Editor’s note: This quiz is not a diagnostic tool. Antisocial personality disorder can only be diagnosed by a qualified mental health professional, and several claims in this article do not reflect current psychiatric understanding.
A new book called “Confessions of a Sociopath“, written by an anonymous author under the pseudonym M.E. Thomas, describes what it feels like to be a sociopath: someone who lacks the ability to feel for or empathise with others, at least inwardly, since their outward face suggests just the opposite.
As we explained in a previous article listing some signs of psychopathy, there’s a very fine line between a person who is successful in their career and a psychopath, because many of the qualities expected of a leader, or needed to succeed, are precisely traits that psychology associates with sociopathy or psychopathy.
Over the last two decades this “mental disorder” has been renamed. What psychology used to call a psychopath is now a sociopath, or a person with “antisocial personality disorder”. But make no mistake: the real profile of a psychopath is exactly the one Hollywood has shown us in films such as Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct and Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs, where both characters had a good socio-economic position, were admired in their professions and were well received at social gatherings.
Anyone can develop sociopathy, since it’s basically an inner desire for revenge whose main motivation is to take advantage of the weakest. Sociopaths tend to be cold and calculating, and at the same time seen by others as adorable, intelligent, daring and very sexy and charming. And despite what psychology thought some time ago, today it’s known perfectly well that psychopathy isn’t hereditary. The sociopath isn’t born. They’re made by the circumstances they go through in life.
(Paul Babiak: Think your boss is a psychopath? Science says you might be right)
A woman can become a sociopath if she feels that her last three partners only wanted her in order to take advantage of her, just as a worker who has put up with rubbish at a company for a long time can develop a survival instinct that makes calm, calculated revenge their goal.
A psychopath could be the businessman who profits financially while fully aware that he is harming society, and seems not to care.
Without going any further, M.E. Thomas, the author of this book, acknowledges in it being a law professor, married with children, with a very successful career. The only problem the author lives with is admitting to being a sociopath, describing themselves, and 4% of the population, as people who, thanks to their intelligence and brilliance, can climb the corporate ladder much faster than everyone else.
According to M.E. Thomas, these 9 questions can help you find out whether you’re a sociopath, or whether, given time and the right circumstances, you could become one.
1. Are you superficially charming and intelligent?
For sociopaths, the answer is a resounding yes, without the slightest doubt, since they’re above everyone else.
2. Do you have delusions or other signs of irrational thinking?
A sociopath is quite sure the answer is no, since they’re completely rational. Who hasn’t thought irrationally at some point?
3. Are you overly nervous, or do you ever feel anxious?
Sociopaths rarely feel anxious or get nervous. They tend to be very patient. In fact, some of history’s great sociopaths have planned their revenge in detail over five or ten years. Nor are they afraid of risks or consequences, and that spares them nerves and anxiety.
4. Are you very self-confident?
Obviously, a good sociopath has no doubts at all about this question.
5. Do you often lie to get your way?
One of a sociopath’s great abilities is lying whenever they can benefit from it. In fact, many of them pretend to be what they’re not for decades.
6. Do you feel remorse or guilt when you do something that isn’t right?
Guilt and remorse are two things a sociopath will never feel. First, because they’re never wrong, and second, because it’s certainly not their fault, and if it is, screw everyone else.
7. Are you antisocial?
Even if, to everyone else, they’re the life and soul of the party and of every social gathering, they don’t really feel comfortable surrounded by people.
8. Are you self-centred and incapable of love?
For sociopaths, everything revolves around their own navel. Within their coldness, they would do whatever it takes to keep up a relationship with someone who gives them pleasure, and as soon as that person stops giving them pleasure, they would have no problem getting rid of them. Sometimes they don’t feel love even for their own relatives. In fact, many of them have had very little contact with their family or old friends for a long time.
9. Do you tend to react emotionally?
Sociopaths don’t feel the way we feel, and they don’t react the way we react. A sociopath is much worse than an impulsive person. For example, if you kick an impulsive person, they immediately get up to give you a beating. If we kick a psychopath, their rational, intelligent, cold and calculating mind would let us walk away without doing anything, but we’re already in their sights, and it’s a matter of days, weeks or months (they’re in no hurry) before we hear from them, and the punishment would be far worse than the impulsive person’s.
M.E. Thomas says a sociopath rarely admits to having a problem, because their minds think exactly the opposite: that they’re above everyone else. And the truth is that they’re often much more intelligent than other people, and they have the skills and qualities needed to become successful businesspeople and to win positions of command in companies in a way many other people can’t.
The author also warns, as Paul Babiak’s study does, that most of them aren’t in prison but in key positions in both public and private employment. But for all their charm, always keep in mind that they’ll never be your friends, even if they try to show you otherwise on the surface.
And now, how many of our readers recognised themselves in one or two of these questions? Any potential sociopaths out there? 🙂
Featured image: Stuart Heath, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
