We are doing to be discussing sociopathic and psychopathic behaivor quite a bit in this blog. Narcissist display a lot of the same behaviors as well but for differnt reasons. I am going to make a pair of comment that at first glance appear harmless but once we dig into the psychology of a modern woman we will see it is much more controversial than people will accept: 

1. People should avoid psychopathic and sociopathic behavior.
2. Society should work directly and energetically to oppose anti-social values and anti-social expectations that normalize psychopathic or sociopathic behavior.

This blog makes often mention of anti-social values or anti-social expectations. I cannot think of a better way to define anti-social values or expectations expect for those that lead to psychopathic or sociopathic behaviors.   There are some 20 items on most psychopathy checklists.  Sometimes researchers have developed shorter lists for efficiency or to target a specific population different instrument have been developed.   Research is neat.

The psychopathy checklist has been subjected to fancy statistical analysis that shows how closely items on the list are related together.  Again, research is neat.  Below is an example of one of those analysis that shows how different items clump together on four different factors. In theory, if you target one of those factors it will affect all other items in the category but not the other factors.  For example, if you have interventions for interpersonal factors and treat them you would still have to treat the other three factors of lifestyle, affective and anti-social.  So addressing anti-social expectations and values in woman requires a multi-pronged approach

The checklists show behaviors that people should avoided, minimized, or eliminate.  I go on repetitively about perverse incentives, moral hazard, the principal-agent problem and how that can lead to agency capture.  Why?  Because public institutions can be manipulated to bring about psychopathic or sociopathic behavior.

I have a lot of thoughts on this issue that I am going to develop over time I am going to use this article as a jumping off point for articles looking at anti-social values and expectations that tend to high risk predictors to ACES at the hands of a child’s mother.  As I write them I am going to update this page with links to the articles.  I have kept the section below the table of contents clean so people can copy and paste it as they see fit for their own use.

The psychopathy checklist is one of the blogs fundamental frameworks to understand behavior.  Other models for negative behavior are Thinking Errors and Tactics to Avoid Change.  Positive models are Emotional Intelligence, Marine Corps Leadership Principles and Marine Corps Traits.

Glibness/superficial charm

Psychopaths learn they have to pretend to be normal or adopt a “mask of sanity“. Many psychopaths can construct defend personas for defend groups of people.   Many psychopaths come across as charming and friendly at first, seemingly very personable and easy to get along with.

This can manifest in a number of ways:

• A superficial warmth, charm or charisma that can easily reel people in. The air can seem to buzz around them sometimes. Psychopaths can be charismatic.
• An ability to make it seem you have known them for years, even if they have only just met you.
• An ability to seem engaged and engaging, to seem interested and interesting.
• A smooth talking disposition. Psychopaths can hold court and be great story tellers. Many of these stories will seem outlandish and they will always paint them in a good light.
• Seemingly having great in depth knowledge on every single topic you can mention (Dig into this further though and you see they only ever have a great two sentence intro to any topic, and never any more than that).
• A brazen kind of confidence and brashness.
• A desire to constantly speak and be the center of attention (never shuts up).
• A lack of reflectiveness or introspection. Their life is a constant search for entertainment and stimulation with no deeper reflection.
• Extreme hedonism and aversion to suffering. 

Grandiose sense of self-worth

Here are some other ways this egocentricity and grandiosity may show itself in real world psychopaths:

• An obsession with status and importance in the workplace or wider life. An exaggerated sense of importance regarding their own life, history and status.
• A general sense that the world revolves around them and that the needs of others do not matter.
• A general pattern of looking out for number one, happily screwing over others to advance their own position in life.
• A rageful reaction whenever their status in questioned, challenged or undermined in any way. “How dare you!” would be the general catch-all way of describing their response.
• A dissatisfaction with being in the lower ranks in the workplace. A desire to smooch their way up the ladder by any means necessary and get more status and more power over more people.
• You may find this leaking out in comments here and there – “I was hoping for a bigger office than that” – before the psychopath catches themself, and puts the charming mask back up. The ego and entitlement will show up more often once they have some power and influence.

Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom

Here are some ways this relentless need for excitement can manifest in psychopaths:

• A relentless need to party, drink and do recreational drugs.
• A need to remain immersed in the “crowd”, in shallow human interactions, with no introspective or reflective abilities at all. A need for constant external stimulation.
• A relentless need for sex.
• Some psychopaths are drawn to dangerous sports to feel alive.
• Others are drawn to risky crime, again to get that “high” or rush.
• Psychopaths will often get bored quickly in relationships and cheat on their partners, again needing constantly new excitement and novelty. They drop people cold once they get bored with them.
• Non violent psychopaths are also driven to constantly provoke others and create conflict and drama in relationships in order to relieve their boredom and feel alive.

