People ask, "What could possibly cause a normal person to torture her own child?" Well, the answer is: Nothing could cause a normal person to torture their own child. The reason that we see that happening is that there are people who don't care, who don't love - even their own children.

In Western culture, particularly North America, a lot of rules are descriptors for sociopathy: a general acceptance of lying as long as you win, an attitude of "me first," an attitude that what it looks like is more important than what it is. This makes it much easier for a sociopath to be camouflaged in our culture.

The central trait of sociopathy is a complete lack of conscience, which is very difficult for most people to get their heads around, because those of us who do have a conscience can't really imagine what it would be like if we didn't. Most people think that deep down everybody has a conscience, and it turns out that's just not true.

Sociopaths are just like everybody else in that some of them are really brilliant, some of them are really stupid, and most of them are somewhere in between.

Sociopaths are not afraid of very much, except for physical harm and dying - really primitive, basic kinds of fears. The problem with being alone for a sociopath is boredom.

Sociopaths are not inhibited by the notion that it's wrong to be addicted, or wrong to buy illegal drugs. Also, drinking or taking drugs can be a lot of fun, and even if it's not, it can dull that painful boredom for a while. So can certain other things, like taking risks, and particularly if you take a risk-averse person and you can manipulate him or her into taking risks, that's really fun.

I would hesitate to tell people to stop being kind or sympathetic to sociopath. But just like loyalty, some things that can be taken advantage of are empathy, sympathy, and our tendency to pity somebody when something has gone wrong in their life.