The Sociopath Next Door
by Martha Stout
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Book Reviews of The Sociopath Next Door
Book Review: A must read for life skills
Summary: 5 Stars
The Sociopath Next Door
After reading this book, I felt that a book on this topic is a must read for all humans. I saw how one could save oneself a lot of misery in life just by being able to recognize sociopaths quickly and removing them from your life before you become entangled with them. I bought it because I found certain people in my life had "weird" morals and they would do things or make decisions which I thought were very odd. I have since removed these people from my life, I didn't tell them why, I just started being too busy to get together and not returning calls and I find my life is a lot less hectic. I removed them before reading this book, and I bought this book to just check whether I had been wrong and unfair to these people. After reading this book I'm still not completely sure whether I was right or wrong, but I have this strong feeling - almost like the adrenaline rush you get when you barely escape a dangerous situation. I actually miss one of these people - yes, they can be charming, but the sense of the danger and my mind telling me "Oh no, you don't want that" is mitigating it a little.
Outside of that specific situation, some of the things that I learned from this book and which were new to me, which I will apply when I suspect a sociopath are
- do not join the sociopath's game - don't compete with them try to outsmart them or psychoanalyze them
- do not pity them or feel sorry for them.
- avoid them completely, do not communicate with them
One questionable outcome is that this book has reinforced my previously mild distrust of all people and things and I know I will never think or say "Oh no, he/she couldn't do that" I'll just ask for evidence for and against the claim. However, I don't feel bad about losing whatever minuscule innocence I had before reading this book, the way I think of it is that suspicion often prevents bad things from proliferating, it helps catch the bad guys. It works both ways though, for example just because a relationship or a marriage didn't work out or someone is in a child custody fight with you doesn't mean that that person is a sociopath.
Book Review: Engrossing but Flawed
Summary: 4 Stars
I read this book for research, as I wanted to explore the characteristics of sociopaths for writing. (You never know when you'll need an evil genius in fiction, you understand. : ) ) The book is highly readable and fascinating when it sticks to character studies of sociopathic individuals. Unfortunately however, the author, like many who ascribe to evolutionary theory, felt compelled to try and explain how humankind developed "conscience" in the first place. It gets rather humorous and almost pathetic as she turns in desperation to the likes of Richard Dawkins (who believes that the very first seed of life was probably planted on Earth by an alien race who were already further enough evolved to come and plant it and then conveniently disappear. To see Hawkins explain this with his own mouth watch Ben Stein's DVD, EXPELLED: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED.) The hurdles that people will climb, jump through, put on blinders to avoid, and most anything else, all to sidestep the obvious, is pitiable. And what is the obvious? That we have a God-given conscience! (Most of us, that is. Sociopaths, apparently, do not.) Is it really so unmentionable? Unthinkable? The author apparently thinks so.
In any case, aside from the mumbo-jumbo attempts to rationalize conscience, the book is useful for what it provides based on the author's life-experience and scientific studies. When she sticks to what she knows, rather than wishes to believe, the results are fascinating. Unfortunately, we only get in-depth glimpses into four composites of sociopathic individuals (fictionalized for the sake of anonymity) but these case-studies are where the value of the book lies.
I hope there will be another book with more case studies, and less theorizing. Having said that, I nevertheless recommend this for the curious or the injured, or those wishing to avoid future entanglements with sociopathic individuals. Reading this book is not an insurance policy, but can help. Sociopaths, we learn, are usually quite charming and attractive on the outside, and therefore hard to recognize for what they truly are. Perhaps this book will help us learn to spot them, and is worth reading on that basis alone.
Book Review: The evil among us and within us
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Sociopath Next Door" has stays with my in the months since I read it. Author Martha Stout, a psychiatrist in the Boston area, provides stories about the purported 4% of human beings who are without conscience. That's one in 25 people -- let's say 4-5 in the average sized wedding celebration, who live a life of remorseless calculation and intrigue. Most frighteningly, they have learned to fool the rest of us, mimicking the emotional responses that are natural to most people. They can cry on cue, loudly proclaim their innocence and turn on the self-pity. The sociopaths Stout profiles include a man who breaks into post offices for the sheer thrill of it, enjoying the neighborhood commotion he stirs, as well as the school principal running a drug business out of his family home.