Pathological lying

Watch out for:

• You ask them the same question about their past two or three times and get a different answer each time.
• Look for a pattern of regular or increasing lying and deception. Everyone is prone to lying occasionally but the frequency and scale of lying will stand out with psychopaths.
• They talk about grandiose achievements in their past with no witnesses around to back their stories up.
• They talk about people from their past, particularly ex partners, in constantly negative terms, comparing you favorably to them. Again none of these people are around the speak for themselves.
• Different things they are telling you about their past aren’t “squaring up” or making sense. Something doesn’t seem right about the picture they are painting of their past. Again trust your intuiton on this.
• They quickly gloss over or change the subject about a specific area of their life or history.
• Watch for their response when actual or potential dishonesty is confronted or exposed. Blame shifting, projection and unreasonable denial are red flags.
• Gas-lighting – where they repeatedly try and deny your perception of reality and turn things on their head – is a huge red flag. If you find yourself exposing lies but leaving conversations feeling like you are the one in the wrong then you are likely dealing with a psychopath.
• They have a tendency for confusing answers or “word salad” nonsense when confronted on certain things.

Conning/manipulative

Here are just a few of endless different ways this can manifest:

• Lying in relationships about all details, small and large, from what they had for breakfast to where they were this afternoon, to their current or past finances, to whether they cheated on someone.
• Lying to law enforcement to get out of trouble.
• Lying on job applications and in interviews (often brazenly so, not just little white lies).
• Lying in the workplace to avoid punishment, or to smear others.
• A brazen two-facedness in the workplace – able to be warm and charming to person’s face and smear them behind their back literally seconds later.
• Lying about their past, either to cover up wrongdoing or to make themselves seem more important and successful than they are.
• Committing fraud in any context (financial, identity fraud, lying on forms etc).
• Lying by omission – a huge one in relationships and the workplace, where the psychopath misleads and deceives, not by what they say, but by what they don’t say, what they leave out. See our article on omission lying for more on this.

Lack of remorse or guilt

Here are some ways this can manifest:

• Using and manipulating human emotions like love and trust to build powerful but fake bonds and relationships with people, which they walk out of in an instant when they get bored, with no remorse for the damage this causes to the people who they leave.
• Emotionally manipulating and abusing people in relationships, causing damage that can take years for victims to fully recover from, purely for their own entertainment.
• Destroying the reputation and careers of others in the workplace, smearing and scheming against others all to advance their own position. See our article on the smear tactics they often use.
• Psychopathic managers can also often be brought in to “restructure” a company, firing people left, right and center without a second thought for the damage to their lives or families. Psychopaths are often brought in to do this precisely because they don’t have the same emotional hangups other people do.
• Constantly rationalizing and justifying all this behavior with any number of excuses: “I felt like it”, “Collateral damage”, “It’s just business”, “I got bored with them”, and so on.

Shallow affect

Emotional poverty

Limited range of feelings

Internal coldness despite gregarious behavior (Lonerism)

Psychopaths do not feel emotions as deeply as normal people. Though they are not completely unemotional, their emotions are so shallow that some clinicians have described them as mere “proto-emotions: primitive responses to immediate needs.”[37]

Psychopaths do not feel fear as deeply as normal people and do not manifest any of the normal physical responses to threatening stimuli. For instance, if a normal person were accosted in the street by a gun-wielding mugger, he might sweat, tremble, lose control of his bowels or vomit. A psychopath would feel no such sensations, and are often perplexed when they observe them in others.[38] Psychopaths’ lack of fear make them often reckless risk-takers. This is not to say they are oblivious to the potential consequences of their actions. Rather, the thought of pain and punishment does not provoke an emotional reaction in them and thus has a weak restraining effect.

Callous/lack of empathy

Here are some ways this lack of empathy can manifest in psychopaths:

• Lack of empathy can be developed by continually suppressing ones empathetic emotions to focus on one’s materialistic or status based goals.
• Some soldiers can become “psychopathized” by having to kill so often – they have been shut off from their own empathy, and no longer respect the humanity of others.
• In the later stages of a relationships, a psychopath or narcissist may seem strangely “tuned out” to the needs of other people. They will seem self centred and inconsiderate, though they often try to mask this early on.
• Psychopaths often ramp up their abuse in toxic relationships, destroying a person’s boundaries more and more, without stopping, because they cannot empathize with the person they are abusing.
• Psychopaths can scheme, connive and push others out of jobs for their own ends, without any remorse or feeling for the suffering caused by this.
• A good way of putting this general traits is “They have feelings, but they have no feelings for your feelings”

Parasitic lifestyle

• Refuses to get a job and lives off your earnings
• Won’t help around the house with chores
• Takes credit for doing household chores
• Has to be the centre of attention at all times
• They sulk for days if they don’t get their way
• You give in to their demands because it is easier
• They show no concern over your feelings
• An over-the-top reaction of aggression if you question their behaviour
• They have no qualms about suddenly ending the relationship and moving on
• You feel drained in their presence

How a parasitic approach to happiness leads to divorce

Poor behavioral controls

The psychopath struggles to control their behavior in this way. Here are some common consequences of this:

• Psychopaths often get into bar fights and other scuffles, because they cannot control themselves in the face of any conflict or provocation.
• They can be extremely confrontational and aggressive characters, seemingly turning on a dime.
• They can be hyper-sensitive, and suddenly fly off the handle with little or no provocation.
• Some psychopaths can brutally assault other people, and then very quickly return to normal as though nothing has happened.
• In the case of non violent psychopaths, this lack of control is often shifted into sexual impulsivity, or to the emotional abuse of others (they can’t help causing trouble).
• They also create conflict very easily. As well as being easily provoked, they also very often provoke others in order to get themselves “fired up” and deliver some excitement to their day.

