Sociopaths and Psychopaths: A Crisis of Conscience and Empathy (What Makes Them Tick Book 1)

first wrote about and coined the term theory of mind in a 1978 article about chimpanzees. They stated, “An individual has a theory of mind if he imputes mental states to himself and others.” Impute is a fancy word for “attribute,” by the way.

Machiavellian psychopaths see another person as a means to an end, as opposed to a fully formed, autonomous individual with separate thoughts and feelings.

there is a strong link between genes and psychopathy. There is also a strong link between a negative environment and psychopathy. And, when the two are combined, it can get ugly.

Psychopaths are amoral (they have no moral compass). Sociopaths are immoral (they have a reasonable understanding between right and wrong, and they choose to be wrong).

Psychopaths aren’t afraid (remember the whole fearless dominance thing?). Sociopaths experience fear in a typical human way.

frightening: Not only do psychopaths have problems with empathy and emotional understanding, but they sometimes have the exact opposite reaction from what you would normally expect.

When people are antisocial, they are against other people—they don’t like people and do terrible things to them.

the environmental risk factors associated with psychopathy more often lead to issues with depression, anxiety and PTSD than they do to psychopathy. It’s not that those risk factors never lead to psychopathy—it’s just that they tend to lead to other mental illnesses instead.

genetic risk factor, which “leads to the emotional dysfunction that is the core of psychopathy.”