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.

I’ve met with nearly 3,000 criminals, and only a handful of them have been psychopaths. But that handful was really messed up. Like, Hannibal Lecter level of creepy. I strongly doubt that one percent of the world’s population is psychopathic.

Sociopaths also experience no guilt or shame, although they are able to fake it.

They feel they are entitled to whatever they want, and they either ignore the feelings of others or are unable to comprehend them.

their meanness comes out through Machiavellianism (i.e. the ends justify the means) and poor empathy skills.

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.

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

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).

key difference between psychopaths and so-called normal people, or even criminals who are not psychopaths, is guilt or shame.