If so, can you please clear something up for me. Please tell me:

What is the differences between a Psychopath and a Sociopath, and how can they be identified?

And more importantly, which poster on this board goes in which category?

And more importantly, which poster on this board goes in which category?
profound!:worship:

Psychopath (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy)

Antisocial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder)


The official stance of the American Psychiatric Association as presented in the DSM-IV-TR is that psychopathy and sociopathy are obsolete synonyms for antisocial personality disorder. The World Health Organization takes a similar stance in its ICD-10 by referring to psychopathy, sociopathy, antisocial personality, asocial personality, and amoral personality as synonyms for dissocial personality disorder.

I am a life long student of psychology, and am in fact pursuing my Masters degree in Experimental Psych/Human Factors Engineering.

A sociopath (and I have known just a few in my lifetime) are humans that have no conscience, and feel no empathy whatsoever toward other humans. They are unconcerned with the needs of others, and are in fact secretly perplexed that others don't 'get' them, and their drive for whatever it is that they desire at any given moment.

A psychopath is all of the above, but without the social skills (and the ability to mimic normal, acceptable human behavior) to get along undetected. Psychopaths tend to react violently to interference with their quest for whatever it is they desire at any given moment. And so they usually end up in prison or psycho wards, eventually. Or dead.

Sociopaths, on the other hand, are just a bit more adaptive.
They can mimic normal, socially-acceptable human behaviors just well enough to get along, and to fool a sufficient number of people.
Sociopaths can often be successful in relationships, work environments, and in their careers.

Psychopaths, *eh*, not so successful.

http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/2813/bundy/gif/t5.gif

I'm warning you turn back now. You still have time to go back and fix all the awful mistakes in your going to make.

I'm mostly joking cause I think psychology is a lot about stating the obvious, but only now you need funded experiments to say so. Best of luck though.

A lot of psychology is NOT stating the obvious. They are making huge strides in the study of brain chemicals and how to understand and treat mental illness at its biological root, which is extremely important.

My psychology teacher wouldn't know anything about that. We've had this discussion before Fantasy and no matter how you try, you won't change my mind. I'm sorry, its just that my psychology teacher is an idiot and all that articles I read about psychology are dull and boring. I've read one interesting article in the New York Times about perfectionism but thats about it.

Actually here is the link to that article, it was in my favorites. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/health/04mind.html?_r=1&em&ex=1196917200&en=a24f9601292649db&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin)

I'm sorry that your Psych prof is a dick, Swordlol.
Most of the PhD's in my Psych department are pretty good folks, so I guess I am lucky.

I agree with you for the most part about how boring most of the studies and psych experiments are. It seems that there are very few fresh ideas, and most of it has been done before, and/or done to death.

Like Darkfantasy though, I hold out hope for the 'soft science', and feel as though there are a lot worse fields of study, and far worse career fields to pursue. I myself am working the Human Factors Engineering angle for all it is worth, and feel as though I can make productive use of these studies throughout the rest of my working days. (I'm comparatively old as it is, but I do intend to be working pretty well into my late 60's.)

:cool:

So from what I have read here, it would be safe to assume that a Pyschopath has no ability to sense the pain of others.

For example: Let say someone were to show the average person five photographs of diffferent women (four of them crying and the fifth one happy), then ask them to identify the photo that was different. The average person would easily be able to identify the photo of the happy woman as the one thats different.

A psychopath on the other hand, does not have that ability. To him they would all appear the same.

If these same five photos were shown to a sociopath, he would be able to tell the difference, but he doesnt have the ability to care. Without a consious, he would not have the ability to concern himself with he fate of any of them.

Would this be a safe assumption?

Depends, Dunkirk. We've had conflicting opinions on this thread. The American Psychiatric Association apparently says that they are different words for the same thing.

You know what? I'll ask my psych teacher today and get a back to you later.

You know what? I'll ask my psych teacher today and get a back to you later.

Was he able to assist?, What did he have to say about this?