the characteristics of this anti social personality disorder. So 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.640 that is really what we're talking about today, this kind 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:36.680 of individual who just seems to almost know how society operates, 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:41.360 to understand it, but not really know how to how 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:43.599 to cope, not even cope, not even know how to 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:47.760 act within that system, within a human system of empathy 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:52.680 and of kindness towards other people and of respect and 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:57.479 regard for other people's feelings. Now, there's another thing that 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:01.560 people often get confused with sociopaths or sociopathy, and that 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:06.839 is psychopaths or psychopathy. These two often get lumped together 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:11.320 all the time. They are not the same thing. Psychopaths. 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:16.359 That was the original og umbrella term that was used 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:19.760 to describe anyone with personality types that differed to the 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:23.719 perceived norms. But in the nineteen thirties and nineteen forties, 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:29.320 psychiatrists began to kind of notice that just calling anybody 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:34.560 who had a personality issue a psychopath was incredibly limiting 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:37.240 in terms of how they were going to diagnose these 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:42.560 individuals and the different expressions of traits that they all had. 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:45.080 And so that's when they really started to kind of 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:50.800 kind of like tear apart or kind of delineate the 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:54.559 different kind of conditions that fell under this umbrella term, 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:59.840 and sociopath back in that time was one of them. 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:05.680 Psychopath remained, but there was a difference. A sociopath is 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:12.760 someone who developed this kind of antisocial personality because of socialization, 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.239 So because of their upbringing, because of their environment, because 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:18.520 of their community. That is why they are the way 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:22.760 they are. Psychopaths the theory is they were just born 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:28.800 this way. They have this innate trait which makes them callous, 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:35.960 unaware of others feelings, or just deeply detached but also manipulative. 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:43.000 So historically, sociopathy is about external factors. Psychopathy is about 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:48.479 something that is hardwired deep inside of you, and over 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:50.960 time the lines kind of got blurred, and now we 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:55.800 have this ASPD diagnosis which typically covers them all. Now, 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:58.960 one other thing to know about the difference between sociopaths 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:01.880 and psychopaths is people are still using those terms around you. 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:06.560 Is that sociopaths actually can form attachments with other people. 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:11.080 They do love people. They do get married because they 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:16.640 care about people. Psychopaths, on the other hand, are deeply calculated. 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:20.960 They are more likely to be successful, they are actually 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:24.440 less likely to end up in prison, and they mask 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:29.280 their manipulative traits using human relationships. They will get married, 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:32.480 they may even have kids, but they rarely actually have 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:37.200 any kind of deeply empathetic and emotional bond with those individuals. 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:41.600 The other thing is, sociopaths are highly impulsive. Psychopaths are 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:48.520 highly highly rational, So that's really important to clarify psychopaths 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.040 as well. They will you will not find them in 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.320 the DSM either. It is still kind of a term 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:59.440 that is used, especially in forensic psychology and criminology, especially 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:03.080 for people who researching and trying to understand criminal behavior 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:05.960 and the causes and the patterns and the societal impact 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:09.840 of crimes. But as of right now, you could not 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:13.240 walk into a doctor's office and say and or exhibit 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:18.160 signs of sociopathy or psychopathy and get that as your label. 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:25.080 It's a lot more casual. So why are these words 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:29.880 still used, but also why are they so misused? Why 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:34.160 do we come across someone who maybe we don't like 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.280 he was maybe a little bit mean, maybe a little 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:41.199 bit manipulative, and just be like that person is a psychopath. 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:44.880 That person is a sociopath. A lot of it comes 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.200 down to this thing called language drift. This is when 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:52.240 a word starts in one context but kind of gets 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:57.520 stretched until the point where its meaning is completely different 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:01.400 from how it was originally used. Part of why the 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:05.640 term sociopath has experienced this language drift and has made 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:10.480 it into pop culture and our daily psychobabble is because 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:13.320 it really does describe the worst of the worst, and 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:19.000 it sounds really dramatic. It has weight, it has an edge. 