Not that they would care… 
No. That’s according to Martha Stout, in her book The Sociopath Next Door.
An excerpt from the book, with a list of other books on the topic: http://www.cix.co.uk/~klockstone/spath.htm
The common wisdom is “no.” But I suspect that a reasonably intelligent sociopath would have to be in serious denial, not to recognize his pathology.
Yes, they talk to people, they read books, they know exactly how they are supposed to feel. They just don’t feel it, and they get a smug satisfaction about being better than those that do.
ETA: Sorry not GQ answer
Previous thread: Do true psychopaths think there is something wrong with themselves?
Here’s an anecdote:
My ex was diagnosed as being a sociopath. Her response (when this was revealed to her) was along the lines of “I haven’t killed anybody,” by which she meant: she couldn’t be a bad person because bad people are murderers and she’s not a murderer.
I would think they would have to know that there’s SOMETHING different between them and the vast majority of humanity, otherwise how do they know that they have to compensate and fake a normal affect?
There’s this weird idea that people with personality disorders can never see themselves as being “wrong” or “different.”
This simply isn’t true.
A sociopath who is educated about such things will recognize themselves immediately in a list of diagnostic criteria. Just like anyone else who has a personality disorder and carries enough insight. A sociopath probably will not feel bad about it, though. In fact, they may like that are pathologically different. “I am a sociopath, so I’m not supposed to feel guilty that I just hurt a person’s feelings. So I will not feel guilty. Nyah nyah nyah.”
If you ever go to a certain message board that caters to people with personality disorders (I will not link to it), you will find certain posters who “play the role” of whatever disorder they have identified with–choosing a devil or something scary as their avatar, having an over-the-top snarky signature, or just trolling wherever, whenever–to a “T”. Or they will often create threads denying that they and others like them are disordered…how they are actually better people and the other people are just losers/suckers. A lot of these people identify as sociopaths. I’m sure most of them are teenage boys who just want to be perceived as evil…since I doubt any have been formally diagnosed. But I’m betting a few really are sociopathic. Not killers. Not necessarily criminals. Just non-empathetic, possessing little conscience, overly entitled, and extremely ego-centric.
Knowing you have a personality disorder doesn’t mean you will stop being yourself. If you are bent a certain way, the knowledge may actually encourage you to be even more deviant IMHO.
Not if they think everybody is faking it.
(At that, I guess they could just flip the percentages? You figure that most folks come by it as naturally as you do, such that only a sociopathic minority is faking it; can we postulate a sociopath who figures that most folks are faking it the way he is, even if he goes on to figure a weird minority is doing it for real?)
I once knew a guy who I’m pretty sure was a sociopath, and he often lamented the burden he had to bear of being surrounded by people lesser than himself. After eating/drinking/smoking/other at their expense.
In all honesty, there are many things about myself that are different than the majority of humans . . . yet after so many years, I’ve pretty much given up compensating and faking . . . or it’s become so routine I no longer notice. But, like SimonMoon5’s ex, I haven’t killed anybody (yet).
Are they capable of insight to their condition (as opposed to people with psychosis, who do not have insight)? My amateur understanding is yes based on documentaries I have seen on sociopaths in prison. They seemed to know they were sociopaths, but that isn’t a clinical thing. And when they did know it seemed to just be something to manipulate rather than something to work on solving.
But the term gets thrown around a lot. Pretty much anyone who is an asshole gets labeled a sociopath. I think a true sociopath doesn’t feel empathy or anxiety or any of the emotions that come out of those two (fear, love, compassion, guilt, remorse, terror, etc). People like to label individuals like Hitler and Saddam Hussein as sociopaths but both had people and animals in their lives that they loved (Hitler loved his mother and his dogs, Saddam loved his daughters, etc) and a true sociopath doesn’t love anyone. Depressed people, in the depth of depression, don’t feel happy, but that doesn’t preclude them from having insight to the fact that they lack emotions like joy, humor or happiness.
I suspect this is what makes them act out in violence, whenever they might.
They already know what’s expected of them in terms of their behavior, and it doesn’t give them any satisfaction, joy or pleasure. If hardwired on a more deviant bent, they don’t really have any incentive from acting on what pleasures them, other than if it’s a criminal act, they know they could be caught and imprisoned.
