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March 28, 2025 - Lionel Nation
20:38
Psychopath Sociopath or Just Evil? The Terrifying Differences You Were Never Told About
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I have been wanting to do this clarification on what a psychopath is and isn't forever.
What took me this long, I have no idea.
Since I was a kid, since my undergraduate, Days as a psych major, whatever that means.
My years as a prosecutor, my years in the criminal court system, still am a licensed attorney, lawyer.
But I've dealt with mental illness and the notion of a psychopath.
And psychopaths, the term comes up all the time.
Hillary Clinton, she's not a psychopath.
There are psychopaths, sociopaths, evil, and just up.
People who are royally So that's the purpose of this, to once and for all maybe get to the bottom of psychopath versus sociopath and unraveling the minds behind the labels.
Remember, the mind.
This is psychiatric, so to speak, not neurological.
Neurological is hardware.
Psychiatric is software.
Something wrong with your brains, perhaps?
They say there may be something as far as the orbital cortex.
But James Fallon, no Jimmy Fallon, did some wonderful pieces on that in terms of the actual brain neurological hardware.
But for purposes of this, we're going to be talking about this psychopath and sociopath and how...
Our minds leap to these cinematic villains, you know, Hannibal Lecter, you know, chewing the scenery.
Pick your favorite, Ted Bundy.
Probably one of the prototypical perfect ones.
But pop culture has turned these terms into catch-alls for anyone who does something awful.
From serial killers to ruthless CEOs.
And not all ruthless CEOs are psychopaths, and not all serial killers are psychopaths.
That's the thing you have to understand.
It doesn't mean what you think.
But here's the kicker.
And I say this again, not everybody who commits atrocities is a psychopath, a sociopath.
Not all psychopaths or sociopaths are killers.
I can't keep doing it back and forth.
You know, everybody in the mafia is Sicilian, not all Sicilians are in the mafia.
You've heard this before.
But true psychopathy, true psychopathy is rare.
Sociopathy is more common, but still misunderstood.
And evil, evil is a slippery concept that doesn't always fit into either mold.
So let's dive into what these terms really mean, okay?
How, how they differ.
Why slapping them on figures like Adolf Hitler might miss the mark.
That's right.
People have said Adolf Hitler is not necessarily and probably wasn't a true psychopath.
Now remember, I've done instructional tutorials, videos on The Milgram experiment, the Stanford prison experiment, you know, about evil and being taught evil and you become evil.
It doesn't mean you're a psychopath.
And this is one of the strangest things because nobody really wants, in the case of Hitler, and that's another story, why people never want anything about him to be normal.
Now, psychopathy.
The cold, calculating, Core psychopathy is a clinical term rooted in psychiatry and psychology, though it's not an official diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or the DSM-5.
Instead, it's a special subset of Antisocial Personality Disorder, ASPD.
And it's identified through tools like the Hare Psychopathy Checklist Revived, or the PCLR.
It was developed by psychologist Robert D. Hare, and the PCLR scores traits on a scale, and a high score, typically 30 or above, out of 40 in the U.S., it flags someone as a psychopath.
Now, what sets psychopaths apart?
It's a chilling cocktail, a gumbo of traits.
It's a profound lack of empathy, shallow emotions, manipulative charm, and a fearless, impulsive streak.
Now think about this very carefully.
That's also sometimes seen as a lack of appreciation of consequence.
It's seen as, in some cases, in some cases, As a heroic, people who are very impulsive, somebody who says, I'm hit!
I'll get him!
You know, because you have no appreciative consequence.
And the best thing to always remember is that your head and heart are not connected.
Your head and your heart are not connected.
Your ability to attach emotion to analytical observation or planning, it's not there.
Some people don't lie because they're afraid.
They feel like, what if I'm caught?
What if I'm hurt?
What if I let people down?
That's heart.
Brain scans often reveal why.
This is interesting.
Psychopaths show reduced activity in the amygdala, which is the brain's emotional hub, and the prefrontal cortex, which governs impulse control, moral reasoning.
There's sometimes some disconnect there.
This isn't just bad behavior, it's organic.
