How to spot a sociopath

Many of us now routinely go around diagnosing other people, and celebrities, as sociopaths. But is it fair, asks Luke Mintz, as he dispels some myths about sociopaths and tells you how to spot the real psychos

What exactly is a sociopath? And is it fair to label a celebrity as one without really knowing them, or should that particular task be left to a doctor?

These are the questions raised by a controversial new documentary by film-maker Shane Dawson about YouTube star Jake Paul, which asks whether or not the 21-year-old millionaire prankster can be classed as a sociopath.

You may not have heard of Paul — in which case, you might want to keep it that way. Jake Paul and his older brother, Logan, have built a huge online fan base by filming (sometimes dangerous, sometimes morally questionable) ‘prank’ videos.

In August, Logan attracted thousands to the Manchester Arena for a real-life boxing match against William Olatunji (or ‘KSI’), another YouTube star.

With 35.6 million YouTube subscribers between them, and an enormous popularity among teenage girls across the globe, the Paul brothers are with us, whether we like it or not. So, do Paul’s antics render him a sociopath? Is it even OK to ask such a question? And what is a sociopath, anyway?

We’ve all heard of psychopathy, not least because of Jon Ronson’s 2011 bestseller, The Psychopath Test, which asks whether many of our governmental and corporate leaders are, in fact, psychopaths. But sociopathy is less well understood. Some believe that psychopaths are more likely to be violent and criminally dangerous, while sociopaths are better able to blend into society.

Others believe that psychopaths inherit the condition from birth, whereas sociopaths develop the condition from a traumatic childhood. But experts tend to see the two as much the same.

Professor Stephen Scott of King’s College London is one of the UK’s leading experts on the topic. He says that both conditions are forms of anti-social personality disorder, and there is very little difference between the two.

“Some people use the term sociopath to mean people who have a little bit of remaining conscience, [but] it’s the same thing,” he says.

For centuries, we’ve had a strong cultural sense of what a sociopath is: somebody with no conscience, and no moral qualms about causing pain. From Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Moriarty to Emily Bronte’s Heathcliff, right through to JK Rowling’s Lord Voldemort, we’ve long had a clear idea of what a person with no empathy can look like.

But it’s only in the last few decades that science has caught up, says Prof Scott. Brain scans now show that sociopaths have different brain chemistry from the rest of the population.

The parts of the brain responsible for conscience and emotion just “don’t light up as much” in sociopaths, he says. They also struggle to recognise certain facial emotions; they can easily identify happiness and sadness, he says, but find it very difficult to be moved by another person’s fear.

This doesn’t necessarily make sociopaths dangerous people — many have successful lives, largely free from violence. But when combined with other anti-social traits (such as criminality), Scott says that sociopaths can be immensely dangerous.

Professor Scott thinks some of the most prolific criminals in history are almost certainly sociopaths. He also points to high-school shooters, naming Lionel Shriver’s 2003 novel, We Need to Talk

about Kevin, as a chilling account of a mother who gradually realises her son is a violent sociopath.

Prisoners are, perhaps unsurprisingly, more likely to show signs of sociopathy than the average population.

Most sociopaths are not violent school killers, however. In fact, sociopaths are likely to lead more successful lives than average, Scott says, because they’re just so charming.

Despite feeling little empathy, they understand how to manipulate human emotions to get what they want. In stressful situations, studies show, when most people’s heart rate would shoot up, a sociopath’s will generally stay the same, or even go down.

“They are — literally — physiologically cool under pressure,” Scott says. “So there is a biological basis to this, which wasn’t obvious to society in general, or even psychologists, 40 years ago.”

Sociopaths make great fraudsters, he says, and male sociopaths in particular can attract many members of the opposite sex over their lives. He thinks many CEOs and leaders are probably sociopaths: “If you’re going to sack a third of your workforce, it’s not useful to cry about it at night. [They] just get on, be ruthless, and go for the bottom line.”

Indeed, Professor Scott isn’t particularly squeamish about labelling public figures as sociopaths, as some commentators are. This debate has been fuelled by the US presidency of Donald Trump, who some psychologists have diagnosed publicly with narcissistic personality disorder and even sociopathy.

Others argue that it’s not possible to assess a person’s mental state just from watching them on television (or, in the case of Trump, reading his tweets).

Scott counters that if you know enough about their behaviour, it’s perfectly possible to tell whether somebody is a sociopath. In other words, we don’t need a doctor to tell us whether or not Jake Paul belongs in the group — anybody who watches the documentary may be able to work it out.

Some individuals may be ruthless at work, but go home and shower their families with love. Others might find themselves struggling to empathise with certain groups, but caring for others. These people are