Stout tackles the role of conscience in the human psyche and tried to provide a picture of what it might be like to live without its behavior-braking mechanisms. Weird to me was the idea that sociopaths might serve a useful purpose in human society. Imagine a nation under attack that was squeamish about inflicting pain on attackers. Nations at war need their sociopaths, nattily tamed into military roles, to repel sociopaths from other nations. This was bad enough. But most bothersome to me was the idea that there might be a little sociopath in all of us. Stanley Milgram's famous experiment with electric shocks showed that most people are capable of ignoring another person's cries of agony under the right circumstances, continuing to deliver lethal doses. I personally found this aspect of the book most troublesome personally. Could I be a sociopath? Are all my actions, at some level, purely selfish? Could even devoutly religious people selfishly do extraordinary acts of charity only for the selfish rationale of gaining favor with a deity and ensuring eternal life in another world? How different are the truly "evil" from the rest of us?
"The Sociopath Next Door" raises fascinating questions about human behavior -- generated from our minds and those of our neighbors -- that are unsettling and frightening. An early Halloween look into the darkness that dwells in all our hearts.
Book Review: interesting but I have some questions
Summary: 3 Stars
I found the book quite good. The author, I don't know how qualified she is despite her education, makes some very interesting points. I recognized people I know. Her advice on how to handle one of these types of people is to stay away from them. Not all that useful. I mean, duh. What if you CAN'T avoid these people? There ARE situations where that happens. Sure, you can leave a friend, you can quit a job, but there are bound to be situations where you are limited in your ability to distance yourself. However, distance yourself you must as much as you can. But then, my mother told me that when I was a kid.
Dr. Stout takes a scientific view and concludes that the human race has evolved to where we need a certain amount (the 4% in the western world, she says there are many less sociopaths in the Asian world and I have my doubts, they may not be as obvious), but that we need (needed according to her) as warriors to protect the tribes.
I believe there is a spark of divinity in everything, just sometimes so buried under hatred. That doesn't mean you don't jail law breakers or execute those who commit heinous crimes.
Her political views are obvious. One one hand she demands that the school bus bully be taken care of directly and forcefully yet later in the book derides "warmongering," applying it to defense actions on a worldwide scale. The child on the bus may be scarred by the bully but worse horrors have been committed upon innocent people and if negotiation doesn't stop the school bus bully, how will it stop a Hitler? Please, give me a break.
There is morality in defending the innocent, and not just on the schoolbus. Her admiration for eastern philosophy as superior to western philosophy is apparent but I think there are Asian countries that have proved every bit as brutal as anywhere else in the world. People are people.
It is a good book, a quick read, I found myself not as enthuastic about it as I finished the book. There is a little too much political agenda showing and a lot of science that I wonder is truly scientific.
Book Review: Nice General Introduction In Highly Readable Pop Psychology Style
Summary: 4 Stars
Critics have tended to slam THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR on several points, most particularly claiming that Stout states that prescription medicine companies are evil; that the military contains a high number of sociopaths; that eastern cultures produce fewer sociopaths than western cultures do; that sociopaths should be exterminated; and so on. The trouble with these accusations is that they aren't really true--they are twisted out of truly passing and in some instances purely rhetorical remarks that occur in isolated paragraphs. While THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR can be criticized on several points, these aren't really among them.
The bad news about the book is that it is in many ways superficial and that it offers considerably less than any number of tomes on the subject. Stout spends a great of her book defining the very conscience that sociopaths lack, and while this a worthy subject in and of itself it seems to me that she overworks it. Her portraits of sociopaths are also highly general and to some extent very "tabloid," and as such are of limited use. She also has a tendency to drift off subject, particularly toward the end of the book.
The good news is that even so, THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR isn't a bad introduction for those who have zero background in the subject and who are unlikely to read more detailed examinations of the phenomena. Stout is careful to point out that the vast majority of sociopaths are not serial killers but are perhaps better described as "drainers" and that they are often extremely sympathetic, likeable, charming, charismatic. Although her portraits are, as previously noted, extremely general and unsubtle, she presents four and thereby indicates the variability of the personality types. While nothing can really deflect a true predator, Stout also offers a valuable thirteen-point guide to identifying, dealing with, and avoiding the more common and garden-variety sociopaths you may encounter in the work place, the grocery store, or yes, even next door. Recommended as an introduction to the subject.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer