The Sociopath cleanup

Okay that makes more sense now.

What people? As the rampant misuse has demonstrated, the colloquial use of "sociopath" is much looser than our criteria. So what definition are we referencing, if not a (nonexistent) medical one?

Yes, the definition has been watered down a lot. Doesn't mean there's not an actual definition, even if the one that exists hasn't been accepted by science. And it also doesn't mean that there isn't a way media tends to portray sociopaths that we can hone in on.

What are you suggesting as an alternative, man? That we just let the trope stay a mess? Because the only way to clean it is to pin down how it should be used and then fix the description.

Well, why not use Hollywood representation then?

I think we should make the criteria that the character is labeled with the word "sociopath" in-story. If the definition is "watered down", where is the "real" definition coming from? As you said, there's no accepted medical definition, so what are we basing our definition on?

I mean, if we do that, we run into examples where characters who clearly aren't sociopaths being labeled as such. Like, Bart Simpson has been called a sociopath in-universe, but that strikes me as the type of misuse we're trying to stomp out.

Edited by chasemaddigan on Oct 15th 2020 at 12:14:48 PM

That sounds a little too tedious to just rely on what the work says.

But yeah things like obvious misuses of the trope would be stomped out.

Edited by AustinDR on Oct 15th 2020 at 9:16:18 AM

What definition are you referencing when you say they "clearly aren't sociopath's"? Once again there is not an accepted medical definition, so any reference to a character being a "real" sociopath is meaningless.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 15th 2020 at 12:18:01 PM

Like, he's ten. He cares about people. And most of his pranks are the result of him being a rambunctious child who may have ADD? And the fact there was an episode where Bart was misdiagnosed as a sociopath and the show acknowledged this?

Like, I'm getting the feeling this needs to be sent to the TRS now, because we've been talking in circles for the last few pages. Do we use all the symptoms we have listed, only some, scrap them entirely, make it about Hollywood stereotypes, have characters calling other characters sociopaths?

We can't really clean up examples, if we don't know what the trope should be.

Edited by chasemaddigan on Oct 15th 2020 at 12:33:34 PM

Saying Bart isn't a real sociopath implies the existence of "real sociopaths". That's what my question was about. Also, if the diagnosis is false in-story, then why would we list him?

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 15th 2020 at 12:43:59 PM

But Anti-Social Personality Disorder is, and Sociopathy, or what people call Sociopathy, is a form of ASPD. And Bart doesn't have ASPD, therefore, he can't be a Sociopath.

But seriously man. The accepted definition, even if it's not a medical one, revolves around the Checklist. It's not that confusing. The term isn't a medical term accepted by any real doctor, but that doesn't mean there isn't a definition with actual criteria. It just means that the criteria is linked to a concept that isn't accepted by professionals.

As for why people would list Bart, you tell me. We got people who tried to list DW as one before.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 15th 2020 at 12:45:57 PM

Accepted by who? This page has the same problem a Ambiguous Disorder did, because it's used for us to give armchair diagnoses to characters, but with the added problem of diagnosing them with a disorder that isn't even real. Bart and Dw would be excluded under my proposed definition.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 15th 2020 at 1:04:28 PM

Accepted by people who aren't psychologists; people who believe Sociopathy exists.

What's your definition idea?

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 15th 2020 at 1:05:58 PM

113 posts? Wow. I really didn't expect this thread to make it this far. But no to having characters just being described as sociopaths In-Universe. By that logic, Lisa actually is one despite her characterization being way too inconsistent for that, and plus she actually does seem capable of some remorse and has some moral standards. Same for Dexter, who literally calls himself one, but gains plenty redeeming qualities over the seasons.

Edited by Stellarvore on Oct 15th 2020 at 12:12:50 PM

Right agreed with Stellar here.

All I know is, this thing is screaming for a TRS thread.

So this is just for us to armchair diagnose characters, but for a condition that doesn't exist? You agreed that the colloquial use of the word is way broader than this definition, while the medical one is nonexistent. So on what basis is this the real defintion?

I don't know the context for this. When is Lisa called a sociopath in the film? Is it by a doctor? That could be a trope, where works have doctors call people sociopaths even though in real life they wouldn't.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 15th 2020 at 1:36:57 PM

Pretty sure it's Peter, the psychologist friend.

Anyway dude, we're trying to hammer out the definition. Repeatedly asking the same question isn't helping us do that since we keep trying to explain what we're doing but it doesn't seem to stick.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 15th 2020 at 1:39:50 PM

Yeah, I'm not sure what are you trying to propose here. You keep saying that "Sociopath" is not a medically accepted term, so what—are we supposed cut the page wholesale? If not, then we do need to establish some sort of criteria, so that it doesn't get derailed into nonsense where anyone can just list any character they see as "a bad person".

I'm saying it should be based on the character being referred to as a sociopath in-story. This actually makes it 'easier'' to exclude nonsense examples like that. Everyone keeps referring to this reference point of a "real sociopath", so that even characters who are called such in-universe might not "actually" be sociopaths. But that is meaningless because there is no such thing as an actual sociopath.

Even ignoring that, the page is essentially an exercise in armchair psychology, with the same problem as Ambiguous Disorder, because it invites troopers to speculatively label a character as having a certain mental condition, which would be a problem even if the condition were a real one.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 16th 2020 at 4:20:11 AM

Mate.

We all know that "Sociopath" isn't an actually medically accepted term.

But that doesn't mean the concept itself doesn't exist. If people call other people sociopaths and have criteria for what a sociopath is, sociopaths exist by that logic- even if there's no actual science that proves their existence.

Would you argue that our pages on ghosts are inaccurate because there's no accepted evidence that ghosts exist? Probably not, since there's still a definition people use to describe a concept, and that concept is "ghost". It's the exact same here. The definition still exists; the idea exists, even if the thing itself doesn't. And the idea of a sociopath revolves around the sociopath checklist, which is a real thing with objective criteria, and that in turn means it's possible to use the list and determine if people are sociopaths- because all it means is that they fit the criteria for the concept of a sociopath.

And so our definition, currently, seems based around this checklist. Maybe we should focus on media portrayal instead; that's cool too. But claiming there's no definition because science doesn't think it's real is entirely missing the point.

So to answer the question: What's a Sociopath? Someone who fits the generally-accepted criteria for being a Sociopath, which in most cases means they fit the checklist. No, it doesn't matter if psychology disagrees that they exist, because we're defining the concept here. If people think it exists, then the concept exists even if the thing doesn't.

Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 16th 2020 at 4:32:08 AM

We're planning to go to TRS. It's just that this discussion somehow ended up spiraling down a "what's the definition?" rabbit hole, and we're going in circles at this point.

If I were to make a TRS, what should I list the issue as?

Edited by TheMountainKing on Oct 16th 2020 at 11:35:30 AM

Misuse, I think.