According to the experts, sociopaths experience "shallow" emotions. This means that virtually all of their emotions are fleeting, if they have them at all. Therefore, they feel a corrupted form of pleasure, and they can find things humorous in a brief, shallow sort of way.
Thomas admits that sociopaths can be dangerous; they're hungry for power, and they don't feel guilt or remorse.
Can a psychopath feel/have pleasure? Yes. Every person has his own version of what he sees as pleasure and psychopaths tend not to deviate from the mainstream thought. Pleasure is attained through various ways and is mostly sought as a way to quell boredom.
People with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) are sometimes called sociopaths. People with the disorder can be fun, charming, and flattering but also cold, reckless, and devoid of empathy.
"Narcissists, psychopaths, and sociopaths do not have a sense of empathy," she told Business Insider. "They do not and will not develop a sense of empathy, so they can never really love anyone." This doesn't change when they have children.
The child of the sociopath must accept that her parents feelings are not like her own. With no capacity to feel true guilt or empathy, even his version of love is atypical. Know that a sociopathic parent cannot be trusted to act in the best interests of his child.
Getting back to your question about inheritance though, right now it looks like about half of someone's risk of becoming a sociopath comes from heritable factors. Some of that risk is linked to the genes we get from our parents.
While sociopath path traits can include persuasiveness or charm, most people with the disorder will struggle with irresponsibility. They're less likely to take advantage of employment opportunities, less likely to pay bills on time, and are at high risk of incarceration due to impulsive behaviors.
Some believe that it is fun to torture others, or that it makes the sociopath in some way "superior." Sociopaths are often highly-functioning people, yet many lie so pathologically that they do not even know when their deception took over.
The empath is usually the first to detect that something is not right and express what s/he senses. As a consequence, the empath is both the sociopath's number one foe and a source of attraction; the empath's responses and actions provide excellent entertainment for sociopaths, who use and abuse people for sport.
Results showed that persons high in psychopathy were more likely to perceive fantasizing about sexual relations with other people and expressing emotions towards a person other than the partner as infidelity. But a different pattern emerged among those high in Machiavellianism.
If a psychopath is married, they are rarely faithful and have many affairs. The sexual encounters lack any emotional intimacy and may be brief and short-lived. They also are likely to coerce others into sexual relations.
Sociopaths are more likely to abuse their partners, spouses, and children. Since they may engage in criminal behavior, they are also more likely to spend time in prison, and their aggressive behavior can put them at risk of harm. They may have other mental health disorders, like depression and anxiety.
Sociopaths do not have feelings or emotions, nor do sociopaths cry genuinely. Sociopaths are capable of intense anger, frustration, and rage. They elicit those emotions in others which they cannot feel themselves.
They have low self-esteem
This is one of the sociopath's weakness. This is often masked with a high sense of self-importance but it can be used against them. If you can make them feel insecure or inferior, they will likely back down.
The disorder is characterized by a history of conduct problems as a child, a lack of moral or ethical development, an inability to follow approved models of behavior, deceitfulness, and the shameless manipulation of others.
Most people mellow out with age, but in the case of psychopaths and those suffering from similar antisocial personality disorders such as sociopaths, bad behavior tends to get worse, according to new research from New Zealand's University of Otago.
No remorse or guilt. Little emotional reaction. Cruelty without feeling bad about it. Taking advantage of others.
When dealing with people, Parisi says sociopaths tend to use others for their own personal gain. They don't feel like rules or even laws apply to them, and they often put themselves first and may not feel genuine empathy. Once they've received whatever it is they need or want from a person, they move on.
In four thoroughly matched cases, they found that acquired sociopathy in one man resulted from damage to the right vmPFC, while in one woman it was caused by damage to the left vmPFC; the reverse match was not attended by changes in personality (Tranel et al., 2005).
High-functioning sociopath traits include: Superior intelligence – high-functioning sociopaths are often very smart and have very high IQs. Impeccable social skills – they are charming, and although they don't enjoy being around people, they may come across as friendly and outgoing.
These deficits are likely to be related to dysfunctions in a wide brain network involved in empathy, including the vmPFC/OFC and amygdala. And because a lack of sharing of vicarious negative arousal in these individuals, this may result in not showing empathic concern for others.
Sociopathy can be both a learned condition and one you're born with, says Dr. Coulter. “These behaviors aren't episodic in nature. They're a chronic condition, part of a chronic way in which a person interacts with the world,” he says.
There is no cure for antisocial personality disorder. People generally manage the condition throughout their lives. But medication and therapy can help you cope with certain aspects of the disorder. The right treatment may help you adjust your behavior and reduce harm to those around you.
But in fact, this construct of sociopathy is a spectrum, and there are many high functioning individuals, often men, but not always, who are sociopaths.