The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus The Rest Of Us

Stout explores the largely unknown origins of ASPD, providing insight into the complex causes of this personality disorder. She cites twin studies that use the “Psychopathic Deviate” personality scale to assess a person’s likelihood of having ASPD, as well as a similar study done on twin men who served in the Vietnam War. These studies seemed to determine that ASPD is about 50% heritable, while the other 50% is environmental. Neuroscientific studies have found that people with ASPD demonstrate no more reaction to emotional words than to neutral words, and their cerebral cortex seems to process emotion-oriented tasks from a more mathematical perspective.

From the environmental side, typical theories surrounding psychological disorders always point toward childhood abuse and trauma, but people with ASPD do not consistently have these experiences. Other theories point to issues of attachment in early life as the cause, but children with attachment disorders do not share the same charisma or desire to manipulate that children with ASPD have. Stout also explores the issue of Romanian children who were adopted in the West in the 1990s. These children grew up in orphanages, without much emotional or psychological support. While these children did have attachment problems, they did not have typical ASPD traits.