Promiscuous sexual behavior[4]

The psychopath frequently engages in promiscuous sexual behavior or has many short-term marital relationships.

• Sex is never a mutually emotional experience (pillow princess)
• Motivated by power or reward
• Multiple partners at one time
• Adultery
• Great pride in sexual exploits
• Uses coercion
• Finding victims when they’re lonely, depressed, or emotionally lost.
• Disposing of sexual or romantic partners as if they’re unnecessary objects.

Early behavior problems

Other items on the checklist occurring before puberty.

• Lying
• Cheating
• Bullying
• firesetting

Lack of realistic long-term goals

Look out for

• nomadic lifestyle
• Shifting responsibilities for planning into other people
• Frustration when following a plan that success isn’t quick enough
• Resentment of responsibility/consistency in following plan
• Trying get out of planned  responsibilities
• Thinks they can continually get away with abusive and neglectful behaviors in a relationship.  If they can’t then the relationship is disposable.

Impulsivity

The results of this impulsivity can be damaging to others and sometimes very bizarre. Here are some examples:

• Does not plan out abuse or neglect, just does them.
• Inability to resist temptation, frustration and urges
• More generally, psychopaths tend to live a chaotic, day to day existence, not able to plan ahead in their lives and lying and manipulating their way out of any problems that do come up.
• They’ll often rationalize this impulsive lifestyle with cliches like “Live for the moment”, “Seize the day” etc etc.

Irresponsibility

Here are some ways this trait can manifest in psychopaths:

• A total lack of interest in fulfilling reasonable commitments or obligations.
• For example, collecting child support from psychopath fathers can be almost impossible.
• They will cheat on partners and abandon children without a second thought.
• Some psychopaths will readily neglect and abuse their children without any remorse or guilt, refusing to properly care for them or leaving them on their own for extended periods.
• Frequent unreliability, absences and breaking of rules at work. Often commit fraud and misuse company resources.
• When caught breaking rules or being irresponsible, will often produce seemingly heartfelt apologies of how they’ll “never do it again”, which are routinely broken.
• Psychopaths often run away from debts and/or have declared bankruptcy multiple times in their lives, which they often keep from their future partners.
• Will often knowingly infect those they sleep with with STIs.
• Will often use the resources of friends and family to get them out of trouble, borrowing money which is seldom paid back.
• When any financial problems do arise, instead of displaying some discipline to correct the problem, they will instead increase their irresponsible lifestyle and run from the problem even more, worsening it (extreme hedonism).

Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

• Low in conscientiousness
• Absence of a sense of duty
• Antagonistic manipulation
• Denial of responsibility
• Manipulate others through denial

Many short-term marital relationships

Or marriage like relationships.  When in relationships they do a lot of high risk behaviors for break up or estrangement

• Undependable
• unreliable

Juvenile delinquency

Engages in abusive and neglectful behavior prior to the age of 13Here are some things commonly found with Conduct Disorder in:

• Misbehavior and truancy at school.
• Lying even in childhood.
• Stealing
• Vandalism & starting fires.
• Cheating
• Violence towards other children early on.
• Violence and cruelty towards animals 

Revocation of conditional release

They have a lot of break ups and will get back together with someone, agreeing to get better.  When they do they begin anew the identified behaviors they promised to end.

Criminal versatility

• Commits a wide array of moral crimes, not necessarily legal crimes. 
• They are proud of the abuse and neglect they can get away with

Images

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[1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/PCL-R-Items-Classified-According-to-Factors-and-Facets-Hare-2003_tbl1_270886721

[2] I am indebted to the authors at https://psychopathsinlife.com/psychopath-checklist-traits/ due to what they have published on their cite.  Many of these bullet points for the 20 traits either come from their work or from hare’s summation in the image section.

[3] https://www.learning-mind.com/parasitic-lifestyle-psychopath-narcissist/#:~:text=So%20here%20are%2010%20signs%20you%20may%20be,show%20no%20concern%20over%20your%20feelings%20More%20items

[4] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-is-2020/201410/sex-and-the-psychopath#:~:text=The%20psychopath%20frequently%20engages%20in%20promiscuous%20sexual%20behavior,was%20linked%20to%20more%20promiscuity%20and%20less%20commitment.