Psychopathy vs. Antisocial Personality Disorder (sociopath, sociopathic traits, & sociopathy)

This video answers the question: What's the difference between psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder (sometimes referred to as sociopathy)? There is a lot of confusion and a number of different terms used around this topic, for example: psychopath, sociopath, psychopathic traits, sociopathic traits, antisocial traits). First, let's take a look at antisocial personality disorder. This is a disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). It's a Cluster B personality disorder, so it's in the same cluster as narcissistic, borderline, and histrionic personality disorders. Antisocial personality disorder affects about 3% of the population, but depending on what literature you look at, it may affect up to 80% of the population in correctional settings. We see the definition of antisocial personality is broken to a few different criteria: a tendency to violate social norms (committing actions that could be grounds for arrest), deceitfulness, impulsivity, irritability or aggression, a disregard for the safety of others, irresponsibility, and a lack of remorse. In order for somebody diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder they must be at least 18 years of age. Conduct disorder symptoms must have been present before the age of 15, so just as is the case with all personality disorders, there is no such thing as late onset antisocial personality disorder. The antisocial behavior cannot occur exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Moving on to the construct of psychopathy, we see here that psychopathy is an area that's studied, it's not a mental disorder. Someone can't really be diagnosed as having psychopathy or not, in a technical sense. Psychopathy affects about 1% of the population. In forensic settings about 16 percent of males are affected and about 7 percent of females are affected. Psychopathy can be divided into two factors and each of those factors can be divided into two facets. Factor one alone is sometimes referred to as psychopathy. Factor 2 is sometimes referred to as sociopathy. With psychopathy we have two factors and a total of four facets. Factor one is interpersonal/affective and factor two is referred to as social deviance. With the interpersonal facet we see certain characteristics like superficial charm, grandiosity, pathological lying, and a tendency to be manipulative. With the affective facet, we see a lack of remorse and shallow effect, callousness, lack of empathy. and a failure to accept responsibility. Moving to factor two (sociopathy) we see need for stimulation, parasitic lifestyle, lack of realistic long-term goals, impulsivity, irresponsibility, poor behavioral controls, early behavioral problems, juvenile delinquency, a revocation of conditional release, and criminal versatility.

Ogloff, J. R. P., Campbell, R. E., & Shepherd, S. M. (2016). Disentangling Psychopathy from Antisocial Personality Disorder: An Australian Analysis. Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice, 16(3), 198–215. https://doi-org.mylibrary.wilmu.edu/1...