Sociopath
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Illustration: the head of Elagabalus, one of the five "mad emperors" of ancient Rome
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Sociopath and sociopathy are terms coined in 1930 by American psychologist George Everett Partridge, from socio- on model of psychopath (source: Etymology online).
The term refers to a person with an antisocial personality disorder, exhibiting antisocial behavior that usually is the result of social and environmental factors in the person's early life.
Sociopathology has been studied throughout history since at least the early 19th century. During much of that time, this type of mental illness was known as psychopathology. In 1930, Partridge proposed that the title of psychopath be changed to sociopath, for he viewed this illness as a social problem instead of just a mental illness. In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association acted on this suggestion by officially replacing the term psychopath with the term sociopath. But to this day, these two terms are used interchangeably (Culwell, 1998).
See also
- Fictional portrayals of psychopaths
- History of psychopathy
- Psychopathology
- Antisocial personality disorder
- The Dark Core of Personality (2018), a study Ingo Zettler