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:22.920 Calling your ex a sociopath feels more powerful, maybe even 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.720 more validating, than just saying or describing them based on 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:30.320 their behaviors, you know, saying they were manipulative, they didn't 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.280 treat me with respect. When you then give that person 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:38.160 a label and say they were a sociopath, it feels 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:41.959 like you legitimize what you went through by giving their 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:47.040 pattern of behavior a more serious and recognizable, socially recognizable label. 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.280 That makes people really go likeugh and take a step back, 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.920 like a sociopath, well, that's scary, that's what serial killers are. 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.160 Pop culture has also poured a lot of fuel on 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:01.560 the fire. Think about a lot of TV shows like 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:08.440 Villain l In, Killing Eve, Joe Goldberg in You Like, 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:11.800 the entertainment industry is so good. They are profoundly good 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:18.560 at writing these really fascinating, dark, morally ambiguous characters and people, 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:23.320 and then the label of sociopath gets slapped onto them 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:26.640 to kind of add to like the mistake of the story. 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.280 But you know, their behaviors are heightened for entertainment, you know, 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:34.439 the stalking, the murder, the elaborate schemes. That's not always 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:39.160 going to occur in someone with ASPD or sociopathy, which 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:43.319 is you know, ASPD is a serious condition. And what 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.560 happens in these situations is that when we see these 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:52.960 extreme character depictions and we have this extreme language, it 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:57.000 often just becomes a shorthand for new ones. You know, 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:58.880 what we really are trying to say is that is 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:02.200 that person is dangerous. That person is toxic. You guys 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:04.520 know how I feel about that word. But that person 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:08.000 is toxic. That person may hurt you, may hurt me, 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:11.560 has hurt me. And because that complexity of that whole 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:17.080 situation is hard to sometimes get across, sociopath psychopath makes 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:20.600 it a lot easier. There's also something about the mystique 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:24.679 of sociopathy that just keeps people using it. Right, it 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:30.320 feels like this secret insight or explanation for somebody's behavior, 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:34.160 when otherwise we really wouldn't have words for who they 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:36.240 are and why they are the way they are. When 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:38.679 we just are able to label someone and package them 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:42.000 up as a sociopath, it feels like you've kind of 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:44.360 cracked the code of why they act the way they do, 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.000 and it does give a sense of closure. It's like 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:51.160 this is a neat box to put someone's messy behavior 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.560 into that allows me to just be like, okay, I 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.439 can that relationship is over, or I'm not going to 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:01.160 be around that person, or they are this all bad individual. 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:03.760 It makes it easier for you to not feel empathy 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.640 or sympathy for them. The thing is is that a 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:08.920 lot of people are actually not like that. A lot 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:12.760 of people have nuanced to their behavior. They act differently 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:16.559 in different contexts, not because they're a sociopath, just because 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:20.600 they're human. They have flaws, they make mistakes, and so 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:22.760 it's why I don't always like when we use this 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:27.480 extremist language to label something as this very intense thing 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:31.200 to claim they can never change and to kind of 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.280 not investigate why they may be the way they are 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:38.480 any further. And you may be saying, like, well, what's 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:40.680 wrong with that? If they're a bad person, why can't 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.880 I just call it as I see it. I get 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.360 where you're coming from there, And I understand that, I think, 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:49.760 because it loses meaningful when we actually really do need 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:52.480 these words and we do want to use them in 0:12:52.880 --> 0:13:00.560 clinical settings or in settings where their magnitude needs to remain. Also, 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:03.280 just for the simple case of the fact that it 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:06.320 could do a lot of reputational damage not just to 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:09.440 that person but to you as well, is also something 