TVTropes wrote:The Sociopath displays these following qualities:
Lack of Empathy and Imperviousness to Shame: Utterly ruthless doesn't begin to describe them: except for when trying to appear normal, they will disregard any social norms and semblance of morality in pursuit of their own selfish desires. The Sociopath will do whatever it takes: lie, cheat, steal, extort, manipulate, or use outright violence without the slightest hesitation, disgust or remorse, and for as little as Pleasure or The Evulz. Murder and violence have no more emotional weight than eating Chinese takeout or some other mundane activity, and they have no concern for the direct or collateral damage they do to other people, being unable to understand why anyone should. Techniques for learning moral behaviour, such as reason, therapy, rehabilitation and behavioral reward/punishment, will not work on them or tend to only make their behavior even worse by making it easier for them to fake it.
Consummate Liar and Manipulator: In the event they are ever targets of suspicion in crime dramas and thrillers, sociopaths are able to fool any Living Lie Detectors in the cast, pass polygraphs effortlessly, and fool even you, the audience, into believing they are genuinely kind and caring people who are victims of a "big misunderstanding" (assuming they are not so smugly confident of their own invincibility that they feel no need to hide their unsavory personality). Moreover, despite their lack of empathy, sociopaths are capable of using their knowledge of others' desires, emotions and insecurities to manipulate them for their own personal gain. Because of this, many of them are Faux Affably Evil. This is related to their lack of empathy and shame - they don't feel the slightest discomfort about lying or exploiting others so they do so with the same ease in which normal people perform mundane activities.
Need for Stimulation: The Sociopath's raison d'etre (i.e.: an overriding goal which serves as one's "reason for existence"). Due to their inability to empathize or even care for those around them, sociopaths largely view their existence as boring and/or meaningless and therefore feel compelled to engage in "thrill-seeking" activities to alleviate their restlessness. How this manifests depends largely on the sociopath's personality. It can be as relatively benign as binging on video games, compulsively gambling, or leading highly promiscuous lifestyles. Far more dangerous examples are prone to satiate their lust for thrills by partaking in criminal enterprises, becoming serial rapists and/or killers, or (with regards to unusually high-functioning cases) accumulating vast wealth and/or influence for the sole purpose of dominating as many people as they can for their own amusement. By the same token, sociopaths have a very low tolerance for inconvenience or irritation which they often display through a pronounced lack of impulse control. Because of that many of them are Ax-Crazy and/or have a Hair-Trigger Temper.
A Grandiose Sense of Self-Worth: If there's a skill that exists, you can bet they believe they can master it in no time at all. From their perspective, they are the most handsome, intelligent and powerful individual that is and ever will be. Unlike the Narcissist whose self-esteem is vulnerable to others' perceptions, a sociopath's grandiosity about their self-worth remains constant regardless of how people view him/her. Even when their actions result in crushing failure, a sociopath feels no need to conform their conduct with others' views or standards. Conversely, in pursuit of their insatiable desire for stimulation, they will continue to push the envelope as much as they can do so without suffering the consequences (a self-destructive lifestyle which endangers not only themselves but everyone around them). Likewise, sociopaths are incapable of acknowledging personal responsibility for ANY of the failures or disappointments they encounter (i.e: events which they automatically attribute to those out to "keep them down" or unfortunate twists of fate entirely beyond their control).
Shallow Affect: Their defining trait. A Sociopath is literally incapable of experiencing a deep emotional attachment towards others but - being a Consummate Liar - learns early in life how to fake them. They never truly understand the feelings of others on anything more than an intellectual level, and may even believe that everybody else is faking it too. As many Real Life criminal psychologists put it: "They know the words but not the music." This shallow emotional life means that the Sociopath is unable to form sincere long-term relationships with anything or anyone, but will feign feelings of love and affection if they feel it serves their purposes. Most of the true feelings a sociopath harbors towards others, positive or negative, are rooted in an insatiable desire to dominate or control them. While narcissists would prefer to be loved or at least respected by those around them, sociopaths don't care whether others view them positively as long as they don't stand in the way of their own self-centered gratification. In the rare event that a Sociopath actually does form an "attachment" to another person, it normally rises no further than that between an owner and a possession and/or a valuable resource for advancing their goals. Thus, once such "friends" cease to be a source of entertainment or otherwise outlive their usefulness, they abandon or kill them without ANY hesitation or regret unless (in the case of more high-functioning examples) they feel doing so would potentially jeopardize their own self-interest.
Many of these traits are shared with other disorders, but it's the combination of them all that creates the Sociopath. And, like many other disorders, sociopathy falls on a spectrum. Some sociopaths are just unusually self-absorbed. On the other end of the scale are the ruthless, remorseless monsters. Sociopaths also have varying personalities, levels of intelligence, and interests, which influences how their disorder manifests in everyday life.
The high-functioning Sociopath will usually have better-than-average impulse control for someone with their condition, and may actually appear perfectly normal. They know murder is bad because they're told it's bad — and know murderers who are caught will get in trouble — but the action has no more emotional weight to them than brushing their teeth. They emulate the moral behaviour of society because a failure to do so has negative consequences, and not because Good Feels Good. What You Are in the Dark exposes them for who they are, and they do not consider something wrong if they do not get caught. If killing advances their goals and they can get away with it, they will often do so. And they will often seek positions of respectability within their communities in order to maintain the façade of being just like everybody else.
Alternatively, they may simply possess goals that do not require murder or other criminal activities to achieve; this does not mean they won't strive to achieve those goals at the expense of the happiness of other people. And even if their goals would be more easily achieved with murder, they might still refrain - but that's because they fear getting caught, not the feelings of others. They might go their whole lives appearing almost normal... but there will always be something a little 'off' about them; something cold and distant and fake. And they won't even care. This type can make a terrifying Knight Templar, liable to belive that Utopia Justifies the Means- some sociopathic serial killers claim they are simply a Necessary Evil removing undesirable elements from society or making a political statement. They may understand intellectually that their actions are undesirable in society at large, but feel that they should be rewarded, not punished, for acting to solve a perceived problem.
The low-functioning version is defined mostly by their impulse control being particularly shoddy, or having a personality type that predisposes them to violent behavior. For them, maintaining the façade of "fitting in" is simply impossible, as their violent outbursts make them highly visible. But even a low-functioning Sociopath can be glib and charming, allowing them to accrue loyal followers who perceive their behavior as revolutionary and secretly having a higher purpose. The sociopath will see these followers as useful pawns at best, however, and will not return any of their loyalty in kind. Though they may pretend to when it suits them.
Or that's my take, anyway. As...calm and cold as one might be, killing is not something regularly functioning people can do without remorse or hesitation. Hardened soldiers, people you would never expect to be vulnerable, suffer from PTSD. The lack of emotions, inability to form relationships, and willingness and readiness to kill, along with a lack of remorse, are all signs of sociopathy.
Rook knows what I'm talking about
just don't ask how
