SOCIOPATH TRAITS
TRAITS of a SOCIOPATH
On this page you will find two lists of traits. The top list is written in simple terminology. The list below it is the official, Hare Psychopathy Checklist, developed by Robert Hare, PhD.
Below are the traits most commonly attributed to a sociopath. Every person is inherently
different, and that includes each sociopath. This is not an attempt to diagnose anyone.
An individual could stand out as having just 2-3 traits and be a sociopath, because more traits could be well-hidden.
Sources: Wikipedia.org, Sociopathic.net, & personal observations (50+ years)
More Therapeutic Details …
Wikipedia.org
Hare Psychopathy Checklist
Robert Hare, PhD
Psychopathy is most commonly assessed with the PCL-R, which is a clinical rating scale with 20 items. Each of the items in the PCL-R is scored on a three-point (0, 1, 2) scale according to two factors. PCL-R Factor 2 is associated with reactive anger, anxiety, increased risk of suicide, criminality, and impulsive violence.
PCL-R Factor 1, in contrast, is associated with extraversion and positive affect. Factor 1, the so-called core personality traits of psychopathy, may even be beneficial for the psychopath (in terms of non‑deviant social functioning). A psychopath will score high on both factors, whereas someone with ASPD will score high only on Factor 2. Both case history and a semi-structured interview are used in the analysis.
PCL-R items
The following findings are for research purposes only, and are not used in clinical diagnosis. These items cover the affective, interpersonal, and behavioral features. Each item is rated on a score from zero to two. The sum total determines the extent of a person’s psychopathy.
- Factor 1 — Aggressive Narcissism
- Glibness/superficial charm
- Grandiose sense of self-worth
- Pathological lying
- Cunning/manipulative
- Lack of remorse or guilt
- Emotionally shallow
- Callous/lack of empathy
- Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
- Factor 2 — Socially Deviant Lifestyle
- Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
- Parasitic lifestyle
- Poor behavioral control
- Promiscuous sexual behavior
- Lack of realistic, long-term goals
- Impulsiveness
- Irresponsibility
- Juvenile delinquency
- Early behavioral problems
- Revocation of conditional release
- Traits not correlated with either factor
- Many short-term marital relationships
- Criminal versatility
More information: Hare Psychopathy Checklist
Licensed under CC — compliments: Wikipedia.org
How to identify a sociopath
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How to spot a sociopath
October 1st, 2010 at 15:48
My step daughter has almost all of these traits. The only one she doesn’t have is high self-esteem.
What is so strange about her is that she can completely cut people out of her life if they don’t do what she wants. We couldn’t care less about her specifically, but she takes our grandchildern away from us. She uses them as bargaining tools, the first thing she says when we don’t do what she wants is “you will never see your grandkids ever again if you don’t”.
Amazingly, it just for stupid stuff, that she has the ability to take care of, she just won’t. I have been completely baffled, until I took a sociological call, and started to read descriptions of sociopaths.
Now what do I do about the kids?
November 16th, 2010 at 13:04
Kelly,
My oldest daughter, Sarah and I were very close right through her teens. She got married in her early 20s to her high school sweat heart. They have two daughters together, my only two grandchildren. Sarah took on the traits of APD in her late-teens, early 20s, but even with me, she played her persona.
One day, during one of our typical phone calls, I asked something at the end that I hadn’t before, “Oh, can I speak with Nick please.” I could have sworn I heard him in the background, but Sarah said he wouldn’t be home for another 20-30 minutes. I would call back in 45-60 minutes.
When I called back, I surprisingly got their answering machine. Although it seemed suspicious to me, I left a message that I’d call back within a couple hours. Again, I got their answering machine. I knew something was up. My message asked her to return my call, which she never did. And that began her brutal character assassination of me.
She probably never expected for me to ask to speak with her husband, and my first and only conclusion was that if I had spoken to him, we may have discovered a contradiction of some information. Something that she told him was very different from what she told me. If so, she was risking getting busted — not something she was willing to do.