Despite that, humans are human, and some percentage will act out their hedonism, despite their internal logic of self-preservation.
I’ve been chronically depressed before, and the things that I could rely on to bring me joy, only intensified my depression, because I couldn’t find joy in it anymore. I just wanted to withdraw, close the curtains and sleep. If this is the opposite for sociopaths, perhaps knowing the things that bring them joy/pleasure are criminal/taboo, is what enforces them to finally act out their deviant, cruel fantasies?
I have no doubt that “sociopath” is overused, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that there are whole lot of “pure” types floating around and that one must be “pure” to really be a sociopath. Most people with personality disorders do not fit completely into the diagnostic box–meeting all the criteria to a “T”. Just like many depressives do not meet all the criteria and can still meet enough of them to be diagnosed as clinical depressed.
The thing is, part of being a sociopath is a lack of understanding of other people. Unless you have stumbled on diagnostic information, you probably don’t know what’s going on. You might recognize that you are different from everyone else. Or you may just assume everyone is faking it, just like you. Either way, you probably won’t know you are a sociopath.
But even if you do know, it doesn’t mean you will want to change. You don’t necessarily see anything wrong with it. That’s the real problem. Narcissism has the same problem.
Also, sociopaths do not necessarily not feel anxiety. In fact, anxiety disorders are often a comorbidity. The fearless risk taker is only one subtype of anti-social personality disorder, and is usually referred to as a psychopath. What makes sociopaths so insidious is how well they integrate with the rest of society. And fear is often the only reason they do so.
Think about it: without fear of punishment, empathy, or a sense of morality, what would keep you from doing rather heinous things?
Emotionality is probably on a bell curve. A small number have none, and a small number are hyper-emotional. Both groups are liable to end up in jail, I’d imagine.
Most assholes probably fall towards the edges of the bell curve, just not far enough. There is no clean delineation. You aren’t sociopathic or not. You’re just too sociopathic or not enough.
Assholes are not necessarily sociopaths. I have known many an Asshole.
Anyway, what brings me here is the answer to my own question. I am almost surely a sociopath and I know it. At the very least, I am very suspect.
But I am a very intelligent person. As was previously mentioned, I have not murdered anyone. I don’t even steal but I have to ask myself what holds me back. And most of the time, it is the fact that I might get caught. I have too much to lose so I don’t do things I shouldn’t.
I first noticed very young. My art teacher was talking about how to appreciate paintings. I did not appreciate the paintings. I told the class that the pictures brought me no emotions. The whole class seemed aghast. And from then on I faked a lot.
I do not get sad or angry like some might in funerals. I do not feel bad for people in bad situations. Actually, I do not have a great deal of emotion in general. This has been more helpful than not. When others are confused or scared and cannot handle things themselves. I normally can. But it is almost always by calculation. I am very calculating.
Anyway, I do believe high functioning sociopaths know they are such. You just wouldn’t know it. They aren’t normally the assholes.
For jokes sake I would have liked to add an emotionless face at the end but there was no such face so this will suffice: 
When I wrong someone, I feel guilty about it. Is this proof positive that I’m not a sociopath, or is it more complicated than just that?
If they didn’t tell you that they feel wronged, would you feel less guilty?
A week after you felt guilty, do you not really care that much? Have you rationalized the reason why you did it and feel that it actually made sense to wrong that person?
Yes, it is proof-positive that you are not a sociopath. No, it is no more complicated than that.
You can be a scoff-law or someone who has weighed the pros and cons of emotional and practical consequences of your social misbehaviors (I’ve thought about precisely this for a long time: I let my dog go off-leash in my housing community), but you are not a sociopath.
Woo-ha. How about this: I apparently slept with a close friend’s girlfriend, after which I received ECT, and cannot and will never remember it or the wretched guilt it undoubtedly engendered. I presume. I hope.
He has never spoken to me since. To me the whole issue is a moral chestnut of some kind and has bothered me for 30 years. I don’t even know how to approach it, but have decided it isn’t worth zillions of dollars of shrink time. From a long time ago the issue is 98% philosophical.
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Dear Mod: If I smarten up the subject title, could I put the above two grafs as a GQ thread?
ETA: Hell’s bells, I’mma jus gonna do it. 
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