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.720 to consider and is why we should maybe be a 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:17.199 little bit cautious with using these terms. But the final 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:21.840 argument is that the overuse of these terms really stigmatizes 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:26.000 people who actually do live with ASPD, who actually do 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:30.800 have antisocial personality disorder, kind of painting them as villains 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:35.280 when sometimes they are actually trying very hard to fix 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:42.000 their behavior and they also aren't necessarily always responsible for it. Now, 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.920 that is a hard thing to say. I do believe 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:48.600 that people are responsible for their behavior, but the way 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.480 they are, the way they are sometimes was not their 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:58.120 fault and is incredibly complex, and sometimes saying well that 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:02.040 person's a sociopath, they will always be a sociopath almost 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.440 guarantees that that will happen. That is a self fulfilling prophecy. 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.240 Whereas when we talk about it as antisocial traits, or 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:13.199 we talk about it as a personality disorder, a sickness, 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:17.400 an illness, a condition, rather than destiny, it actually does 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:21.400 give people the capacity to learn empathy the way that 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:24.640 you could learn as skill, and to kind of change 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:30.640 their behavior. This is something very interesting that I've only 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:35.600 really learned from researching this episode. People with antisocial personality 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:39.960 disorder do actually have treatment options, and although they are 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:45.520 highly represented in the prison system and in addiction statistics, 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:49.240 it doesn't mean that some of them don't actually learn 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:54.400 empathy and learn how to be kind to people. And 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:56.520 if you've never had to learn how to be kind 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:59.080 to people, you might think that's just like so unnatural 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:01.520 and weird. But for them, it's just like how they 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.240 were born and how they are and there's a lot 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:06.920 of credit to be given to them that they are 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:09.480 willing to do that, And I know it sounds so 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:12.960 strange I'm kind of it does sound like I'm justifying 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:17.560 sociopathy or antisocial traits, but I do have empathy for 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.960 these people that they don't have empathy, Like, it would 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:23.760 be very hard to make the right decisions if you 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:27.120 just had this part of your brain that just genuinely 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:29.920 didn't work, and it would be very hard to then 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:32.440 want that part of your brain to be switched on. 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:36.240 Sometimes I wish I didn't have empathy. I honestly, it 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:38.400 kind of sucks sometimes. I'm sure that if you're a 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.480 very sensitive or empathetic person, you will understand where I'm 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:43.760 coming from. Where it's like, you wish you didn't have 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.920 to care about everything and everyone and every tragedy that 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:50.160 was going on in the world. You wish you didn't 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:53.160 absorb other people's emotions, but you do, and that's a 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:55.760 gift and it would be very hard to take on 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.080 if you didn't already know how to do that or 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.560 weren't born that way. Okay, we're going to take a 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.560 short break, and then we're going to talk about how 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:09.960 this condition actually emerges, where it comes from, and what 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:12.760 some of those treatment options are that we spoke about before. 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:15.440 So super excited to get into it. Stay with us. 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:23.280 We'll be right back after this short break. Okay, we 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:29.359 are back talking about sociopaths, everybody's favorite topic. So sociopaths, 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:32.880 people with ASPD, they do walk among us. But what 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:37.520 makes them like this, because honestly, we actually didn't really 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:41.280 know until recently. So something we mentioned before is that 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:45.200 sociopaths ASPD. I know it keep going back and forth 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:49.720 between them, We'll just say sociopaths. Sociopaths. It's believed that 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:55.120 their lack of empathy is environmental and social, so it 0:16:55.240 --> 0:17:00.840 was learnt or conditioned from early experiences. Also comes down 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:07.600 to emotional regulation. A pivotal moment for sociopathy or ASPD 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:11.919 research came in like the two thousands and the twenty tens, 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.439 where psychologists were really able to get down to the 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:19.879 mechanism that meant that these individuals could not control their 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:23.919 impulses even when they wanted to or even