Sociopathy

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Sociopathy (made-up word from the Latin socius “companion, comrade” and ancient Greek páthos ( πάθος ) “suffering”) is a term used in psychiatry for a mental disorder, especially of the person's social behavior .

The term was coined in 1909 by Karl Birnbaum ; However, it only became popular after 1930 through George Partridge . The current meaning of the term sociopath refers either to psychopathic persons who are unable or only partially able to feel compassion , who can only put themselves in other people's shoes with difficulty and cannot weigh the consequences of their actions, or - according to other definitions - sociopaths differ of psychopaths etc. a. in that they are basically capable of (functional) empathy , but still behave in an antisocial manner.

Classification

Definitions and diagnostic criteria vary widely between schools of psychiatry, and not all of them use the term at all. Sociopathy is most likely to be equated with the modern term antisocial personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder (sometimes also referred to as amoral , antisocial , psychopathic personality disorder with the outdated terms ).

Dissocial Personality Disorder

The antisocial personality disorder is characterized by pronounced discrepancy in between behavior and prevailing social norms. Typical features are:

  • Lack of ability and willingness to empathize with others and to feel empathy ( authentic empathy ),
  • Inability to take on responsibility, at the same time a clear rejection and disregard of all social norms, rules and obligations,
  • Inability to maintain long-term relationships but no problems establishing new relationships,
  • low tolerance for frustration, tendency to aggressive and violent behavior,
  • lack of guilt,
  • Inability to learn from social experiences.

Another characteristic can be persistent irritability or impulsiveness , which can develop in or after childhood.

New meaning

The term sociopath or sociopathy gained more meaning and attention in 1848 through a medical observation of a related phenomenon. At that time, the scientific community became aware of a phenomenon that promised to provide a new explanatory model for a personality and behavioral disorder (see below). Later, the observations and explanations were almost forgotten for a long time. With today's imaging techniques and recent findings in the field of neurology , the term sociopathy is now being reused. Since then, the term has been used for the neuropathological inability to develop social skills such as compassion , empathy and awareness of wrongdoing .

Historical development

In 1848 an event took place that shed light on the cause of the phenomenon of sociopathy in the modern sense of the word:

In an explosion, 25-year-old Phineas Gage sustained a serious head injury from a metal bar. He was a foreman of a railway company and was considered very reliable. After he recovered, he was a different person. He became unreliable, aggressive, devoid of compassion, and sought arguments at every opportunity.

The likely reason for this change in behavior was damage to the forebrain , which is responsible for psychological functions such as empathy and psychological impulses . According to the explanatory model, this is severely impaired by the injury. Children born with a dysfunctional forebrain are largely unable to learn the simplest rules of argument.

Investigations using magnetic resonance imaging have shown that the forebrain in people with dissocial personality disorder is less active than in mentally healthy control persons. Moreover, the so-called amygdala (amygdala) no activity.

It is believed that the way their brains work makes sociopaths unable to weigh the consequences of their actions.

In more recent studies, the responsible brain region could be localized even more precisely. It is the frontal lobe , more precisely the ventromedial prefrontal region of the cerebral cortex .

See also

literature

  • Martha Stout: The sociopath next door. The unscrupulous: their lies, tactics and tricks (original title: The Sociopath Next Door , translated by Karsten Petersen). Springer, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-211-29707-3 .
  • Robert D. Hare: Unscrupulous. The psychopaths among us (original title: Without Conscience , translated by Karsten Petersen). Springer, Vienna 2005, ISBN 978-3-211-25287-1 .
  • Robert D. Hare, Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us. B&T 1999, ISBN 978-1-57230-451-2 ( English ).
  • Henning Saß: Psychopathy - Sociopathy - Dissociality: On the differential typology of personality disorders (monographs from the entire field of psychiatry). Springer Verlag, Heidelberg 1986, ISBN 978-3-642-52270-3 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Sociopathy  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Henning Saß: Psychopathy - Sociopathy - Dissociality: On the differential typology of personality disorders (monographs from the entire field of psychiatry). Springer Verlag, Heidelberg 1986, ISBN 978-3-642-52270-3 .
  2. ↑ a b Martha Stout: The sociopath from next door. The unscrupulous: their lies, tactics and tricks (original title: The Sociopath Next Door translated by Karsten Petersen). Springer, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-211-29707-3 .
  3. ↑ a b Birger Dulz, Peer Briken, Otto F. Kernberg, Udo Rauchfleisch: Handbook of Antisocial Personality Disorder. Schattauer Verlag, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 3-7945-3063-2 . ( Excerpt as a reading sample , 72 pages, PDF 1.3 MB, archived ).
  4. ↑ a b Hare and Neumann. Psychopathy as a clinical and empirical construct. Annual review of clinical psychology (2008) 4 pp. 217-246 doi: 10.1146 / annurev.clinpsy.3.022806.091452
  5. ↑ Volker Faust: The unscrupulous psychopath. PSYCHIATRIE HEUTE, Psychosocial Health Working Group , November 6, 2008 ( archive ).
  6. ↑ Volker Faust: Antisocial personality disorder seen scientifically: Psychological and biological aspects. PSYCHIATRIE HEUTE, Psychosocial Health Working Group , July 8, 2011 ( archive ).
  7. ↑ M. Obschonka, H. Andersson, RK Silbereisen, M. Sverke (2013): Rule-breaking, crime, and entrepreneurship: A replication and extension study with 37-year longitudinal data. Journal of Vocational Behavior. Volume 83, Issue 3, December 2013, Pages 386–396. doi: 10.1016 / j.jvb.2013.06.007.
  8. ^ Robert D. Hare: Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us. B&T 1999, ISBN 978-1-57230-451-2 ( English ).