The Sociopath Next Door

These days, with the abundance of books, movies, and television programs available on demand for instant entertainment, our knowledge tends to be informed by popular culture. Because of this, our intake of the dramatic simplification of most topics is outweighed drastically by factual representation.

With this in mind, it is no wonder that most of us envision dangerous people as wild-eyed lunatics noticeable a mile way, disheveled madmen that are encountered far and few between.

As Martha Stout demonstrates in The Sociopath Next Door, there are people capable of unimaginable atrocities all around us, and not only do they appear like everyone else, but they might even be less conspicuous than one would hope.

If Good and Evil are opposites show more of the same coin, and Good people are those who care and feel for others, then it stands to reason that evil exists as people lacking the ability to care or love. These people exist, cold and calculating sociopaths unfettered by the restrictions of guilt or conscious, and they do so in alarming numbers reaching epidemic proportions. 4% of the US population are afflicted with Sociopathic Personalities, far greater than those afflicted with cancer. Meaning one out of every twenty-five people you meet feel no remorse or regret, and are capable of anything.

Martha Stout's book strikes an elegant balance between clinical facts and anecdotal examples, making this book an easy read that manages not to come off as either a fluffy fear-mongering diatribe or a stuffy jargon-laden medical tome. The examples created from personal case studies perfectly illustrate the points of each chapter, but don't detract from the factual or philosophical topics discussed.

Despite chapters warning of the realities of the sociopaths among us, such as their alarming ability to blend in and even charm us into their confidence, her tone never reaches an alarmist level. This is a book that informs and prepares, with instilling false hope or blind panic in its audience. Also, while this topic is heavy with emotion, Stout never descends into supermarket tabloid prose. Apart from a slight detour into 9/11, which almost has no bearing on the topic at hand, the examination of the origins and ramifications of the human conscious remain informative and exploratory without becoming preachy. Especially interesting is the chapter that delves into the nature vs. nurture debate, in which she examines the genetic, environmental, and cultural influences that can help create or subdue a growing child's sociopathic tendencies.

If you have ever witnessed someone behaving extraordinarily ruthlessly or cruelly, and have wondered how someone could even bring themselves to act in such a manner, this book will go a long way towards satisfying your curiosity. show less

Thoroughly chilling. I can't help but approach the world as an optimist, but the gritty truth about sociopaths from Martha Stout's book put my normally agreeable outlook on high alert. 1 in 25. That's the statistical rate of sociopaths in everyday life, and it's significant. Chances are decent you know of one yourself. For comparison, Cancer is about 3 in 1,000. Autism is about 1 in 2,000.

The case studies found here in The Sociopath Next Door are going to get under your skin. It's unsettling to think you're playing the game of life alongside individuals who feel neither the compulsion to abide by its rules nor any remorse when breaking them.

On a related note, this book has muddled my lifelong love of Charles Dickens' A Christmas show more Carol. After all, Scrooge needs to have a conscious for the story to work at all, let alone be as powerful as it is. Were it not fiction, Scrooge would probably have been a Grade A sociopath incapable of reform. The implication of that is a shame. show less

My peeps and I were sitting around talking about life's latest challenges, and one of us, ZZ., was distressed about a family problem. Her brother-in-law, Oscar, she said, had cheated most of her siblings and/or their spouses out of large sums of money. Whenever he was around, things of value disappeared.

One time, ZZ, her husband, Oscar and her sister were walking around downtown, shopping and hanging out. At some point, Mr. ZZ noticed that Oscar was wearing a completely different shirt than when they started out.

"Hey Oscar," Mr. ZZ said, "Where'd you get that shirt?" There was disingenuous hemming and some vague hawing, but no real answer. Apparently, Oscar had gone into a store, tried on a shirt, and walked out without paying for show more it.

Another time, Oscar's six-year-old child was discovered to have stolen the valuable jewelry of several people at a family gathering. Six years old. Six-year-olds do not steal wedding rings and watches and valuable jewelry unless someone is teaching them to do so. When the missing items were discovered in her possession, ZZ was disturbed when there were no consequences, no conversations, no apologies forthcoming. Her suspicion was that her sibling was headed in that direction with their child, but was shut down by her husband.

This guy has no conscience, and he even has no qualms about using his own child to get what he wants. It's creepy; it gives me the chills; and Martha Stout claims in The Sociopath Next Door that one out of every 25 people you meet is a sociopath like Oscar. The defining characteristic of a sociopath is that he has no conscience: he can do whatever he wants without feeling remorse.

The Sociopath Next Door is an interesting, well-documented look at sociopathology and the history of the human conscience. It's somewhat repetitious, which got annoying to me--Stout frequently references the 1/25 ratio, or the 4 percent rate of occurrence of sociopathology.

But other than that minor tic, the book held my interest, and I appreciated the balance the author struck between academic scholarship and popular or layman's language. I was intrigued by the discussion of the origin of conscience and the science of sociopathology: where does conscience come from? Why is it more influential in some people, and less so in others? Why does it even fluctuate in influence even within ourselves?