when it 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:28.280 was hurting people. And what they found was that studies, 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:33.760 neurological studies found that in the brains of people with sociopathy, 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:38.080 the regions that were involved in emotion and self control 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:45.920 had very very limited, very reduced activity. This was particularly 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:51.200 in the prefrontal cortext and the amygdala. The neural pathways 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:57.719 in those areas seemed basically unused and underdeveloped. These people 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:01.880 had not learnt at a pivot point how to use 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.080 these areas of their brain. Their brain maybe didn't need 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:08.159 them or shut them off for survival reasons or for 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.199 whatever it was. And so nowadays as an adult, they 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:16.160 are impulsive, they are reactive, they are prone to emotional outbursts. 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:21.360 They have that reduction in empathy twin and genetic studies 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.840 also provide some insight into why these patterns might emerge. 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:30.680 Researchers show that traits associated with sociopathy are influenced both 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:35.359 by genetics, but they are switched on by environment. So 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:39.080 what does that mean. That means that a lot of 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:44.040 people who go on to develop ASPD or sociopathy they 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.840 always were going to have a genetic predisposition. Basically, there 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:53.600 was a switch in their brain that started off that 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:56.639 was always going to be there, and then something in 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:01.520 the environment turned it on. Now, the thing is, there 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:04.960 are people for whom that gene will never be turned on. 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.760 They have a really great, happy life. They go through 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:13.840 childhood being very happy and being loved and so these 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:21.000 sociopathic traits never emerge, but it's when someone endured childhood trauma, neglect, 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:28.679 inconsistent parenting, bullying, that that basically it's switched on. So 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:32.400 someone's come along and gone, all right, time for this, 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:36.920 we're going to use this now. Many people believe that, yes, 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:41.119 people are born with this, but it really takes shape 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:44.720 and is influenced by your environment growing up. What you 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:47.399 might be thinking is, you know, why can't these people 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:51.200 just learn Because they've mentioned you know, people can learn empathy. 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:55.879 Why can't they just learn not to hurt people? Why 0:19:56.119 --> 0:20:00.119 are there all these individuals in prison or dealing with 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:05.040 addiction that nobody caught soon enough and that didn't learn 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:10.280 from their mistakes, specifically with the legal system earlier. And 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:13.959 I also ask myself that question. The answer is that 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:16.639 a lot of research shows that people who have this 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:20.480 personality disorder they don't even know that they have it. 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:24.080 So this is the trick with a lot of personality 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:30.320 disorders that are like machiavellian or narcissistic or sociopathic. They 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:33.280 just don't see it. There's a part of their ego 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.359 that protects them from seeing this difference between them and 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:40.000 other people. Or seeing that difference as being important. They 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:43.640 might notice patterns. They might know that they constantly get 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:46.840 into fights, that they struggle to maintain a job or 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:50.479 a relationship, or that they're making impulsive choices, but they 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:54.760 don't necessarily connect those behaviors to a personality disorder. A 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:57.639 lot of the time they may blame other people for that. 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:01.560 Studies have showed that the really linked to differences as 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:05.760 well in self reflection and emotional insight, and a lot 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:09.960 of people who have sociopathy or ASPD they actually can't 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:14.640 do this thing we called mentalizing, basically understanding your own 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:20.120 emotions through how your emotions affect others. It's also called metacognition, 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:24.199 being able to think about your thinking. This ability seems 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:28.399 to be a lot lower for certain individuals. On the 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:32.680 flip side, though some people are remarkably aware of their traits. 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.800 Take M. E. Thomas. This is a self identified sociopath. 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.720 She wrote, They wrote Confessions of a Sociopath. I've read 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:44.520 that book. It's amazing, and they talk about noticing early 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:49.879 on that they had tendencies toward manipulation. They were emotionally detached, 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:54.120 they could charm like adults in their life and feel nothing. 