The Sociopath Next Door: A psychologist's thoughts on the nature of evil

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I don't remember if I ever mentioned it, but I have a psychology baccalaureate. At the time I chose my major, I thought it would be useful for a doctor to know as much as possible. And I also found the subject inherently interesting, though even back in the dark ages of 2007, people were warning my that a psychology baccalaureate would only prepare me to work as a cashier at Rite Aid.

I don't much use my psychology degree these days, unless you count the times I tell myself to be patient at work because we're all under a lot of stress. Mostly, I like to tell myself that I use what I learned about psychology in my writing hobby to help me with characterization. It's how I justified buying The Sociopath Next Door instead of putting an extra $12 towards my student loans payment, anyway.

Someday, if I become the next JK Rowling, I will have this book to thank for helping me write the most compelling sociopath imaginable. After all, Dr. Stout herself states that:

Conventional wisdom has it that dangerous people are attractive, and when we are drawn to sociopaths, we tend to prove out this cliché.

That being said, I very much doubt that any realistic fictional sociopath would be all that popular, at least not if they're realistic in the way this book describes. Not just because the chances of me becoming the next JK Rowling are astronomically low, but because Dr. Martha Stout writes about real people with Antisocial Personality Disorder, not the idealized Hannibal Lecters of the fictional world.