Whatever it was, it must have been big, because she, along with her husband (based on the lies she told him) have been decimating my character. I never expect to see them again, or see my grand daughters. There’s really nothing that can be done. I made an attempt to share the truth with my son-in-law, and he responded with a physical threat. Sometimes with the best intentions, we only make things worse.
I know what it feels like. I hope your situation works out better than mine.
All the best.
February 11th, 2011 at 00:14
One more to add to the list from my personal experience. This could be an extension of “Pathological Lying”.
When a sociopath lies, he has no awareness that he is lying. What he says, the opinions he expresses, at that moment, is the utter universal truth. He is not aware that minutes ago he was professing the exact opposite.
He believes what comes out of his mouth with absolute conviction. This makes him great at succeeding at interviews and manipulating himself into positions of trust.
And when his lies are caught out, he will respond with devastating viciousness. He will make it your fault. You heard wrong. You were misrepresenting him. You lied… And most unsispecting people, including the victim, will likely believe him!!!
February 11th, 2011 at 00:15
An extension to the above: a sociopath can glibly propose a course of action that is illegal, but believe utterly that it IS legal.
June 4th, 2011 at 15:05
After 8 years with a man suffering from complex PTSD, I have struggled with the notion he had sociopathic tendencies. He recently committed suicide in front of me by shooting himself in the head. His last words were, “see how pathetic I am.”
He was severely abused as a boy by both parents which ultimately led to his mother killing his father. He was impulsive, wreckless, manipulative and couldn’t maintain long term friendships. He was haunted by his own lack of worth- but insensitive to his own ability to harm others. He was very intelligent and could easily pass himself off as a caring man, but I could see the shallowness.
I did love him but feared him too. My gut instinct told me long ago to never completely trust him and I protected myself from financial and certain emotional ties. His family is teaming with self serving sociopaths and I have nothing to do with them. His was a tragic life, and I believe his life could have been better had he not been raised in such a household.
I tried to teach him about love and trust – and believe he loved me as best he could – because he tried to protect me from himself. He ended his life because he was afraid he would abuse me.
It is all so sad.
June 5th, 2011 at 21:27
Carla,
Your first paragraph will likely leave most people speechless, as it has virtually done to me. As bad as we all have had it, we can always find someone who’s had it worse.
My heart goes out to you.
Did his mother get away with killing his father? The court system gives them no reason to change their deceptive ways.
You strike me as an intelligent and strong-willed woman — it’s probably what saved you. It’s tough to speculate how different his life could have been in another family, but with the same genes. He would have undoubtedly been different, but in my opinion, I don’t believe that would have affected the demons he battled. Those were likely with him at birth.
It is very sad.
June 6th, 2011 at 12:38
Jim’s mother did get away with killing him because he had returned after being arrested for abuse- with a gun bent on killing the entire family. He was killed in front of the children.
When I first met Jim he confided his story to me and said it left him feeling that up until then his mother did nothing to protect them- she was the classic “deer in the headlights” victim, neither defending herself or the children. She is still that way today-and uses distancing language when she talks about it. It’s as if she sees herself somehow apart and aloof to the role she played.
It was she who told Jim he would never amount to anything, and his older siblings backed up the belief. Even after he died they said to me things like,” We never expected much from Jim.” and “Without you in his life Jim could have never come this far.”
Even in death he wasn’t given any credit for the good things he did.” It is as if his suicide only validated his worthlessness to them.
He was handed a low standard to never cross- and when he went above it, they were always there to remind him he would fail- by planting doubt in his mind.
July 12th, 2011 at 02:29
Carla, that is fucked UP, my deepest sympathies to you! that is so sad
And larry, i hope whatever sarah and her boyfriend did to assassinate your character sees true light one day. I pray that her followers or people who don’t believe you see this site one day and realize the horrible mistake they are making. im so glad for finding this site, it has taught me a lot, and reading all these stories, I think makes everyone a stronger person
July 12th, 2011 at 17:19
Quoted from TK: “When a sociopath lies, he has no awareness that he is lying. What he says, the opinions he expresses, at that moment, is the utter universal truth. He is not aware that minutes ago he was professing the exact opposite.”