And it's likely tied to genetics or early brain development.
Studies estimate about only 1%, 1% of the general population qualifies as psychopathic.
Though that number jumps to 15-25%.
In prison populations.
Ah, here's the twist.
Psychopaths aren't always killers.
Sure, Ted Bundy fits the bill.
Charismatic, remorseless, deadly, absolutely positively.
Now, they are also not unable to show some attachment to people.
There was one woman he dated and her daughter.
But many psychopaths channel, easy for me to say, they trace elsewhere.
Think of the corporate shark who fires thousands without blinking an eye.
Or the con artist who swindles with a smile, doesn't care, Bernie Madoff maybe.
They're not swinging knives, they're wielding power.
See, psychopathy is about wiring, not destiny.
Now, sociopathy, this is interesting, this is a product Of a broken world.
It's easy to get very, very kind of poetic here, but I don't want to be.
Sociopathy is less about biology and more about environment.
Think about sociopaths are made, psychopaths are born.
It's also linked to ASPD, antisocial personality defect, but experts see it as a learned behavior shaped by trauma, abuse, Chaotic upbringing.
Unlike psychopaths, icy detachment.
Sociopaths can feel some emotions.
Anger, loyalty to a small circle, even guilt.
But they're erratic, and they're hot-headed, and they're prone to lashing out.
Their moral compass is warped.
It's not absent.
Big distinction.
Psychopath doesn't have it.
Theirs is dysfunctional or not working.
Imagine someone raised in a violent gang or an abusive household, somebody who's been traumatized, hurt, victimized.
They might learn to see others as threats or tools, mimicking psychopathic traits like callousness or deceit.
But where a psychopath's charm is polished, a sociopath's is rough-edged.
They're more likely to explode than manipulate with finesse.
You see what I'm saying?
You follow this?
Prevalence is harder to pin down, but sociopathy is thought to be far more common than psychopathy, perhaps affecting 3-5% of the population.
So that's 5 times the number, but still 5%.
To some degree.
Take a fictional example.
Tony Soprano.
Okay?
He's impulsive.
Loyal to his crew.
Capable of remorse.
However fleeting and evanescent it is, but he's also a product of his mobster world.
That's sociopathy in action.
Not innate, but forged, learned, created.
Now the key difference is nature versus nurture.
Big deal.
The big divide, psychopathy is largely born with it.
It's a neurological glitch.
It's something that's defective that leaves someone emotionally unplugged.
Sociopathy is made and constructed and evolves by virtue of some type of an environmental cue.
It's taught.
For example, it's taught someone or someone's learned to survive without trust or empathy.
It's condition.
Psychopaths are cool, calculating, and they often blend in.
Think of the neighbor who's too perfect.
Sociopaths are volatile, disorganized, harder to miss.
Think of the guy who starts a bar fight over a spilled drink or impulse control.
Legally, neither term carries anyway.
Courts don't care if you're a psychopath or a sociopath.
You are not insane.
The McNaughton rule, the McNaughton test, the NGRI, not guilty by reason of insanity, that would never apply to that.
In the law, the courts care about intent.
Sanity.
Do you know the difference between right and wrong?
Are you able to comport and compel?
This other stuff is nonsense.
It might mitigate later on in sentencing, but it won't get you off the hook.
Both can also overlap with antisocial personality disorder, ASPD, which the law recognizes, but ASPD is broader.
It captures anyone with a pattern of rule-breaking and disregard for others regardless of brain wiring or backstory.
But remember, it doesn't get you off the hook.
It's not, dare I say, part of the term retardation.
Now let's talk about this word that's always used, especially in our circles.
Evil.
The slippery third wheel.
Evil.
Let's tackle this word evil.
It's a word we...
Fling at history's monsters, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge.
It's not a psychiatric category.
Evil is a moral judgment.
It's a gut reaction to acts so heinous they defy comprehension.
Psychopathy and sociopathy describe how someone's mind works.
Evil judges what they do with it.
You got it?
Evil is the production.
Psychopathy might be the motivation, might be the cause for it.
And here's where it gets messy.