And of course, the ubiquitious sociological question, is sociopathology more influenced by nature (i.e., genetics), or by nurture? The research seems to indicate that heredity and environment share responsibility almost equally. The absence of conscience has not so far been linked to early abuse; and in fact, Stout suggests, "there is some evidence that sociopaths are influenced less by their early experience than are nonsociopaths.

Read the rest of my review here: http://greenroomthoughts.blogspot.com/2008/02/sociopath-next-door.html show less

Let's just say this book confirmed what I had long suspected about certain family members! Well written for a lay audience. I recommend buying a copy and then passing it around to all your friends. The author makes the compelling argument that we are willfully blind to the sociopaths among us, and it is in our own best interests to be able to identify them. Basically, if you ever feel that someone is abusing you or using you for their own pleasure- especially if it's in subtle ways that would sound crazy if you tried to explain it to someone- you are the target of a sociopath. Or possibly a narcissist- this book also details the difference between the two personality disorders. I put this book in the category of READ IT NOW!!

I’ve been around long enough to have run into a fair number of sociopaths. Of course, at first I didn’t recognize them as such and don't remember being aware they even existed in the everyday world. But experience is a hard teacher and I soon learned my lesson. I can’t say there was a lot in this book that went beyond what I found out on my own but the ‘tells’ about how to spot a sociopath confirmed my suspicion of a few. What I liked best was the part about envying the sociopath’s detachment because I admit I’ve occasionally thought not having a conscience might not be a bad thing. This was convincing and eloquent in making it clear that even though it can feel like an obligation at times, having a conscience that lets us show more love and feel connected to others is, in fact, a blessing. show less

These days, with the abundance of books, movies, and television programs available on demand for instant entertainment, our knowledge tends to be informed by popular culture rather. Because of this,our intake of the dramatic simplification of most topics is outweighed drastically by factual representation.

With this in mind, it is no wonder that most of us envision dangerous people as wild-eyed lunatics noticeable a mile way, disheveled madmen that are encountered far and few between.

As Martha Stout demonstrates in The Sociopath Next Door, there are people capable of unimaginable atrocities all around us, and not only do they appear like everyone else, but they might even be less conspicuous than one would hope.

If Good and Evil are show more opposites of the same coin, and Good people are those who care and feel for others, then it stands to reason that evil exists as people lacking the ability to care or love. These people exist, cold and calculating sociopaths unfettered by the restrictions of guilt or conscious, and they do so in alarming numbers reaching epidemic proportions. 4% of the US population are afflicted with Sociopathic Personalities, far greater than those afflicted with cancer. Meaning one out of every twenty-five people you meet feel no remorse or regret, and are capable of anything.

Martha Stout's book strikes an elegant balance between clinical facts and anecdotal examples, making this book an easy read that manages not to come off as either a fluffy fear-mongering diatribe or a stuffy jargon-laden medical tome. The examples created from personal case studies perfectly illustrate the points of each chapter, but don't detract from the factual or philosophical topics discussed.

Despite chapters warning of the realities of the sociopaths among us, such as their alarming ability to blend in and even charm us into their confidence, her tone never reaches an alarmist level. This is a book that informs and prepares, with instilling false hope or blind panic in its audience. Also, while this topic is heavy with emotion, Stout never descends into supermarket tabloid prose. Apart from a slight detour into 9/11, which almost has no bearing on the topic at hand, the examination of the origins and ramifications of the human conscious remain informative and exploratory without becoming preachy. Especially interesting is the chapter that delves into the nature vs. nurture debate, in which she examines the genetic, environmental, and cultural influences that can help create or subdue a growing child's sociopathic tendencies.

If you have ever witnessed someone behaving extraordinarily ruthlessly or cruelly, and have wondered how someone could even bring themselves to act in such a manner, this book will go a long way towards satisfying your curiosity. show less

Case studies illuminate the range of expressions of sociopathy

- Overgeneralizations abound, factual errors, contradictory interpretations of behavior

I rarely pan books. Even when I was reviewing for Publisher's Weekly, I tried to emphasize the good points of the books. It seems irresponsible to identify good points in The Sociopath Next Door without pairing them with their caveats. This is unfortunate, because Stout's case studies are vivid and, while not particularly complex, illustrate a range of expressions of sociopathy in familiar contexts (home, work, and relationships).

I also don't usually write giant question marks or rebuttals in the margins, or have cause to circle egregiously inaccurate statements. My copy of this book is show more highly marked up. In recent years, only Edward O. Wilson's Concilience: The Unity of Knowledge has evoked comparable frustration and disgust, and in fact I put it down after only a few chapters. Rather than go into exquisite detail about my many notes, exclamations, and Post-its, I will try to summarize the major flaws of Stout's book, with an example of each.

