I take it you're referring to an ambulatory psychopaths? These types have learned to adapt in pro-social ways. For example, they do not engage in violence or felonious behavior. For the most part, they come across as pretty normal, endearing, even. What differentiates them is their lack of empathy. Though, they're very good at "
faking it" ala semantic aphasia (
"They know the words but not the music.", Hervey Cleckly, 1962).
As for drug induced sociopathic characteristics? It's arguable, I suppose. Organicity would generally rule out sociopathy. That is, unless the underlying enduring behavioral trait is aspd. In which case, some drugs could exacerbate it. Unfortunately, people regularly toss around the sociopath & psychopath labels, interchanging them, without truly understanding them.
Take for example, cases involving filicide. Esp those cases involving the mother killing her children. While there are certainly women who fall squarely into the sociopathic model (
i.e., Susan Smith, though her elevated PCL-R scores indicate psychopathy as opposed to sociopathy), there are those who do not (
i.e., Andrea Yates). And yet some believe Yates just *
had to be* a sociopath to drag her son into the bathroom to drown him.
In any event, wrt the filicide bit, I have an article that touches upon that particlarly tragic issue. (
link )
Not really. Berkowitz has a history of truancy, sustained head injuries @ 6, 7, and 8, and began killing humans @ 23. While he was dx'd with paranoid schizophrenia, which effectively ruled out a dx of aspd, he later claimed he had "
faked it." This is arguably quite possible as he showed elevated scores on the PCL-R. (
link )
