How to Create a Sociopath

A new book, The Mare, shows how it was done

A good friend of mine told a small lie to her boss. She said she had completed a task when she hadn’t. “I was tired and stressed and I just didn’t want to admit I hadn’t finished the work,” she said. Now, she was feeling guilty and worried that she might lose her job. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen. She’s competent, hardworking, responsible, and, generally, truthful.

“It would be so much easier if you were a sociopath and had no conscience,” I said.

“I was thinking the same thing.” (Yes, we have had long conversation about sociopaths in the workplace.)

I’ll admit I’m fascinated by sociopaths and sociopathic behavior — especially these days when so many of them are in the public eye. According to research from Current Psychiatry Reports sociopathy, or Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) is “a pervasive pattern of disregard and violation of the well-being of others characterizes this disorder.” And they comprise about two to three percent of the general population. Seems like more than that to me, judging from how many of them dominate the news cycle these days.

But sociopaths aren’t always born. Sometimes they’re created. I just finished reading the book The Mare by Angharad Hampshire. It’s not a memoir; however, it is historical fiction based on a real woman — a concentration camp guard who was nicknamed “the mare” because she was known to kick women prisoners to death. Normally, a description like that would not induce me to purchase a book. In fact, it would do just the opposite, but I was intrigued by the idea that she had created a new life for herself as a loving Long Island housewife after the war — and it was nominated for a prestigious award, so I read it. It’s one of the most thought-provoking reads I have come across.

Hampshire allows us to get to know the woman, Hermine Braunsteiner, before and after she was “the mare.” We see a young woman from an occupied country (Austria), struggling to survive and to help her family survive in a beleaguered country. Before the war she ships off to London to work as a maid where she has few prospects despite the fact she works hours most of us could never imagine in our coddled lives. She’s a “nobody.” Ejected from Britain when the war begins, she goes home to a family on the verge of starvation. The only thing she can do is go work for the Germans in a factory. The work is miserable and the pay is meager, so she jumps at the opportunity to make more money as a prison guard.

And that’s where the formula for making a sociopath starts: Take a young woman, say around 19 or 20, whose brain isn’t fully wired yet, a young woman who has no prospects in life, and put her in charge of “prisoners.” Tell her day in and day out that these prisoners (never refer to them as people) have committed crimes and that they are enemies of the state, the same state currently taking care of her. Tell her these prisoners are vermin and put them in an environment so that they become foul and disease-ridden. Put her in a situation in which she fears the prisoners and constantly remind her that they outnumber the guards. Convince her they must be controlled. Give her a few bona-fide sociopaths for role models and reward any acts of cruelty she commits. Kill enough of the prisoners so that she becomes inured to death. And voilá, a sociopath is born.

Hampshire doesn’t make Hermine a sympathetic character, but she does powerfully demonstrate how a normal person could be turned into a “monster.” As a reader, I wanted so much for this woman to realize the harm she did, for her to understand the absolute wrongness of the camps. But Hampshire doesn’t give us that easy out. No one wants to face a truth so horrific about themselves. And Hermine truly believed she had no choice. She would have died of hunger or disease or murder by Nazis if she had refused to do her job. Could she have done it less zealously? Perhaps. But as we see over and over again in war, in order to survive, you may have to shut down that human and humane part of yourself.

Hermine may not have had much empathy to begin with, but many people don’t, especially when we’re young. While most of us put a high premium on empathy, it’s not the greatest survival tool. I would have a difficult time surviving in an uncivilized world because of my empathy for animals. I would have to do some serious psychological rearrangement in order to kill an animal for food. Outside of roaches and mosquitos, I won’t even kill insects. But I’m sure if I were hungry enough, if my survival depended on somehow snuffing out my empathy, I would figure it out. Empathy was a luxury that Hermine couldn’t afford, so she killed it.

The thing I’m left with after reading this book is that the current crop of so-called leaders in our country, the ones who delight in the cruelty they inflict on desperate people fleeing horrific conditions, have no excuse. They come from immense privilege, they are not in fear for their lives, they need no brainwashing, they have chosen their path.

At least, “the mare,” when later she had a choice in life, chose love and kindness.