1. She casts doubt on her accuracy by using outdated references. While she has a few (mostly non-psychology) references from after 2001, the majority are references from the 1990's, and some hail from the 1960's. I'm all for an historical perspective, but research on cortical functioning from 1962, if still considered accurate, should be backed up by more contemporary studies. Most surprisingly, on page 6 she cites DSM-IV as the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. As a psychologist in practice, she ought to be well aware that the current edition of DSM, DSM-IV-TR (Text Revision) was published in 2000 (that's 5 years before her book was published). She is out of standard of practice. Further, the information she cites, apparently from the DSM, is incorrect. Stout asserts that the rate of antisocial personality disorder is 4% (p. 6, no citation given). She then moves into a discussion of the DSM criteria for this disorder. I don't have a DSM-IV handy at the moment, but as luck would have it, I do keep a DSM-IV-TR in the house. It reports the rate as "about 3% in males and about 1% in females" (DSM-IV-TR, p. 704). That would be a prevalence rate of 2%, or 50% lower than her assertion here and throughout. She also characterizes this disorder as "a noncorrectable disfigurement of character" (p. 6). DSM-IV-TR reports that it "has a chronic course but may become less evident or remit as the individual grows older.... there is likely to be a decrease in the full spectrum of antisocial behavior...." (DSM-IV-TR, p. 704). Even if she doesn't agree with this conceptualization, she needs to clarify the dispute, and take measures not to appear to suggest that DSM is the source of her information. Egregious errors like these immediately make me question the quality of her scholarship.

2. It is over-generalized and sensationalized. She uses the word "insane" to describe all sociopaths, including those who are parasites rather than aggressors. If her contention is that lack of conscience equals insanity, this ought to be a more central premise, and more clearly explored. Though she avoids exclamation points, at many points the book still reads as if she's shouting.

3. She poses rhetorical questions and then answers them with reference to how "we" all agree with her assertion. We don't.

4. Overgeneralization, part 2. She does not adequately differentiate between sociopathy and passivity plus entitlement. While she does describe some differences between sociopathy and narcissism, she does not explore many other reasons that a person might be construed to be sociopathic, but actually be something else. She glosses over the cycle of violence model in which being abused as a child may cause the person to abuse others as an adult, failing to delineate why a person with complex PTSD or Borderline Personality Disorder might engage in behavior that appears sociopathic, but isn't. She does not address autism spectrum disorders and their possible relationship to, or confound of, her definition of sociopathy. She notes the high rate of sociopaths in a prison population, but does not address the high rate of ADD in the same population, or explore whether these are alternative, overlapping, or coincidentally occurring characterizations of the same people.

5. She seems almost oblivious to the conscience-dulling, judgment-impairing effects of substance abuse, which she mentions only in passing (on p. 105, for example, she raises and then dismisses it out of hand). Stout seriously undermines her argument by citing statistics on sociopathy, then describing behaviors that may have varied etiologies, and ascribing the lion's share of distasteful interpersonal behavior to sociopathy.

6. Stout describes sociopaths' higher mean Pd scale scores on the MMPI, which is all well and good. She does not mention that psychologists and police also have higher means on this deviancy score on the MMPI than does the average person. So does a person with a history of illegal sunstance use, even if they've stopped. So does a gay person or anyone whose behavior does not toe the social line or has caused them to stand up to even unjust authority (more on this below).

7. She equates sociopathy with evil. This is problematic if, as she asserts, the research suggests a high heritability for sociopathy. Is evil genetic? Apparently she believes that it is.

8. Statements such as this make me want to hurl the book across the room: "...hundreds of thousands of brand-new Americans are now living the insecure existence of unwanted children simply because a physical appetite eclipsed their parents' consciences for just a few minutes in each case" (p. 54). Has she never heard of rape or coercion? Of failure to use adequate birth control for religious reasons? Of poverty and its effects on both birth control and the means to raise a child?

9. She castigates sociopaths for not following the rules, but one of her admonitions to people trying to resist sociopaths (whom she sees as gravitating to positions of power and control) is not to follow the rules. Not only is this contradictory as expressed, but failing to follow the rules of an authority, even if that authority is a sociopath, will earn you a higher score on the aforementioned Pd scale of the MMPI.

10. In her "Thirteen Rules for Dealing with Sociopaths in Everyday Life," she does not mention an important rule that, if followed, would have decreased much heartache and damage in her extended case studies: If you discover that you have been compromised by a sociopath, admit it. Nobody wants to admit their bad behavior, indiscretions, or blackmailable offenses, but be a mensch and take the rap. I would argue that covering for a sociopath (or your own bad judgment) keeps you vulnerable and perpetuates the offender's power to negatively affect others. I think, if pressed, Stout would say that people who allow themselves to be coerced in this way are not sociopaths because they feel shame. This is cold comfort to whomever the sociopath next compromises or harms.

I enjoyed Stout's philosophical musings and attempts at theory-building, though I don't agree with all of them. The weakest chapter by far is the Introduction. A good editor could have helped her make this tighter, though I would still disagree with some of her basic premises.

If you want a good book on personality disorders, you'd do better with David Shapiro's classic text, Neurotic Styles. More empathic toward its subjects, this was the work that led to the codification of "personality disorders." It is well-written (though you may disagree with some of *its* basic premises) and substantially warmer, though more formal in tone. show less