How do sociopaths become the way they are?

Question

and what is the reason that they are numb to feeling anything?

Answer 1

First, let's establish that sociopaths are people with antisocial personality disorder.

Second:
A)Genetic factors and child abuse are believed to contribute to the development of this condition.

Factors like a predisposition to depression or a brain that has a relatively less efficient frontal lobe (responsible for self control).

Then with the abuse, a child's relationship with its parents serves as the child's guide to relationships with other people. With ASPD, the attachment problem (bad relationship) is usually with the father. When a parent claims to love the child but then scares, punishes and hurts the child, it grows up feeling used or manipulated by the parent so it distrusts other people, and because the child gets abused for reasons outside the child's control, the child grows up thinking it does not matter what they do, thus setting the scene for lack of self control issues later on in life. The person eventually abuses other people/does what he pleases with no regard for norms or mores, as his parent did to him, feeding the budding sociopath's sense that he has the power now.

B)People with an antisocial or alcoholic parent are at increased risk.
This is because antisocial parents model ASPD behavior, and alcoholic parents have lowered inhibitions to norm breaking and they model less adaptive coping mechanisms.

Symptoms peak during late teens to early twenties as the boy asserts his identity: Strong, powerful, above the rules, not to be messed with, a man that no one can stop. As the man matures and physically distances himself from the abuser, the utility of the ASPD style decreases.


As to why they are numb:
1. The parent abuses the kid, telling the kid how the kid fails to measure up/ is bad. Parent provides no direction other than unhelpful statements like "And you Better Straighten out!!!" with no advice as to how to achieve this.
2. This happens again and again for years and years. As the kid grows, he wishes he could fight back, and thinks it is unfair of the much larger abuser/resource provider to hit him, because he is not really allowed to fight back. The net result is that the boy is then participating or assisting or enabling his abuse by submitting to it. This is extremely unfair and unjust - the child starts to let go of the idea that they deserve it, and starts to hate the abusing parent.
3. The child spends significant mental energy on the injustice of having to partake in their beatings, in order to continue to live with the rest of the family, and play sports and eat three meals a day... This is a time of life with social rewards for toughness, and no boy would let another beat them up or humiliate them, at least not without a fight to the death effort...and now here they are helping their mother or father to trample on their self esteem, with zero fighting back, when they could beat or at least hurt their abuser.

As the child's anger foments, it tries to think of ways to end the violence.
Eventually it realizes: when the abuser hits them, and tells them it is because they messed up in some way, the abuser wants the kid to not do that again...but then if the kid, having been beat, makes sure not to do it again - then the kid is rewarding the abuser for abusing the kid. So, by rewarding abuse with behavior change, the kid is encouraging more abuse.
The kid then decides to never reward punishment. If it was trying to get better at something, but then the parent beat the kid and told it to get better, the kid would stop trying to get better at it. Children realize this could be bad for them, but they decide it is up to the parent - if the parent beats them, they are not getting better at whatever the problem was, no matter what. This leads to some self defeating fatalism.

The next step is to stop rewarding abuse with fear or tears or expressions of pain as the abuse is happening. This is to make sure the abuser does not get *any* satisfaction from the abuse. The abuser abuses, the kid stands there, stone faced, silent, giving the 'I will get you one day' stare. Unfortunately, this is the beginning of the numbing. The kid has begun to deny his feelings. In some ways, feelings are like inputs, which the brain digests and outputs as movements and speech. When the brain controls the inputs or ignores the inputs it does not like, it eventually gets to a point where all of the unpredictability of real feelings is traded for the security of numbness...but because they are not connected to anyone, don't trust anybody, and think everyone is trying to take advantage of them, this lack of feeling is dangerously empowering for them; it enables them to treat people like objects instead of living feeling beings worthy of care.

Answer 2

The definition of "sociopath" doesn't seem to fit your question. If someone becomes a CEO, it's usually because they aren't impulsive, but rather make very deliberate decisions. Someone needs to run those large corporations that employ vast numbers of people around the world. The majority of them don't end up like Enron. Following is Wikpedia's definition of sociopath. Antisocial personality disorder (APD or ASPD) is a psychiatric diagnosis that interprets antisocial and impulsive behaviors as symptoms of a personality disorder. Psychiatry defines only pathological antisocial behavior; it does not address potential benefits of positive antisocial behavior or define the meaning of 'social' in contrast to 'antisocial'. Professional psychiatry generally compares APD to sociopathy and psychopathic disorders (not to be confused with psychosis). Approximately 3% of men and 1% of women are thought to have some form of antisocial personality disorder according to DSM-IV

Answer 3

The number of reasons, paths, and events that can propell an individual into a sociopathic nature are far to vast to be contained in one simple answer. Usually those reasons or events have to do with a large traumatic event in the individuals life that causes imense amounts of pain (death of a someone close?). or a long series of events (method of raising as a child?) both of which can lead to the build up of emotional barriers that cause the person to no longer allow emotions to register in the brain as a subconcious. defense mechanism against the pain for fear that any type of emotion may lead to it.

Answer 4

I'd say it's a combination of genetics and environmental triggers that lead a person to "becoming" a sociopath (I say that because if it is genetic, they'd already have been a "closet" sociopath).

Answer 5

I think it's a brain disorder. Something wrong in the wiring... most show signs from a very, very young age.

Answer 6

unresolved childhold most often.