From: Love Fraud
by Donna Andersen
Sociopaths hide their true intentions behind a mask of charm and charisma.
Lovefraud recently received the following question from a reader:
When a sociopath targets his victim, does he think and create a plan as to HOW he is going to manipulate his prey to glean what he wants, or is this just second nature to him? How can he spend MONTHS being such a kind, considerate person, going out of his way to do the “little” things that matter in life, before turning into the evil monster?
When you have been deceived and manipulated by a sociopath, the most
difficult idea to grasp is how totally different people with this
personality disorder are from the rest of us. Their behavior is
different from everything we thought we knew about human interaction.
Sociopaths—both male and female—seem to be missing the parts that
make the human race human. There is no deep warmth. There is no true
caring. There is only fake warmth and fake caring, which disappear
immediately once sociopaths decide they have no further use for us.
How do they become like this? According to Dr. Liane Leedom, it’s their different motivation.
Power motivation v. love motivation
Normal people, who do not have a personality disorder, are motivated by both love and power.
We feel emotional love for family, friends, neighbors, and even
animals or causes, that are important to us. We care about everything we
love, which makes us take action to please, support and protect them.
Normal people also have a healthy power motivation. This is what
makes us pursue achievement, leadership and recognition. But our power
motivation is kept in check by our love motivation. Therefore, although
we strive for accomplishment, we’re willing to strive fairly, without
injuring other people as we pursue our goals.
In sociopaths, there is no balance between their love motivation and
power motivation. The defining characteristic of real love is caring
about another person’s health and wellbeing, and this is practically
nonexistent in sociopaths. Their power motivation, however, is out of
control. All they really want is to win, to control and to dominate
others.
Born to be manipulative
Sociopathy (technically called antisocial personality disorder or
psychopathy) is highly genetic. That means children can be born with a
genetic predisposition to the personality disorder. Whether this genetic
predisposition “expresses,” or becomes active, depends in part on the
child’s environment, including the parenting he or she receives. When
sociopathic parents are part of the child’s life, their notoriously bad
parenting may encourage their offspring’s latent disorder to develop.
When children are born with a genetic predisposition to the
personality disorder, what it means in practice is that they have a
stronger power motivation than love motivation. From a very early age,
these children derive little pleasure from warmth, affection and
closeness, and much more enjoyment from getting what they want.
Therefore, the children learn, essentially through trial and error, how
to behave in order to get what they want. They learn manipulation
techniques—and spend their lives perfecting them.
Games sociopaths want to win
To get back to the Lovefraud reader’s question, I think sociopaths
pursue both avenues of manipulation, depending on the individual and
circumstance. Yes, they think and plan about how to get you to deliver
what they want. And yes, they’ve been doing it for so long that much of
their behavior is second nature. They are opportunistic, so when chances
to manipulate you pop up, they know exactly how to capitalize on them.
Because their objective is to win, sociopaths view their interactions
with you as a game. Some sociopaths have the patience to play the game
as long as necessary in order to score that win. Then, when
they’veachieved their objective, they’re finished. The charade is over,
and you find, to your horror, that everything the sociopath said and did
was designed to deceive you.
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