Is your romantic partner a narcissist?

Is your boss a sociopath? Or could it be

they're both just a bit of a jerk? The

distinction really matters. It can help

you figure out how to interact with them

most helpfully, and whether and to what

extent you want to keep this person in

your life. So, let's dive into it. We're

going to look at the similarities and

differences between people who are

narcissists, that is people with

narcissistic personality disorder,

people that are sociopaths with

antisocial personality disorder, and

people who are just a bit of a jerk.

I'll also tell you about some of my

experiences with all three types of

people. Let's start by talking about

what they have in common. Now, it's

important to note that all three of

these things are substantially

correlated to each other. In our data,

scores on antisocial personality

disorder have about a point4 to point6

correlation with scores on narcissistic

personality disorder. And both of them

are correlated with being a jerk. That's

pretty high. So, having one of these

conditions makes you more likely to have

the others, even though most people who

are sociopaths are not narcissists, and

most people who are narcissists are not

sociopaths. The first similarity is that

all three types of people are more

likely to say things that are rude or

impolite. But that doesn't mean that

they're motivated by the same reasons.

Narcissists, for example, are more

likely to do rude behaviors that relate

to putting themselves above other

people. For example, by putting other

people down or bragging when it's

inappropriate. Sociopaths, on the other

hand, are more likely to engage in rude

behavior either because they don't

understand the nuances of what's

appropriate in that social situation or

because they're actually indifferent

towards how you feel about what they

say. Jerks, on the other hand, are quite

a bit different. They tend to be low in

the personality trait known as

agreeableness. They simply care less

about social nicities and care less

about offending other people. So,

they're more likely to say things that

are rude and not really mind that other

people are bothered by them. This

connects to our next similarity, which

is that all three conditions tend to be

marked by less apparent empathy. It's

well known that narcissists tend to have

lower average empathy than other people.

In my experience, this tends to be

connected to their self-centeredness.

I've seen incredibly narcissistic people

express tons of seemingly genuine

empathy, but that empathy immediately

dries up if suddenly their interests are

pitted against someone else's. So, I

believe they usually do have the ability

to have empathy, but that empathy may

only extend up until the point where

their own self-interest is at stake.

Sociopaths, though, tend to be

different. They're more likely to

completely lack emotional empathy. In

other words, to have no ability to

empathize with others. In my interview

with a sociopath on the Clear Thinking

podcast, I asked her, "What would your

experience be like if you were watching

someone being tortured?" She said she'd

have an aesthetic reaction to it. She

might feel disgusted. But I pressed her

and I said, "But would you have empathy

for that person?" And she said, "No."

And in fact, she said she doubts that

empathy even exists at all because she's

never experienced it. But what about

jerks? I think that most jerks would

feel empathy. If they saw you suffering,

they'd feel bad about that. On the other

hand, they may be less likely to have

empathy if you're offended by what they

say. They might think, "Well, I'm just

going to say what I want to say, and if

you're offended, that's your problem."

The third similarity you might notice

between these groups is short-teeredness

or proness to sudden anger. The reason

they tend to get angry, though, might be

pretty different. Narcissists tend to

blow up in sudden anger when their ego

is threatened. When someone deeply

criticizes them or makes them feel

inferior, since they're very focused on

protecting their ego, they're very

sensitive to slight to it. For instance,

in my interview with a narcissist on the

Clear Thinking podcast, I asked him

about sensitivity to criticism. He

mentioned a time when someone was trying

to give him advice about TikTok. It

triggered sudden anger in him because he

felt like it was the other person

putting themselves above him.

>> That's one of the biggest issues with

having this disorder is that how

unbridled I can become uh because I'm so

hyper sensitive to this criticism or

perceives criticism more accurately and

I will fly off the handle because you

try to give me advice. All I can hear is

you're stupid. you should be doing it

this way, like like you're so dumb. I'm

better than you. I can tell you how to

do this better.

>> What about sociopaths, though? They tend

to care way less about what other people

think about them. And while they often

have muted emotions in other ways, anger

is often the exception. The sociopaths

that I've talked to about this tell me

they tend to get very angry very quickly

if other people unjustly try to shame or

control them. One sociopath told me

about a time that she went into a rage

because someone scolded her about using

an escalator that was out of order. Now,

while many people might be annoyed by

this, she actually followed him with the

intent to hurt him. Thankfully though,

he got away. Jerks, on the other hand,

they might be more likely to be koginly

or curt or irritable, but that doesn't

mean they're going to fly into a rage

and follow you or that they feel like

they have to protect their ego at all

costs. We've talked about similarities

between these categories. Let's now talk

about what makes them different from

each other. Unlike the other groups,

narcissists tend to be extremely driven

by attention and admiration. So much so

that it's often one of their primary

drives in life to get these things. When

they're around other people, they often

want to make themselves the center of

attention. And they want other people to

feel that they're superior. Some of them

even describe getting a high from when

their ego inflates. It makes them feel

incredibly good. On the other hand, when

their ego deflates, it makes them feel

incredibly bad. People often mistake

narcissism for confidence. Yes,

narcissists can seem really confident.

