Comment Re:Do a test to find the psychopaths/sociopaths... (Score 4, Informative) 204
The reversible argument is just a common pastime that allows people to try to dump blame for something on others. It is not unique to sociopaths. What you are looking for is a systematic disregard for the rules and standards of society and violating the rights of others, especially including breaking those in such a way as they do not usually get punished for it. This can be either because of careful planning, manipulation of peers, making it a hassle for others to stop them, appealing to pity, political influence, etc...
To put it frankly, you are looking for a pervasive, but not necessarily omnipresent, pattern.
A few things to help you out though:
- They do not honor commitments unless it is specifically in their self interest to do so, such as to impress someone important.
- When they are confronted, they will almost never admit responsibility unless they themselves recognize it is advantageous to do so. They will usually either fly off into a rage to scare you away or others into stopping you or launch into a ridiculous appeal for pity, complete with all sorts of BS mind-games like the one you mentioned.
- They get board easy and are frequently impulsive. So, they like to find people to brag about their exploits to if they cannot find something or someone new to torment and destroy, bonus points if they can torment someone while bragging to them.
- They feel that being antisocial makes them smarter than everyone else, because having a conscience retards us and makes us easy to mess with.
- They like collecting tools to do their dirty work for them. But, will actively eliminate anyone deemed to be a competitive threat to them, often using the aforementioned.
- They can mimic complex emotional expressions, but the top half of their face frequently does not match the rest of the body.
- One tell tail I have noticed is the wicked "I have won!" gleeful smile accompanied by hollow eyes when they are actively terrorizing someone or something and getting away with it.
That ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would...