Quoting from a 2013 book chapter “The Virtue of Psychopathy: How to Appreciate the Neurodiversity of Psychopaths and Sociopaths Without Becoming a Victim”
David T. Lykken distinguishes between psychopathy and sociopathy based on the origin of the condition. According to Lykken, psychopaths are persons “in whom the normal processes of socialization have failed to produce the mechanisms of conscience and habits of law-abidingness that normally constrain antisocial impulses” (1995, p. 6) whereas a sociopath is an individual “whose unsocialized character is due primarily to parental failures rather than to inherent peculiarities of temperament” (1995, p. 7). For example, some people have APD despite positive and nurturing upbringings; these people are psychopathic. On the other hand, some people survive horrendous abuse and manage to become caring adults, indicating that abusive environments are not sufficient causes of APD. Various combinations of nature and nurture yield different degrees and types of APD. As Lykken puts it, “there is a continuum from sociopath to psychopath with intermediate cases that could reasonably be assigned to either or both categories” (1995, p. 31). However, Lykken also states, “Identifying someone as “having” APD is about as nonspecific and scientifically unhelpful as diagnosing a sick patient as having a fever, or an infectious or a neurological disorder” (1995, p. 5). Despite the issue of vagueness, Lykken advocates assigning either or both categories when diagnosing a patient with APD.4
Lykken, D. T. (1995). The antisocial personalities. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Certainly, advances may have been made since 2013 (or 1995, for that matter)
