Types of sociopaths

Sociopathic personality disorder or as it is also known, antisocial personality disorder, is characterised as the inability to care about right or wrong behaviour and how it affects other people. Symptoms may include lying, violence, lack of remorse, agitation and poor work ethic. There are several different types of sociopaths such as the common, alienated, aggressive and dysocial. Find out more about people who have sociopathic personality disorder.

Common sociopaths make up the majority of sociopathic personality disorders. The rarely use their conscious when making decisions that can affect other people. They seem in a constant state of travelling either as a runaway or living in shelters. Many are prideful about their anti-authoritative nature. Generally, these people are satisfied with their lives and shirking any responsibility for their actions.

Alienated sociopaths have problems empathising with other individuals. They are unable to feel emotional intimacy or connections to others in the world. Some causes may be inheritance through genetics or an unloving environment during youth. Many cannot contain violent urges and conduct in criminal behaviour. Numerous individuals show more feelings towards a pet or object than to a human. Common symptoms of this type are manipulation, irresponsibility, refusal to conform to societal norms and exaggerated sexuality. This group is further broken down into Disaffiliated Type, Hostile Type, Disempathetic Type and Cheated Type.

Inability to connect to others affect the person in every aspect of life. All of the relationships in this person's life are wrought with complete lack of intimacy. David Thoreson Lykken, author of "The Antisocial Personality," contends that this type of sociopath lacked nurturing from a caregiver, which contributed to the sociopath's underdevelopment of love and attachment.

The hostile type of sociopath is consistently angry, violent and aggressive. They feel completely rejected by society. These types prevent themselves from feeling sad and depressed by heavily relying on their anger as a sort of survival mechanism.

The disempathetic type is able to feel an emotional connection to a restricted group of people. This group may include friends, pets or family members. The sociopath regards people outside of the group as objects. Typically, people have a wide circle of empathy for others; however, many people may feel no compassion for certain people like murderers or criminals. The sociopath differs from normal people by have a tiny group of people whom they seemingly care about.

The cheated sociopath feels disadvantaged by an uncontrollable circumstance in life. They may feel cheated by a physical disability or what they consider an unattractive physical appearance. These types refuse to follow rules set by society because they feel like they have been cheated out of having a good life.

Aggressive sociopaths use violence, intimidation and dominating behaviour to get their way. Having control over their victims and experiencing the rush of power through their violence seems to be the only gratification that they get from life.

The dysocial sociopath is psychologically normal, yet aligns himself with a group that regularly breaks social norms and is violent. Militia groups, organised crime and guerrilla solders are parts of this group. These people have a circle of friends or co-conspirators for whom they feel genuine affection; however, they disregard the feelings of people outside this group.