Sociopaths are also referred to as psychopaths, or those with anti-social personalities. A sociopath is a mentally ill person who lacks the ability to form an emotional bond with others, and behavior is also very reckless. Sociopaths are often criminals, and abusive, especially to animals and children because they are defenseless, and children often don’t tell. Though they commit crimes, few sociopaths will go to jail. They live their lives “normally” immersed in society and are often undetected. Though sociopaths don’t connect emotionally they do, do well at pretending and are very manipulative, hence why they seem to be normal. All sociopaths aren’t violent criminals, some seek power and control. Many times we hear about the church deacon,…show more content… It provided not insight into the mind of a sociopath, and people who lack any sort of conscience. The author not only gave information of how sociopaths function, but also how we can deal with them if we have them in our own lives. It’s almost as a survival guide of sorts. In the book it mentioned that there’s a good chance of encountering a sociopath in your lifetime, I’d even say more than one if you live long enough. According to Stout, 1 in 25 ordinary Americans secretly has no conscience. That is 4% of the population. These are people that seem to be ordinary, but are very capable of unimaginable things (to normal people), and they do so without any…show more content… Stout includes a clinical diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, what many mental health professionals refer to as the condition of having no conscience, through what she states to be the current bible of psychiatric labels, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV of the American Psychiatric Association. It informs the reader that three of the seven characteristics it lists that an individual possesses should be a consideration of having little or no conscience. Some of these characteristics include failure to conform to social norms, deceitfulness, and impulsivity. This hints towards the sociopaths’ possible destructive impact that can affect one’s life. About how there are more of these anti-socials than we perceive there to be, Stouts statistics are chilling. Is 4% really an impact on society? The answer is yes. As points of reference to problems we hear about more often than sociopathy, the prevalence rate for anorexic eating disorders is estimated at 3.43%, deemed to be nearly epidemic, and yet this figure is a fraction lower than the rate for antisocial personality, states Stout. ¦schizophrenia occur[s] in only about 1% of us [a quarter of the percentage of antisocial personality] ¦and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention says the rate of colon cancer in the United States [which