Over time, many technical terms penetrate from professional speech into colloquial speech. In particular, this applies to psychiatric definitions. For example, it has recently become fashionable to use the term "sociopath" to describe an individual.
Initially, sociopaths were defined as people who were diagnosed with dissocial personality disorder - a mental disorder characterized by increased aggression combined with rejection of social rules. In addition, people with such a deviation, as a rule, experience problems with the formation of various kinds of attachments: friendly, romantic, family.
The concept of sociopathy in psychiatry
Medically speaking, sociopathy is one form of mental pathology: psychopathy. You need to understand that in this case we are not talking about a whim or bad upbringing, but about a real mental illness, as a result of which an individual forms a misconception about relationships between people. Since sociopaths are unable to grasp the underlying motives of human attachments, they believe that the only meaningful form of relationship is manipulation of others in order to achieve their goals. Such people are usually selfish, preoccupied with their own interests and easily ignore public morality if its norms interfere with their plans. In addition, they are suspicious of others' attempts to get close to them, believing that they just want to be used.
In a broader sense, a sociopath is a person who experiences a bias against most members of society, social norms and stereotypes, and does not hesitate to express this prejudice. As a rule, such individuals are rather unsociable, withdrawn and often aggressive.
Sociopathy and misanthropy
Very often, sociopathy is confused with misanthropy, that is, with hostility towards all of humanity. Indeed, the external manifestations of sociopathy and misanthropy are similar, but we must not forget that sociopathy is a mental disorder, and misanthropy is just a system of views on the world and people. In addition, a significant difference between these concepts lies in the fact that sociopaths, first of all, are characterized by opposition to society and its laws, while misanthropes are characterized only by opposition to the rest of humanity.
Finally, sociopaths are not capable of all sorts of attachments, while misanthropes, in principle, can be friends and fall in love. Another thing is that they make rather high demands on those people whom they are ready to admit to the "inner circle" of communication, so often misanthropes, like sociopaths, are lonely.