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Picture that you have a sister who is dating a sociopath. You can see that he does not truly care for her and is taking advantage of her for a variety of purposes. You tell her: “He’s no good for you. He’s a liar, a thief, and has a terrible reputation among those who have known him personally.”
“But he loves me,” she says. “He really, really loves me and is so generous and kind with me. No one has ever treated me as well as he does. And he has a friend who really sticks up for him. In fact, he thinks you’re treating him so unfairly. Just give him a chance, and I think you’ll agree with me how special he is.”
She’s sold on him, and he has immunized her against your feedback. Can this happen to you? How does this happen? When do people realize they were seduced?
Can This Happen to You?
Sociopaths are approximately 4 percent of the United States adult population, which is about one out of every 25 people. Also known as having an antisocial personality disorder, they are in every occupation, every ethnic group, every geographic area, and every culture. They range in intelligence from low to medium to very high. The chances that you will run into one are fairly high. It helps to recognize the patterns of their seductions and to always maintain a healthy skepticism, especially when your gut feelings sense something is contradictory about what a person says and what they actually do.
How Does This Seduction Happen?
Whether in dating, a legal case, business, or politics, they have a highly-aggressive drive to dominate others. They do this primarily by using several tricks of deception. That’s why they’re often known as con artists. They lack remorse, so they will say anything to seduce you and don’t care how devastated you may be after they are long gone. Once you are seduced, then they can take what they want from you (money, sex, reputation, etc.) or use you as an accomplice to help them get what they want from others. While people are generally familiar with sociopaths as criminals on TV and in the movies, they are not generally familiar with their patterns of seduction in everyday life.
In dating: There are several tactics that sociopaths use (see my book co-authored with Megan Hunter titled Dating Radar):
False expressions of love: They constantly tell you how much they love you even though their actions indicate the opposite. They keep you emotionally hooked by making a big deal of a few very special things they do for you, then get upset with you when you point out how other things they did were so insensitive. They keep the relationship so emotionally-based that it’s hard to see the realities.
False promises of protection: They may say how they will go out of their way to take care of you. They will serve as your knight in shining armor. That is until they don’t. It was all words.
Fake compatibility: They will find out your interests and pretend they have always shared the same interests. Once you make a serious commitment to them, they will suddenly give up those interests.
In a court case: They turn everything around and viciously attack the other party in a legal dispute or even criminal case.
I’m the real victim: A good example of how cleverly they do this may be the criminal trial of O.J. Simpson for killing Nicole Brown Simpson. In that case, there was a mountain of evidence that he killed her. However, he and his lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, were able to turn the tables on the prosecution and the police. They claimed that he was treated so unfairly by the L.A. Police Department that he was actually the victim in the case. This tactic seduced the jury, which ignored all the other evidence and acquitted him.
Only later was he found guilty in a civil case against him for the wrongful death of Nicole, which resulted in a multimillion-dollar judgment, but no jail time, because it was a civil case since the criminal case had failed. Ironically, as if to show that he still had an antisocial pattern of behavior, he was later convicted of a separate crime (stealing back some of his trophies lost in the civil judgment) and served several years in prison for that and a related charge of kidnapping.
In business: They can be fast-talking and persuasive with their get-rich-quick stories that are too good to be missed, but also too good to be true.
Fake similarity: A recent case is that of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and CEO of Theranos, who promised to deliver a whole new approach to blood tests that would revolutionize health care with its simplicity. She dressed like Apple founder Steve Jobs in a black turtleneck, she deepened her voice, she constantly compared her exciting new work to that of Apple’s explosive development of cell phones, and she persuaded powerful people to invest, including Henry Kissinger, James Mattis, and former Secretary of State George Shultz. But the image and stories and comparisons eventually failed, and she now faces years in prison for fraud.
In politics: Around the world today, as I explain in my new book Why We Elect Narcissists and Sociopaths—And How We Can Stop!, likely sociopathic leaders are creating false images of themselves as superheroes against evil villains. While there are many legitimate differences and concerns that people have about politics, sociopathic leaders tend to be loyal to no one but themselves, and they select the parties and policies that enable them to gain unlimited power—historically on the far left or the far right.
Fantasy villains: These leaders are popping up in both hemispheres today, claiming to be fighting against terrible crises caused by evil villains, and presenting themselves as the superheroes needed to fight these battles. This serves as a distraction from their lack of problem-solving skills. In many ways, this is like the fake compatibility of sociopaths in dating. Many of these leaders consciously chose villains who were small groups of vulnerable people and loudly blamed them for being a dangerous group that might take over the country.
For example, in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, Jews were less than one percent of the population despite recent immigrants (around 500,000 in a nation of over 60 million). Yet a popular Nazi slogan was “Jew will not replace us.” This was also repeated by the neo-Nazi demonstrators in Charlottesville in 2017, even though the Jewish population in the United States is less than 2 percent.
In America in the 1950s, Senator Joe McCarthy (a former Democrat who switched to be a Republican) consciously chose Communists in the federal government as his fantasy villains. He was in trouble with his taxes and various other lies that were catching up with him, so he chose Communists as a distraction. After four years of televised hearings, he found exactly zero Communists in the federal government, was censured by the Senate (99-1 votes), and died a lonely death three years later.
More recently, it’s curious that Donald Trump consciously chose to run for President as a conservative Republican after having been a Democrat and having supported Democrats with 80 percent of his donations over the years. Then, he consciously chose undocumented immigrants as a dangerous villain, after he asked his staff to watch and listen to conservative media to find out what they were concerned about. In other words, this was not a concern he previously had when undocumented immigrant numbers were higher than in the present, but rather one that he chose to show his compatibility to his new followers. Does he also fit this pattern of deception?
Do other recent world leaders who have chosen immigrants as their villains seem to have this pattern of seduction? In Hungary, Viktor Orban claimed that immigrants were flooding into the country during his re-election in 2018. Yet, there were hardly any immigrants coming by 2018, so he showed a video during his campaign from an influx of immigrants in 2015, as though it was happening again. He also switched from pro-democracy politics to authoritarian politics in his quest for power.
When do people realize they were seduced?
I have been studying, teaching, and writing about high-conflict personalities, including traits of five personality disorders, for the past 20 years. I have found that sociopaths and, to a lesser extent, narcissists are the two most seductive personalities on the planet. Now that I have begun looking at these personalities in leadership, as well as in dating and workplace relationships, I am seeing the same patterns.
In the dating scenario above, I would encourage you to tell your sister that you love her and want her to know your concerns. But don’t get angry with her about it. Anyone can be seduced. Give her some information, then back off and say that you are available anytime she wants to talk. Eventually, real life sets in (sometimes in a few days, months, or years), and someone like this sister may tearfully show up and say that you were right. Being loving and open is better than being judgmental and angry with someone who has been seduced.
In court cases and business, I have found that factual education while being calm and respectful is also more effective than arguing with people who have been seduced. In politics, I have taken the approach of writing a book which I believe explains the patterns of narcissists and sociopaths who are increasing again in modern times—on the left and on the right. It’s not really about politics. It’s about personalities that have a drive for unlimited power combined with a skill for seduction using the tactics I described above and more.
As I suggested at the beginning: In dating, in legal cases, in business, and in politics, learn the patterns and maintain a healthy skepticism.
