Psychologists vie to enumerate the facets of sociopathy. Joseph Newman argues that the sociopath has an bottleneck that allows him to focus only on one activity or train of thought, to the exclusion of others. Researchers, including Howard Kamler, say that the sociopath lacks not "moral" but self-identity altogether. Yet nowhere do I recognize myself more than in Hervey Cleckley's clinical profiles. In The Mask of Sanity, published in 1941, Cleckley distilled what he believed to be the 16 key behavioral characteristics that defined . Most of these factors are still used today to diagnose sociopaths/psychopaths and others with antisocial disorders. (Psychopathy and are terms with an intertwined clinical history, and they are now largely used interchangeably. The excludes both, in favor of disorder.)

Superficial charm and good

Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking

Absence of nervousness or manifestations

Unreliability

Untruthfulness and insincerity

Lack of remorse and

Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior

Poor judgment and failure to learn by experience

Pathologic egocentricity and incapacity for love

General poverty in major affective reactions

Specific loss of insight

Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations

Fantastic and uninviting behavior with and sometimes without

threats rarely carried out

life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated

Failure to follow any life plan

See also: Confessions of a Sociopath