Clinical psychologist and former Harvard Medical School instructor
Dr. Martha Stout has spent a good portion of her working life attempting
to crack the mystery of what makes someone a sociopath—she says it has
something to do with having a conscience, or not having one. Stout has
even authored a book on the subject,
The Sociopath Next Door, and is at work on a sequel, tentatively titled
Conquering the Sociopath Next Door: Courageous Resistance to Lies, Scams, Mind Games, and Murder,
which is expected out next year. Here, she offers a thumbnail sketch of
the nature of sociopathy, and how regular folks can best prevent
themselves from falling prey to the dangerous games that sociopaths
play.
KATE SIMON: Why did you title your book
The Sociopath Next Door?
MARTHA STOUT:
The Devil You Know was the working title and then Kris Puopolo, my editor, called up one day and said, “Do you remember when you called it
The Sociopath Next Door
and you thought you were kidding? Well, we really like that title.” I
think it’s more immediate and it captures what the book is about . . .
SIMON: Well, initially the title is scary. Like, “Ooh, Ted Bundy is
next door!” Your point is that one in 25 people in North America is a
sociopath—that it could be your next-door neighbor, your teacher, your
co-worker, your . . . husband. Sociopathy is more prevalent than
schizophrenia or anorexia.
STOUT: Right. It’s a much more common thing than most people realize.
SIMON: Explain the characteristics that a sociopath exhibits.
STOUT: Okay, the central trait of sociopathy is a complete lack of
conscience, which is very difficult for most people to get their heads
around, because those of us who do have a conscience can’t really
imagine what it would be like if we didn’t. Most people think that deep
down everybody has a conscience, and it turns out that’s just not true.
So if you don’t have a conscience, what is your behavior like?
Apparently, if you don’t have a conscience, if you don’t really . . .
love, then the only thing that’s left for you is the game—it’s about
controlling things.
SIMON: Manipulating people.
STOUT: Yes. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be a large
manipulation. And sociopaths are just like everybody else in that some
of them are really brilliant, some of them are really stupid, and most
of them are somewhere in between. Another thing I should point out is
that sociopaths are not usually physically violent. A typical sociopath
never kills anybody and doesn’t look like Charles Manson—they look like
you and me and everybody else. You’re not looking for someone who’s
recognizably evil or scary-looking, but rather someone who looks normal.
Another lynchpin is dishonesty. Lying for the sake of lying. Lying just
to see whether you can trick people. And sometimes telling larger lies
to get larger effects. The other thing that needs to be stressed is that
sociopaths are often extremely charming. They are people who are better
than you and me at charming people, at being charismatic. I’ve heard
this more often than I can count: “He was the most charming man I ever
met,” or, “She was the sexiest woman I ever met,” or, “The most
interesting person I ever met . . .” That’s because to learn to be
charming is fairly easy—you can teach somebody to be charming and to
learn human emotions—or to learn the behaviors that go with human
emotions. A sociopath, a smart one, will study the way we emote, and
will learn how to do that quite effectively.
SIMON: Is there a particular type of person that a sociopath picks out to manipulate?
STOUT: Well, the perfect victim, from the sociopath’s point of view,
is the person who is smart enough and capable enough to do him some good
in the world and who is also fun to manipulate. How much fun is it to
manipulate someone who is stupid and incompetent? Another good person to
manipulate is someone of high character, because that is also fun for
the sociopath. On the other hand, the sociopath doesn’t want this person
to be so savvy that he or she will immediately see him for who he is.
He wants the person to be easily enough fooled to stick with him. This
can be accomplished by looking for someone who is very, very loyal. Most
of us consider loyalty to be a very positive trait—and it is a positive
trait. But it also blinds people to some of the traits of the person
they’re loyal to.
SIMON: One idea in the book is that we shouldn’t confuse fear with respect. Can you elaborate?
STOUT: It’s kind of wired into us that when someone is harsh to us,
or when somebody makes us feel bad, that in some way they’re better than
we are. A reviewer who says mainly negative things is going to be
perceived as more intelligent by the audience than the person who says
positive things. That’s just human nature. And someone who makes us
afraid encourages a sense of respect, and that’s unfortunate because
somebody who makes you afraid is very likely to be doing it just for the
purpose of making you afraid, and is not the kind of person that you
want to respect at all.
SIMON: In
The Sociopath Next Door, you list 13 ways to deal with a person one assesses to be a sociopath. Can you share some?
STOUT: If you have reached the point where you’re certain that this
person has no conscience, or is in it to win rather than to love you,
then the very best thing you can do is to get away. That’s a very hard
lesson to learn, and, furthermore, it’s not always possible.
SIMON: Are sociopaths afraid to be alone?
STOUT: Sociopaths are not afraid of very
much, except for physical harm and dying—really primitive, basic kinds
of fears. The problem with being alone for a sociopath is boredom. I
don’t know if you remember what things were like when you were a child,
where boredom could actually get to be painful. Sociopaths experience
that kind of pain in boredom. And so to be alone, to have nobody to play
the game with, can be painful. It’s not exactly fear, it’s a kind of
pain. Most of us fill up our lives and end our boredom with our
involvement with other people—people we love, people we hate, people
we’re afraid of, people we’re interested in—and that’s what keeps our
minds going. So if you’re sociopathic and you really have no caring for
anybody, there’s not much left, only boredom, and the way to relieve
that, apparently, is to play a game and make sure that you win.