They can seem arrogant. They can seem

like they think they're superior. But

it's a kind of fickle confidence because

it can suddenly collapse. A person who's

truly confident doesn't need your

admiration and attention. A funny story

I have about this is one time a

narcissist I know paid a ton of money to

get an award. And then he threw himself

an event to celebrate the award that he

was getting. This put him in the center

of attention and caused people to admire

him because they didn't realize that

he'd paid for the award. Narcissists

really will go the extra mile to get

attention and admiration, even doing

things that most people would never be

willing to do. So, we've talked about

narcissists, but what makes sociopaths

different from these other groups? The

first thing is that sociopaths tend to

be very transactional in relationships.

They get something from you, you get

something from them. Whereas most close

friends in your life might do something

nice because they care about you. They

want you to feel good. They want to

deepen your relationship, sociopaths are

more likely to do it because they want

to achieve specific outcomes. They'll

typically be nice to you if they think

it benefits them to be nice to you.

They'll typically be mean to you if they

think it benefits them to be mean to

you. Another distinct aspect of

sociopathy is they tend to have an

unusual relationship to fear. It's not

exactly that they can't experience fear,

but it doesn't seem to prevent them from

doing things in the same way it does

other people. For instance, one time I

was talking to a sociopath and asking

him if he feels fear. He said, "Well,

what do you mean by fear?" And I said,

"Well, suppose there was a deadly snake

right there on the floor in front of

us." and he said, "Oh, we used to have

deadly snakes in my old job. They'd

sometimes sneak into the building and

they'd send me to go kill them." This

also can connect to impulsiveness among

people with antisocial personality

disorder. They can seem to act without

thinking about the consequences. And I

think this is probably connected to this

unusual relationship with fear. If

you're not really afraid of the

consequences, then yeah, you're not

really going to consider them as much.

There's some interesting research that I

hope some people attempt to replicate

about anticipatory anxiety among

sociopaths. The idea is that if they

know something bad is going to happen,

like an electric shock, they have less

stress response. Their heart rate

doesn't go up as much and they may have

less of a galvanic skin response before

that shock occurs. We've talked about

narcissists. We've talked about

sociopaths. What makes jerks different

than both of those? Jerks tend to be

lower in agreeableness, higher in

irritability, and generally less

interested in following social norms and

conventions. But their personality

variation tends to be within a more

typical range. They may be a bit lower

here and higher here, but not in a range

we typically consider pathological. You

may really dislike being around them,

but other people might enjoy being

around them or maybe even will

appreciate some of their traits, like

their extreme directness about what they

think. But is it even fair to talk about

categories of people? Well, yes and no.

On the one hand, the DSM5, which is the

standard system for diagnosing mental

disorders in the US, does use

categories. People also find it easy to

use categories. It matches the way the

human mind typically thinks. Most

importantly though, people in these

extreme categories tend to have quite a

lot in common. Every sociopath is

different from every other one. But

knowing someone is in the category of

antisocial personality disorder does

tell you a lot of important information

that's likely true about them.

Similarly, every narcissist is different

from every other narcissist. But knowing

that someone is in the category of

narcissistic personality disorder again

tells you a lot of information that's

likely true of them. That being said,

the scientific evidence suggests that

factor models rather than categories

tend to produce the most accurate

predictions. They allow us to model

people who don't fit naturally into the

category who might have some traits of a

sociopath but not others. For example,

there's even a newer model called

hightop which tries to model all the

different factors related to mental

health rather than putting people into

buckets. We made this handy ven diagram

to help you at a quick glance better see

the differences between narcissists and

sociopaths. You can see in the red

region in the middle, this shows what

the conditions tend to have in common,

such as self-centeredness,

manipuliveness, and lower empathy. On

the left, we show traits that are more

characteristic of narcissists than

sociopaths, such as need for attention,

need for admiration, and comparison of

self to others. On the right, we show

traits that are more characteristic of

sociopaths that of narcissists, such as

transactionality in relationships, lack

of guilt or shame, and indifference to

the suffering of others. If you want to

go much deeper on this topic, I

recommend you check out my interview

with a sociopath or my interview with

the narcissist on the Clear Thinking

podcast. We'll put links to both in the

description below. You can also

understand the ven diagram better by

checking out our recent article which is

about what everyone should know about

sociopaths. If you found this

interesting, I'd really appreciate it if

you subscribe to our channel and check

out our other videos. We have so much

more content about the way the human

mind works.