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:57.480 There was all this. It's quite sad to say, but 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:02.359 these instances of animal abuse, and she realized they realized, like, 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:06.680 there's something wrong with me. People are reacting to this poorly, 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:09.919 and she was able to learn how to navigate the 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:15.600 world by assessing how she could get ahead through people's 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:20.840 positive and negative appraisals of her actions. This is what 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:25.720 psychologists call masking, consciously adapting your behavior to fit social 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:31.520 expectations whilst keeping seemingly more divergent traits under wraps. So 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:36.159 awareness can exist on a spectrum. Some individuals are genuinely 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:41.000 oblivious to this being them problem. Others are hyper aware 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:46.359 and hyper strategic. There's actually some debate in psychology about 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:51.240 whether certain antisocial traits, like having low empathy or having fearlessness, 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:55.840 can actually be an advantage in specific context, which is 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:59.280 why some people don't outlearn them. For example, in high 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:03.080 stakes professions like if you're a surgeon, if you're in 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:07.800 business negotiations, if you're in the military, being less emotionally 0:23:07.840 --> 0:23:12.280 reactive can sometimes be an asset, though of course that 0:23:12.400 --> 0:23:16.399 is very controversial to say. Obviously, you would want someone 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:19.480 performing open heart surgery to care whether their patient lived 0:23:19.560 --> 0:23:24.880 or died, but maybe you wouldn't because then they could 0:23:24.920 --> 0:23:30.879 make the more justified and right decisions without the emotions 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:32.760 of oh my god, is this person going to be? 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:33.119 Okay? 0:23:33.160 --> 0:23:35.320 Am I going to kill this person? What are their 0:23:35.440 --> 0:23:39.920 chances of survival? Like if someone thinks purely in the 0:23:40.000 --> 0:23:45.320 math or the likelihood or the rationality of the circumstances, 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:48.119 maybe it would make them better in this environment. That 0:23:48.200 --> 0:23:50.119 is a debate we literally do not have time to 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:51.840 get into. In fact, I don't even think I have 0:23:52.280 --> 0:23:54.879 wouldn't even know how to get into that debate because 0:23:54.880 --> 0:23:58.920 it's so back and forth and so complex, But it 0:23:59.000 --> 0:24:01.640 is definitely something to think about. So we've been kind 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:04.440 of circling around this idea for a while throughout this episode, 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:09.760 which is that there is treatment for sociopathy. Obviously there 0:24:09.800 --> 0:24:13.280 is not a cure, but there are ways to help 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:18.520 people manage socially, to reduce impulsivity, to improve relationships, and 0:24:18.640 --> 0:24:24.280 some people can function completely normal as you and I would. 0:24:24.720 --> 0:24:29.760 These include talk therapy, mentalization based therapy, so of course, 0:24:29.840 --> 0:24:34.080 helping people understand their own mindsets and then project their 0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:37.560 mindsets onto other people, which is like a proxy or 0:24:37.600 --> 0:24:41.920 like a B grade version of empathy. There's also cognitive 0:24:41.920 --> 0:24:46.359 behavioral therapy, which I think is literally used for every 0:24:46.400 --> 0:24:50.520 mental personality condition under the sun, but the therapy is 0:24:51.560 --> 0:24:58.760 never often just one thing, and it's incredibly specific to 0:24:58.880 --> 0:25:02.240 the individual people. People won't even treat people with this 0:25:02.359 --> 0:25:05.040 disorder because they are of the camp that it's not 0:25:05.720 --> 0:25:09.439 possible to think. I think it is. I think that 0:25:10.280 --> 0:25:12.560 if this is the best thing that we have, you 0:25:12.640 --> 0:25:15.840 may as well give this person the best thing, not 0:25:15.920 --> 0:25:17.879 just for them, but because like all the people that 0:25:17.920 --> 0:25:21.080 are going to come across them throughout their life, if 0:25:21.119 --> 0:25:24.320 you could teach someone even five percent of the natural 0:25:24.320 --> 0:25:27.560 empathy that a normal person would have, that is going 0:25:27.640 --> 0:25:31.280 to make everyone's odds of being hurt, being harmed, feeling bad, 0:25:31.359 --> 0:25:36.120 feeling terrible a lot less. But again, it is very, 0:25:36.200 --> 0:25:38.760 very controversial as to whether this is an option. You 0:25:38.800 --> 0:25:41.399 can't just put every single person who has these traits 0:25:41.440 --> 0:25:45.399 in prison and expect society to get better, especially since 0:25:45.440 --> 0:25:47.720 they will get out of prison and they will learn, 0:25:47.760 --> 0:25:50.720 and they will mask and they will feel even more 0:25:50.760 --> 0:25:54.879 isolated and willing to harm other people. There are so 0:25:54.920 --> 0:25:57.800 many nuances to this that has gone back hundreds and 0:25:57.920 --> 0:26:00.000 hundreds of years of how do we deal with people 0:26:00.080 --> 0:26:04.160 who just seem to not care about others or seem 0:26:04.200 --> 0:26:08.159 to have this impulsivity towards hurting people. That being said, 0:26:08.320 --> 0:26:11.240 what do you do if you think that a friend 0:26:11.240 --> 0:26:15.080 of yours, a family member of yours, a partner of 0:26:15.119 --> 0:26:22.000 yours does have antisocial personality disorder is a sociopath? I 0:26:22.040 --> 0:26:29.080 think first things first, don't panic and try not to 0:26:29.160 --> 0:26:33.320 diagnose too quickly. Try and see them as a combination 0:26:33.440 --> 0:26:37.320 of traits rather than grouping them under this label for 0:26:37.359 --> 0:26:40.880 as long as you probably possibly can, because I think 0:26:40.920 --> 0:26:43.600 it will again stop you from panicking and stop you 0:26:43.640 --> 0:26:47.240 from freaking out and maybe actually give them the space 0:26:47.280 --> 0:26:52.200 to prove you wrong. Also, it's incredibly emotionally charged. You 0:26:52.200 --> 0:26:53.920 can do a lot of reputational damage, can do a 0:26:53.960 --> 0:26:56.520 lot of harm to the relationship. If you just say 0:26:56.720 --> 0:26:59.399 you're a manipulative you're a sociopath, I don't want anything 0:26:59.440 --> 0:27:01.800 to do with you. But if you genuinely do believe 0:27:01.840 --> 0:27:06.800 they are, pay attention to the isolated incidents and keep 0:27:06.880 --> 0:27:10.440