Well, I'm old-school and always thought the two words defined the same thing.
Yeah-- no worries, despite the poster's comments in the reply to you, with such cerainty and without citations, the question of the difference is still very much up for debate.
In 1847, the term psychopathy was coined. It orginally referred to ANY disease related to a mental illness. It comes from Greek roots meaning “suffering soul.” In 1885, the term psychopath became more widely known in relation to the murder a girl named Sarah Becker in Russia. A woman confessed to the murder, but her confession was thrown out after a psychiatrist, described her as a “psychopath.” The English-speaking world took it as a mark of the violent, self-interested nature of the woman accused, Ekaterina Semenova, and wa-la the modern definition of psychopath was born.
An enduring misconception about psychopathy is that only males can be psychopaths. However, the first time the word "psychopath" was used in court was for a woman.
www.google.com
In the 1930s, a taxonomy for mental health conditions began to develop and psychopath was reserved for those who showed those types of behaviors.
Then, in 1930, an American psychologist, G. E. Partridge, studied the general category of psychopath closely. He came to the conclusion that psychopathy was too broad a definition to be useful. He proposed changing the expression to sociopathy to define antisocial behavior. To him, sociopath meaning “a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience."
Because the American Phystriatic Association does not recognize the term sociopath or psychopath (instead they focus on the much broader Antisocial Peronality Disorder), little research has been done on either. It's underfunded and underesearched.
New findings show that people with psychopathy have varying degrees and types of the condition, which may include tendencies such as low empathy and remorse, grandiosity, impulsivity, or aggressive behavior.
www.apa.org
The modern armchair psychologist separation of psychopath and sociopath by born with or created is not backed by research, which suggests all personality disorders start with a biological proclivity toward them and complimentary life experiences.
This, my friend, is a long way of saying you are not confused because there is not an acceptable psychological or medical definition.
