duplication?: The Sociopath

Also, there are sociopaths that AREN'T Complete Monsters. Like the Ice King from Adventure Time, who is defined as a sociopath inuniverse and fits the character type, but he's actually portrayed sympathetically because his Lack of Empathy and inability to connect to others causes him causes him a lot of suffering and makes it so he can't really be happy. So it is possible for The Sociopath to not be a Complete Monster and to even be sympethic.

@ 25: there are no rule limits to page length, but we there is a software limit. Going above a specific character count in folders breaks them. Going above a specific character count on the page (several hundred thousand IIRC) prevents the page from saving.

If you're talking about description length, we have a preference for brevity, but not so much that it looks like a stub. I, personally, find one page length to be just right.

edited 7th Aug '11 10:16:09 AM by Deboss

Someone noted before that it takes more than just a Lack of Empathy to be a sociopath. Therefore one could very easily have a Complete Monster who has no empathy for anybody, but lacks the explosive temper, self-destructive behaviour requisite to count as a sociopath/psychopath.

Don't start burying the article in a bunch of stuff out of the DSM, or out of that kind of discourse. This is not an encyclopedia. The trope is described well enough as is.

Thanks for the clarification.

I will admit to being somewhat curious about how fictional characters fit into the classification systems used in psychiatry/psychology.

That's really a topic for the analysis page. I think a comparison of real life sociopaths to media ones would be an interesting read.

Yes, it would be an interesting piece, and the Analysis page would be a good place.

The DSM doesn't list the words psychopath or sociopath anywhere. While there are people who would like to bring these terms back into professional usage noone can decide on a definition. Some people say they're synonomous with antisocial personality disorder, some people say they're subtypes of antisocial personality disorder, some people say they're a combination of antisocial and narcissistic personality disorder, some people say they stand on their own as distinct disorders from anything in the DSM, and there are probably other definitions out there too.

Antisocial Personality Disorder isn't something you either have or you don't. Some people have a more severe case of it than others. The less severe the case the more likely they'll be able to empathize with other people. Do sociopathy and psychopathy operate the same way?

edited 22nd Aug '11 5:22:12 PM by jate88

Really? Huh. That's an interesting datum, right there.

Well to some extent a lack of empathy could be considered an adaptive trait. Feeling the emotions of every single person would bog you down pretty fast. Imagine if after you got a job you felt so bad about all the others who applied? Also, most of us have lied or stolen at some point. So yes, it is a dimensional trait. Of the big five, it is probably most highly correlated with agreeableness. And there is no clear-cut point that divides good functioning from personality disordered.

As for psychopathy, a commonly used set of criteria is the hare psychopathy checklist. The criteria are stricter than ASPD, and have some overlap with NPD and HPD.

edited 23rd Aug '11 12:10:03 AM by reub2000

So is this trope going to be based off the public understanding of psychopathy with some mentioning of how the concept arose in the first place or will it be based off the Hares Checklist or DSM? Maybe we could have three different types. One for authors who didn't do the research, one for authors who did research but their limitations of not being a psychiatrist shows, and one that is surprisingly close to the actual concept.

edited 23rd Aug '11 4:47:11 PM by jate88

This isn't a trope. It is analysis related to the concept of 'sociopath'. That concept is the trope.

So then what is the trope? Several posters upthread suggested that it be based on a character that experienced an abusive childhood. The page before I even started editing it said that a Freudian Excuse wasn't necessary for the sociopath? The text also bring the DSM criteria for ASPD. Is this a list of characters who meet the criteria for ASPD? Is socipathy that same thing as ASPD and psychopathy? But then such terms are too encyclopedic for tv tropes. So then what is it, a Complete Monster with more backstory and characterization to show that their monstrous acts come from deep rooted personality traits?

Also if we are going to deviate from definitions used in psychiatry, then I think it would be a good idea to rename the page to a term that doesn't have an official meaning in psychiatry.

Doesn't matter how the term is defined in psychology; we're here to document how it's used in media. It's not our fault if media tends to abuse the term. This isn't a medical reference wiki. At most we may have some useful notes to clarify how the media version differs from the real thing. Which is what we're discussing now.

Anyway, someone just claimed that the term is no longer officially accepted. (Perhaps the doctors noticed how the rest of the world has abused the term.)

Don't works written by psychologists like the DSM-IV or Without a Conscience count as media?

Anyways, you said what this isn't. So then what is the trope?

The trope is this character type that shows up in media which is labeled 'sociopath.' It is a set of character behaviors. If the work refers to the character as a sociopath, or it is modeled on other characters so labeled, we can expect certain behaviors. Those behaviors are the trope.

Evidently, 'sociopath' isn't even a medical term any more. It is all 'Hollywood' all the time. How any related medical conditions come about or are named or treated are useful notes or analysis.

edited 24th Aug '11 5:10:14 AM by FastEddie

Regarding DSM-IV and Without a Conscience being works:

The reference book DSM-IV would be interesting to us in terms of how it is organized and used, not for its factual content. Reference books have conventions of organization and illustration that are the tropes they use to tell their story.

Without a Conscience is pop psychology, a work from a genre we could be interested in. A short description of the work accompanied by a list of the storytelling tropes employed would fit in here pretty well.

edited 24th Aug '11 5:08:30 AM by FastEddie

So does someone have to actually be called a sociopath in-story or by Word of God to get a listing on the trope page?

I'd say if it was clearly modeled on the sociopath trope, it would be an example.

>>"Reference books have conventions of organization and illustration that are the tropes they use to tell their story. "

This is true not only from a TV Tropes perspective, but also scientifically. As a side note, I'm really happy that the groups developing DSM V have started to take into consideration what kinds of narratives they are creating. They still have a long way left to go, but at least they are making some steps in the right direction. Not talking about Antisocial Personality Disorer specifically here, just DSM in general.

When DSM V is released, I'll probably start a works page for it if noone beats me to it.

Well real life people with antisocial, borderline, or paranoid personality disorder have a good chance of coming from an abusive home.

If the words are no longer used in medical practice does that mean making a page for hollywood psychopath is out of the question?

This conversation seems dead.