I would like to extend this by stating that a sociopath has no concept of the truth.
Oh, a sociopath can lie to further his own goals quite consciously. But that’s probably not what you meant, but more the useless day-to-day-lies that are seemingly devoid of any reason for the act of lying because they bring no advantage.
When we tell anything, we take the perceived “reality” that our senses relayed, our (emotionally coloured) opinion, and then summarize, leave out parts we do not deem important, add own thoughts, and so on.
Unless we have a reason to, we think it’s “bad” to twist this already entirely subjective version of “what really happened” willfully.
Missing a moral compass based on own emotions, sociopaths lack the impulse to suppress wilfull manipulation of their subjective memories. Accordingly, they cannot draw a line between what we all necessarily do and what is deemed unacceptable. They simply do not have a choice.
September 27th, 2011 at 11:58
I’m so sorry Carla, that is truly a tragedy… My heart also goes out to you.
I know for undeniable fact that the sociopath I knew had all of the PCLR factor 1 traits, as well as half of the Factor 2 traits… It’s so hard to acknowledge you’ve come across a person who really is like this. Bc they are horrible. Disguised to be like us. The truth of their nature is as ugly as their exterior is attractive. And that’s /ucked up!
You don’t want to believe it… But you must. I go through withdrawal of acceptance… Thinking this person is not really so… Evil I guess you could say….
I’m pretty calculating myself and suspicious. But I don’t hurt people, and my lifestyle is truthfully too liberal for my fundamentalist family… I love them so I lie… They will never accept me. They are so happy and I benefit my lifestyle by quietly supporting it in the eyes of my family…. I feel for them…
September 28th, 2011 at 16:38
I’m wondering, my husband scores 2 on every aspect of Factor 1, but only scores 2 on one aspect of Factor 2. Can he be considered a sociopath?
September 28th, 2011 at 20:20
VienneseGuy,
I believe you are correct — psychopaths will knowingly deceive, but their first choice for an answer is always a lie … just to be safe.
September 28th, 2011 at 20:24
Alexandra,
This site acknowledges that it does not exist to diagnose or attempt to provide professional advice. Hence, a personal opinion: if he scores positive on all traits in Factor 1, I’d be very concerned if I were you.
November 7th, 2011 at 14:47
hmmm….I began reading your posts after coming across it when searching for symptoms of a sociopath because I’m pretty sure that my brother’s ex was one…..She had a very terrible past riddled with drug usage by her family members and then herself, murders and suicide every few years (father murdered, sister committing suicide, another sister and her mother dying of cancer – the latter 3 within a 2 year period) as well as incest and a plethora of other problems. Yeah, she had it bad. But what she did to others was equally so.
My brother met her when he was 15, they were the same age. At the time, she was working and attending his charter school and paying all bills to support her druggie mother. They quickly moved in together and he was there by her side through so much, always keeping her head above water, a roof over her head, food on her plate. He cared for her mother and a sister while they were sick and dying. His gf abused so many drugs and took to drinking so much that she ended up with all kinds of health problems (ie; epiliepsy or similary reactions when she took her meds and drank). I felt sorry for her, but over the years my ability to pity her faded as I began to see what she was doing.
She made everyone around her pity her for the things her family had done, for the pain of losing them. When her sisters and mom died so close together, she really used that to manipulate people, and for years. So many times my brother tried to leave because of the dysfunction or because she would threaten to hurt herself and then call the cops on him, but when he would, she’d get drunk or high until she started having seizures. He was sure that without him, she would end up dead within a matter of weeks because she had no one else left.
Then he lost his job and she began to try and leave him. She eventually did, for a while. He started to get over her but after almost a year she called him and said that her brother (the only remaining family who lived in another state) was raping her and he went to rescue her. Less than a week later, she was drinking and raving and when someone called the police, she banged her head against the car door and said he was going to end up in jail.
I think that was the last time he saw her. She found someone else to manipulate who’s family didn’t know any better. But now, my brother isn’t well.
Can the dysfunction that a person like this puts on others cause them to eventually develop mental issues as well? They were together over 13 years.
December 8th, 2011 at 00:39
I have a dilemma, long-story-short my mother and my older sister are sociopaths.
When my mother was alive she tried to run every body’s lives and when they did not conform she would assassinate their character and try to turn us 4 children against each other. Now that my mother has passed my sister has taken her role, she tries to manipulate every one in the family including my 71 yr old father.
When me and my niece tried to confront her and ask her to stop telling lies about us and other members of the family she acted as thou she was the victim and that we were attacking her. So for more than 5 years I have tried to make amends with her. For 3 of those years I have lived out of the country and thought that things would settle down, well not to my surprise she was still trying to turn the family against me.
She would tell my family that I didn’t want anything to do with them because I have moved on and up in the world and that I didn’t want anything to do with any people from the ghetto as she called it. She has said and done many things thats too long to mention. It escalated when my niece became very sick and was hospitalized. Me and my 24yr old niece are very close so when my sister went to the hospital to visit of course she tried to say things to her thinking my niece was vulnerable and could not defend herself or me. She told my niece “see your aunt Deborah doesn’t care about you thats why she’s not here visiting you” (side note; I live half way across the world more than a 27 hour flight away with 2 young kids).
Of course after her saying that my niece became very angry and an argument took place in which my name came up a lot. My niece in anger made some accusations about my sister that had been rumored around the family. My sister then accused me of starting the rumor and started to say very upsettings things about me to all my family except my father because she does not want him to know how she is but he know because he says she is just like my mother in that way.
At that point I made a very difficult decision and wrote my sister a letter expressing my disappointment that we could not reconcile and to let her know that the rumor that she was saying was the very reason why I felt that I had to refrain myself from her destructive behavior (side note; I sent the letter to my adult family members that knew what was happening so my letter or words could not be misconstrued in any way, as my sister has done many times in the past). A few hours later she called and tried to speak with me more like yell at me and I said that “I was sorry but I think we should no longer talk” and I hung up the phone.
A few minutes later my other niece called (the daughter of my said sister) and she tried to mediate the situation during the call we would go back and forth as my sister was in the background answering and asking questions as I was. Unfortunately in the end she new what she was saying was wrong but did not care about how I felt and she admitted that she only said it out of spite.
I asked 3 basic questions in the end in which I heard her voice loud and clear, “1- do you feel any remorse for us ending our relationship as sisters? answer- NO, 2- have I ever done anything wrong to you? answer- NO, 3- why do you have such animosity towards me? answer- she called me a bitch.
She on her behalf wrote her own letter mostly just ranting and trying to act as she was the victim and also sent it to family members. I didn’t feel I had any more to say so I did not respond. After everything was said and done I was very upset as I told my husband I felt like there was a death in the family and that I was the one that died. This happened about 6 months ago and it is still upsetting to think about.
Now to my dilemma- my son was recently engaged and is planning to get married next summer, my problem is that I know my sister well enough that if she is at the wedding that she will put a show on in front of me, my son, my dad and the whole family and act like she wants to reconcile. After knowing what she is capable of as a sociopath and how she feels about me I know I will never let her be apart of my life again.
The problem is should I ask my son not to invite her or tell him if she is invited that because of the hurt she has caused that I will not be able to attend his wedding if she is there? My son says despite what she has done he would like for us to put our issues aside for his wedding. I fear that if she is there that she will snicker about me behind my back as she has done many times before and try to cause some family drama. I will not be able to enjoy this happy moment with my son and his wife because I will be worrying about what she might do try to ruin my happiness.
“PLEASE HELP”
Be brutally honest as I will not be offended if you are trying to help with my situation
Thanks
December 21st, 2011 at 12:57
@ Deborah: I hope your son has reconsidered, for his new bride’s sake. This is supposed to be her day, and any toxicity introduced by your sister, will dissipate your ability, as the mother of the groom, to focus well on them. In addition, your son is supposed to have more loyalty to you than to his aunt. Where has your husband, his dad, weighed in on this?
That said, if your son will not relent, then I’d send another note to the same group of people now, with plenty of time before the wedding, explaining that you attempted reconciliation in a healthy way, your sister will not change her ways, and continues to make everything about her, regardless of the harm she inflicts, and you expect her to make a public display, attempting reconciliation, at the wedding, for that is what people of her personality profile do: They make sure they appear wonderful in public, in order to gain allies, and especially in order to gaslight their targets, but then, one on one, they go back to their toxic and one-sided ways. You hope she will be respectful and polite, and not make your son’s and especially you new dil’s special day about her, but please brace yourself for its opposite.
That, in itself, will stop her.
Then, when your relatives chide you that she didn’t do that, you can explain that you wrote the letter as a way to stop her, for her greatest pleasure is trying to make it seem like I’m the crazy one. Because I “predicted” she’d do it, therefore, to get at me, she would make sure she didn’t. Mission accomplished. My son’s and new dil’s wedding remained about them, not her. I was willing to take the risk of looking foolish, for the greater good for my son and new dil.
Of course, having to deal with them on any level is a lose/lose. I’m sorry your son falls into the category of not “getting it,” like most of our world, which is exactly why we are in the mess we’re in. We are a world of enablers, which suits the malignant narcissists / sociopaths / psychopaths just fine.
December 21st, 2011 at 13:04
@ TK (#3): I disagree. They do not believe their own lies. They are just THAT good at acting. Getting others to believe they believe their own lies is simply an added layer of manipulation, for then, people start shrugging their shoulders with, “What can we do? They’re mentally ill. They believe their own lies.”
This effectively disarms anyone from continuing to oppose them. Those who might make them accountable, give up. And then, the MN (malignant narcissist) / sociopath / psychopath continues on his merry way, now unopposed.
December 21st, 2011 at 14:13
@ Danna
I’ll need to disagree with you, and support TK. Psychopaths live in the worlds that they create. They fabricate complete untruths, right down to the very minute details. They go over it so often that they begin to believe their own lies, which is why they are usually so convincing.
Every psychopath is as different as any other person, but it is fact that they do eventually believe their own lies as truth. Another reason why they are so frightening. Ever see one under oath in court?
December 21st, 2011 at 15:54
Hi Larry.
Thanks for the reply.
Consider this: Why is it that they change their story so quickly when cornered by someone they view as an authority? That would indicate that they know they’re lying.
To back you and TK: Their body functions remain unperturbed when they’re lying, which is why they can pass lie detector tests, and which indicates they believe their own lies.
OR they’re just so used to lying, and it’s worked so well for them, that their bodies have completely acclimatized, even though they still know they’re lying.
The fact that only they know, at any moment in time, that they’re lying is part of the pleasure for them – they hold power over the gullible “idiot” (they like to feel one up) at that moment.
Ultimately, only they are inside their own heads, so only they know the real truth of whether or not they believe their own lies.
I think it’s better, as we spread awareness, and as more and more people come on board to help reel in their seemingly logarithmic growth, that we view them as they know when they’re lying, so that they have less ability to deflect accountability.
My opinion, anyway.
December 21st, 2011 at 16:13
Hi Danna,
Reading over what I wrote, I stand corrected. That’s why I added the caveat: “Every psychopath is as different as any other person …” but I should have endorsed it more fully by saying it’s a fact they “can” instead of it’s a fact they “do.”
I fully believe that I’ve experienced both. Sociopaths are not “black and white” as they come in every shade of gray. It likely depends on what else afflicts them, the gravity of the lie, etc.
Thanks for your opinion.
