return to home  
Join   |  Gift   |  Member Login   |  Library Login
BookBrowse Mobile
Follow Us: 
   Summary and Book Reviews

The Sociopath Next Door: Summary and book reviews of The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout, plus links to an excerpt from The Sociopath Next Door and a biography of Martha Stout.

The Sociopath Next Door

The Sociopath Next Door
The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us
by Martha Stout
Hardcover: Feb 2005,
256 pages.
Paperback: Mar 2006,
256 pages.

Publication information
Author Information
Critics' Opinion:   
Readers' Rating:  
About BookBrowse Rankings
Share: 
Buy This Book

BOOK SUMMARY

award image
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.
BookBrowse

I hope that this book gets the very wide audience it deserves because what it has to say is of relevance to virtually all of us as individuals, and takes on even great significance when one adds in the fact that (according to well-documented and much repeated research, first performed by Stanley Milgram in the 1960s) about two-thirds of the general population will follow the orders of somebody in authority, even if it is to inflict significant harm on others. You only have to look at the harm inflicted by the followers of such renowned sociopaths as Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot to see where that can lead.  (Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).

Full Review Members Only (118 words).

Media Reviews

  Publishers Weekly
Dramatic as these tales are, they are composites, and while Stout is a good writer and her exploration of sociopaths can be arresting, this book occasionally appeals to readers' paranoia, as the book's title and its guidelines for dealing with sociopaths indicate.

  Library Journal - Lynne F Maxwell
Stout (clinical psychiatry, Harvard Medical Sch.; The Myth of Sanity Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness) offers a novel perspective on sociopaths, i.e., people who have no conscience. Not only does she provide case studies and references to standard literature like Hervey Cleckley's The Mask of Sanity, but she also fashions the book in self-help mode.... Highly recommended for all public libraries and for university libraries with large psychology collections.

  Kirkus Reviews
...a remarkable philosophical examination of the phenomenon of sociopathy and its everyday manifestations. Readers eager for a tabloid-ready survey of serial killers, however, will be disappointed. Instead, Stout (Psychiatry/Harvard Medical School) busies herself with exploring the workaday lives and motivations of those garden-variety sociopaths who are content with inflicting petty tyrannies and small miseries.....Deeply thought-provoking and unexpectedly lyrical.

Author Blurb Harold S. Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People
A fascinating, important book about what makes good people good and bad people bad, and how good people can protect themselves from those others.

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated 2 of 5 of 5 by Audrey
The Sociopath Next Door
My major problem with this book is that the writer claims that (1 in 25 ) or 4 percent of the population are sociopaths. This simply is not true. The correct stats are as follows: 2 percent of the population displays antisocial behaviour & of...   Read More

Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by J. Dunlap
She Lives Next Door to Me
I live next door to a Sociopath. I have know she was one for years so I stayed away from her. I bought this book to be sure I wasn't judging my neighbor wrongly. This book is wonderful! It proved that the Sociopath next door to me is a pure...   Read More

Rated 4 of 5 of 5 by Mariah Haley
Good.
Really interesting to read! Enjoyed it and the mini scenarios were helpful :)

Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by Jeannie
A must read for all
I, too, was in a marriage for over 25 years with a "sociopath next door." I have a psychology background. Yet I would never think my husband was a sociopath because he wasn't mass killing people like Ted Bundy. He had a very high...   Read More

Rated 5 of 5 of 5 by Notloh
Read this book!!!!
This book seems to be written out of a sincere wish to warn the world about the human predators among us. While it is true that some things are repeated that seems to me to be done in order to hammer the point home rather than to fill up...   Read More

Rated 1 of 5 of 5 by Lissa
Junk psychology for the uneducated
This is typical junk psychology. The author makes the same point again and again, citing different anecdotes from chapter to chapter. She attempts to elevate the fear factor and reader's interest by dramatizing the term "sociopath." The...   Read More

...34 More Reader Reviews

How do you spot a sociopath?
(from The Sociopath Next Door)

A sociopath has no conscience, no ability to feel shame, guilt or remorse. Since 1 in 25 ordinary Americans is a sociopath, you almost certainly know one or more than one already. How can you recognize him or her?
  • Sociopaths learn early on to show sham emotion, but underneath they live only to dominate others and win.
  • They have a kind of glow or charisma that makes them more charming or interesting than the other people around them. They are more spontaneous, more intense, complex, or even sexier than everyone else.
  • They crave stimulation and excitement, often showing brief intense enthusiasms that they later...

