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The Sociopath Next Door | 
 enlarge | Author: Martha Stout
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $7.88
You Save: $7.07 (47%)
New (42) Used (15) from $7.60
Avg. Customer Rating:  209 reviews
Sales Rank: 1232
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 0767915828
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.8582
EAN: 9780767915823
ASIN: 0767915828
Publication Date: March 14, 2006
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Condition: PAPERBACK-PERFECT ! no ugly remainder mark !SMOKE FREE HOME ! FREE TRACKING & DELIVERY CONFIRMATION ! NEW TO AMAZON-BUT NOT NEW TO E-COMMERCE ! PLEASE BUY WITH CONFIDENCE !
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Product Description
Who is the devil you know?
Is it your lying, cheating ex-husband?
Your sadistic high school gym teacher?
Your boss who loves to humiliate people in meetings?
The colleague who stole your idea and passed it off as her own?
In the pages of The Sociopath Next Door, you will realize that your ex was not just misunderstood. He’s a sociopath. And your boss, teacher, and colleague? They may be sociopaths too.
We are accustomed to think of sociopaths as violent criminals, but in The Sociopath Next Door, Harvard psychologist Martha Stout reveals that a shocking 4 percent of ordinary people—one in twenty-five—has an often undetected mental disorder, the chief symptom of which is that that person possesses no conscience. He or she has no ability whatsoever to feel shame, guilt, or remorse. One in twenty-five everyday Americans, therefore, is secretly a sociopath. They could be your colleague, your neighbor, even family. And they can do literally anything at all and feel absolutely no guilt.
How do we recognize the remorseless? One of their chief characteristics is a kind of glow or charisma that makes sociopaths more charming or interesting than the other people around them. They’re more spontaneous, more intense, more complex, or even sexier than everyone else, making them tricky to identify and leaving us easily seduced. Fundamentally, sociopaths are different because they cannot love. Sociopaths learn early on to show sham emotion, but underneath they are indifferent to others’ suffering. They live to dominate and thrill to win.
The fact is, we all almost certainly know at least one or more sociopaths already. Part of the urgency in reading The Sociopath Next Door is the moment when we suddenly recognize that someone we know—someone we worked for, or were involved with, or voted for—is a sociopath. But what do we do with that knowledge? To arm us against the sociopath, Dr. Stout teaches us to question authority, suspect flattery, and beware the pity play. Above all, she writes, when a sociopath is beckoning, do not join the game.
It is the ruthless versus the rest of us, and The Sociopath Next Door will show you how to recognize and defeat the devil you know.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 204 more reviews...
 Brilliant July 23, 2008
This book was fantastic! After being the victim of a sociopath this book gave me great insight into how these type of people operate and why they do the things they do. This is a must read for anyone caught in the mental grip of a sociopath. It will not only show you how to recognise one but also you how to get away from them before they destroy your life.
100% Excllent Book! June 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I found this book to be understandable, readable, and appropriate for any young adult or adult reader interested in learning more about sociopathy. (AKA, antisocial personality disorder.)
Stout provides excellent and clear examples, allowing the reader to differentiate between someone with unsettling character flaws and a true sociopath.
It was a fascinating page-turner, but more importantly, once the reader has an accurate understanding of sociopathy and how to recognize it, Stout closes with a set of RULES for dealing with a true sociopath in your life. Sociopaths can be harmless, but they can also be quite dangerous, and I found the real-life strategies for dealing with a sociopath (should you have to interact with one) to be lifesavers. (Maybe literally!)
A final note: It is my understanding that there is a big difference between a sociopath and a psychopath. A sociopath lacks the ability to feel guilt, remorse, and love. A psychopath lacks these emotions as well, but the difference is that the psychopath also lacks the ability to feel fear, which is what makes them far more dangerous. (Reference "Emotional Capacities and Sensitivity in Psychopaths" by Willem H. J. Martens, MD, PhD, 2003)
Interesting June 14, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I thought this book was very interesting. It is a page turner, not boring and dry like many psychology books. The only flaw in it seems to be it's inability to connect with its title: I certainly didn't come away from reading it feeling like I could apply the described personality traits to someone other than a criminal. I still have the impression that only really, really BAD people are sociopaths, not necessarily my "neighbor" as the title suggests.
Scary but interesting June 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book was a bit heavy but a very interesting and eye-opening read. It is so hard to wrap your brain around the concept that so many people are sociopaths, even after having to deal with more than one at close range and reading about them in the newspaper every day. Very helpful book.
Good, Though Sensationalist June 9, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book follows in the tradition of *The Mask of Sanity* by providing a practical guide to psychopaths to readers who don't have psychology degrees. The case studies are, quite naturally, the most engaging portion of the book, though the other sections are almost as compelling. Stout's writing style makes the entire book a real page-turner. Her guidelines are very valuable, and for that reason alone, I recommend this book to pretty much anyone.
On the negative side, however, Stout depends far too much on one study's claim that five percent of all humans are psychopaths. To suggest it at one point in the book would be good to show the potential dangers of other people, but to constantly refer back to it is irresponsible. As a fellow psychologist, I would never make a strong, repeated statement based upon a single study, particularly when writing to an audience that doesn't necessarily have scientific training. This certainly makes the book *seem* more like an absolutely crucial read, but the fact of the matter is much more dubious.
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