January 8th, 2012 at 00:19
I have to agree with Danna here. Sociopaths etc are not necessarily delusional. To say that they “create” a world is to underestimate the extent of their powers of manipualtion. They know they are lying. They simply do not care how these lies affect others and they do not care about anyone except themselves. They are not paranoid people who believe things that aren’t there.
They have no respect for society and for society’s rules. Telling the truth is something that is related directly to one’s “conscience”. The lack of a conscience will of course affect your ability and your very need to tell the truth. So i agree with Danna. I think this thing about sociopaths believing their lies makes no sense. Saying that they live in a created reality affords a sort of innocence to the thing that simply is not there
January 8th, 2012 at 10:51
Hi Jo,
Being “delusional” would likely indicate another disorder, and that is not uncommon with people suffering from mental disorders … they often suffer from more than one.
The two that come to mind as having “delusional” listed as a trait is being “psychotic” (much different than psychopathy) and “schizophrenia.”
Think of the movie “A Wonderful Mind.”
January 8th, 2012 at 16:16
Hi Larry.
Yes, sociopath / psychopaths often have co-morbid (coexisting) disorders.
And yes, the fact the term “psychotic” (which describes true breaks with reality, like the psychotic episodes that schizophrenics have), and “psychopathy” resemble each other, contributes to the confusion that many have.
Spreading awareness, awareness, awareness, and then accountability, accountability, accountability (especially financial accountability, which will bring the swiftest, most effective change, since sociopaths / psychopaths care deeply about money above people’s hearts), hopefully, will help understanding the difference.
Btw, it was “A Beautiful Mind” starring Russell Crowe as the Nobel prize winning (in mathematics) schizophrenic professor. (That’s the movie to which you refer – right?)
January 8th, 2012 at 19:59
Hi Danna,
When I typed out “wonderful” I kept telling myself I was wrong, but for some reason, “beautiful” never entered my mind. Thanks for the catch. I did mean to say: “A Beautiful Mind”
Such a “wonderful” flick
January 8th, 2012 at 20:28
Aha. I was right.
Btw, my recent experiences convince me even more that sociopaths / psychopaths know exactly when they are and are not lying.
They are amazing actors. Oscar winning-worthy (just like A Beautiful Mind) except the deception has even more layers of danger because they are not identified as actors in disclosed-to-all movies.
And they continue to enlist so many enablers and sycophants, utilizing their uncanny ability to tap into the insecurities of their new targets, utilizing strokes to their new targets’ egos, which make them (the new enablers) feel like the most important persons on the earth, for a slice of time. (The slice of time has to do with what the s-path needs from them, and needs for them to do for the s-path at that moment.)
Amazing how the current enabler gets fooled, even when there’s readily available information to check the veracity of the s-path’s pity ploys and other stories.
It speaks to how much the current enabler needs to feel loved and admired. Unfortunately, the current enabler aids and abets much destruction to what’s good and right and true in the long run, while the current enabler is getting their own needs met, regardless of how much it harms innocent others.
May this change one day for future generations.
January 8th, 2012 at 21:34
>> my recent experiences convince me even more that sociopaths / psychopaths know exactly when they are and are not lying.
I’m still in the undecided category if that applies to all psychopaths. I know it applies to some (based on face-to-face experience), but I also believe there’s a level of psychopath that believes their own lies as the truth (also based on face-to-face experience).
Yes, they are acting all the time to fit in, but that’s also one way to spot one, as someone who overreacts all the time, such as laughing at the wrong time. It’s not as easy as one time, but it does give one enough suspicion to keep an eye on that person.
I believe the majority of folks depend on playing follow-the-leader to get by or just be accepted in society, even if their society is a small group of people. Take the political parties for instance — my folks were party members, and simply voted down party lines.
Political parties are almost the defining story of psychopaths. Consider they have a group that wants to lead, and they will make no qualms about attacking another candidate’s character and reputation.
They have their circle of disciples that they work closely with, and then all the followers that do what they are told to do (e.g., vote). But I digressed.
To put it as candidly as I can, enablers are not critical thinkers.