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- 1 in 25 - 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 25 everyday people therefore is secretly a sociopath. They
could be your colleague your neighbour 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.