Not all evil acts come from disordered minds.
Take Hitler.
I'm sorry to tell you this.
Many call him a psychopath, but historians and psychologists, like Christopher Browning, argue he doesn't fully fit.
Psychopaths lack deep emotional ties.
Hitler was obsessive, was paranoid, and fanatically attached to his ideology.
His rages and his delusions suggest something closer to narcissistic personality disorder, or maybe even psychosis, fueled by methamphetamine abuse, which is a theory also fueled by a lot of other people.
I think it was a book Blitz, I think it was.
Evil?
Absolutely evil.
By most measures.
Whatever you want to call it.
Six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
This systematic hatred.
Hatred that is so vile, so focused, it wants to eliminate from the face of the earth an entire type of human being.
Psychopath?
Maybe not.
His actions were systematic.
But his mind, Was a cauldron, kind of a boiling cauldron, if you will, of emotion.
Not a cold void.
Uh-uh.
Evil is tough to define because it's subjective.
Philosophers like Hannah Arendt famously called it banal in her study of Nazi...
She almost said it, lunatic.
Adolf Eichmann, the banality of evil.
He was less a diabolical mastermind, more of a cog in a machine.
We talked about him with the Milgram experiment.
Now, legally, evil doesn't exist.
Intent and capacity do.
We already said that.
Psychiatrically, it's irrelevant.
Clinicians care about symptoms, not morality.
Yet, culturally, we need evil to name the unnameable.
Even if it muddies the waters.
The misuse of labels is also another huge problem here.
And here's the rub.
We overuse psychopath and sociopath to the point of absurdity.
Your ex who ghosted you.
Total psychopath.
The politician you hate.
Sociopathic liar.
Hillary Clinton.
Say we're talking about Hillary Clinton.
She's not a psychopath.
It's lazy shorthand that dilutes the terms Meaning their import.
True, psychopathy is rare, one in a hundred, and sociopathy, while more frequent, still requires a specific mix of traits.
Most people who do terrible things aren't either.
They're just selfish, angry, desperate, stupid, inconsiderate.
Killers!
Killers especially get the label too fast.
Jeffrey Dahmer?
Psychopath, right?
Check the charm.
The lack of remorse.
Is that a psychopath?
Could very well be.
He may not have the charming part of it.
He might have the manipulative.
Remember, you don't have to be glib.
You don't have to be...
Who's that?
The actor.
You know what they...
Anyway.
What about a gang member?
What about a crip or a blood or MS-13 or a TDA who shoots in a turf war?
Probably not a psychopath.
They're likely sociopathic or just caught in some brutal system.
Remember what we said before about the Stanford Prison experiment.
And there are plenty of killers who feel guilt or act out of passion ruling out both diagnoses.
Meanwhile, Psychopaths can live quietly, never breaking the law.
It's a spectrum.
It's not a scarlet letter.
So why it matters.
Understanding these distinctions isn't just an academic, you know, navel-gazing or some parlor game.
It shapes how we treat people.
Clinically, legally, socially, politically.
Psychopaths, with their hardwired deficits, Handicaps, so to speak, rarely respond to therapy.
They're managed.
They're not cured.
Sociopaths, shaped by life, by life's events, they might shift with the right support.
Think rehabilitation versus punishment.
Maybe.
Mislabeling risks misjudgment.
Whether it's locking somebody up, who could change, or excusing someone who can't, you've got to be very careful with this.
And then there's the cultural ends.
We love a good villain story.
And we also love a kind of a Manichaean, you know, left or right, black or white.
We love a good villain.
We love evil.
But reality is grayer.
Not every monster is a psychopath.
Not every psychopath is a monster.
And evil is a human cry against inhumanity, not a diagnosis.
So the next time you hear a psycho thrown around, It's like the way we use the words communist, socialist, Marxist.
It means something else.
We hardly even talk about planned economies.
But the next time you hear the word psycho tossing around, pause for a second.
The truth is weirder.
It's sadder.
It's more nuanced.
It's more difficult sometimes.
But it's also more fascinating.
It's fascinating.
I hope you've enjoyed this.
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