Continued...  Beyond the Book (members only)

Readalikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Sociopath Next Door, try these:


Black and Blue
by Anna Quindlen

With this stunning novel about a woman and a marriage that begins in passion and becomes violent, Anna Quinlen moves to a new dimension as a writer of superb fiction.

Death in the City of Light
by David King

Death in the City of Light is a brilliant evocation of Nazi-Occupied Paris and a harrowing exploration of murder, betrayal, and evil of staggering proportions.


These are 2 of the 6 readalike suggestions for The Sociopath Next Door. Members have full access to all readalikes. If you are a member, please login. To find out more about membership, click here.


Become a Member
Click Here
Editor's Choice
  •  May 18 
  •  May 16 
  •  May 15 
The Woman Upstairs
Claire Messud

The Woman Upstairs Jacket

The riveting confession of a woman awakened, transformed, and betrayed by passion and desire for a world beyond her own.
How to Create the Perfect Wife
Wendy Moore

How to Create the Perfect Wife Jacket

Stranger than fiction, blending tragedy and farce, How to Create the Perfect Wife is an engrossing tale of the radicalism, and deep contradictions, at the heart of the Enlightenment.
Happier Endings
Erica Brown

Happier Endings Jacket

A wise and affirming meditation on living fully and preparing for death, written by a highly regarded spiritual teacher.
Click Here
   Most Recent Blog Entries
Movies Based on Books: Summer 2013 (May - August)
Jewish Young Adult Books That Are Not About The Holocaust
Books to Give This Mother's Day
rss  RSS   rss  subscribe
Recent Reader Reviews
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Fowler
Z, the novel about the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is at points charming and; like another reviewer, I kept thinking of the movie, "Midnight... read more
Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on... read more
The House at the End of Hope Street by Menna van Praag
Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read... read more
RSS RSS feed More...  
Most Viewed This Week
1. Half the Sky
Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn
2. Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake
Anna Quindlen
3. Because of Winn-Dixie
Kate DiCamillo
4. Eagle Strike
Anthony Horowitz
5. K Blows Top
Peter Carlson
More...
Book Club Recommendations
The Gods of Gotham
by Lyndsay Faye
Paperback (Mar/13)
Forgotten Country
by Catherine Chung
Paperback (Mar/13)
Philida
by André Brink
Paperback (Feb/13)
Gone Girl
by Gillian Flynn
Hardback (Jun/12)
More...
First Impressions
Members read and review books often months before they're published. See what they think in First Impressions!
A Dual Inheritance
by Joanna Hershon
Four Stars            (May/13)
The Sisterhood
by Helen Bryan
Four Stars            (Apr/13)
The Laws of Gravity
by Liz Rosenberg
4.5 Stars            (May/13)
More...
  Latest BookBrowse News
U.S. ebook sales up in 2012, but rate of growth is slowing (May 16 2013)
In 2012, trade book sales (i.e. non academic book sales) rose 6.9%, to $15.049 billion, and e-book sales continued to grow, although the rate of growth... Full Story
rss RSS feed More...
 
BookBrowse Poll
Q: Which of these Summer movies based on books would you like to see? (Info on each movie here)
The Great Gatsby
Epic
Man of Steel
World War Z
The Lone Ranger
The Wolverine
R.I.P.D.
Percy Jackson
Paranoia
The Mortal Instruments
Select Any That Apply
Search: Title or Author
Free Newsletters
Bring Up the Bodies

Online Book Club
More about
Five Days
Join the discussion!


Win This Book!
The Pigeon Pie Mystery


Enter To Win Now!

wordplay
Solve this clue:
"I I M B T Give T T R"

and be entered
to win....
frame top
New Author
Interviews
Menna van Praag
Erica Brown
Helga Weiss
Kate Morton
frame bottom
HOME Book Submissions | Advertising | Library Subscriptions | Reviewing for BookBrowse | Contact Us