For those who enjoy learning and would like to know, here's a link and an excerpt from an interesting article, that might be helpful on identifying someone unsavory. Never hurts to know a bit than we already know.
How to Spot a Sociopath:
Researchers sometimes make a distinction between primary psychopaths—confirmed, bona fide psychopaths—and secondary psychopaths, also called sociopaths.
Sociopaths are cut from the same cloth as psychopaths, with 3 key differences:
First, while true psychopaths are confident, social, and dominant, sociopaths are reserved and inhibited, sometimes loners. And while psychopaths are exempt from negative emotion, sociopaths are often hostile and do experience anxiety and rejection.
Second, while psychopaths truly have no morals, sociopaths do have a sense of morality and a conscience, but their sense of right and wrong is skewed and doesn’t match society at large. Sociopaths are often crusaders or martyrs for a perceived cause; they see their depraved acts as necessary. So antagonistic, withdrawn Timothy McVeigh is a good example.
The third, oversimplified, difference is that psychopaths are born, while sociopaths are made, often through extreme childhood adversity and exposure to violence. But it’s not as simple as just nature or nurture—the truth lies somewhere in a scramble of genetics, neurology, and environment.
Unlike psychopathy, sociopathy can even be acquired: dementia or a head injury can do the trick. For example, think of Phineas Gage from your Psych 101 class. He was an easygoing construction foreman with lots of friends until, in 1848, a railroad explosion sent a 13-pound tamping rod into Gage’s eye and out the top of his head. Miraculously, he survived, but even as he physically healed, he became "fitful, irreverent, and grossly profane, showing little deference for his fellows." He was also "impatient and obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, unable to settle on any of the plans he devised for future action." Basically, this was the 1840s version of calling him a stubborn, foulmouthed, flaky a--hole with mood swings—if not true acquired sociopathy, at least a close cousin.
To wrap up, I’ll leave you with the best example of psychopathy I’ve ever seen. He’s not a serial killer, evil CEO, or maniacal despot—he’s Eric Cartman from South Park. Cartman is a genuine psychopath. Indeed, making chili out of Scott Tenorman’s parents is the tip of his horrific iceberg.
