Shadowing Practice: Narcissist, Psychopath, or Sociopath? - Learn English Speaking with Video

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What is the difference between a sociopath, a psychopath, and a narcissist?

Here to answer this intense question is Dr. Ramani.

Help us out here.

Well, it's, you know, again, there's a lot of overlap.

But the fact is a lot of people are using these terms interchangeably.

And should they be?

No, they shouldn't.

They're different things, okay?

One rule of thumb to remember right off the bat, every psychopath is narcissistic, but not every narcissist is psychopathic.

Make sense?

There's your key difference.

A narcissist is somebody who lacks empathy, is grandiose, is entitled, is constantly seeking validation, is arrogant.

It's a disorder of self-esteem, and they have trouble regulating their self-esteem.

But when a narcissist does a bad thing, they feel a fair amount of guilt and shame.

More shame than guilt, frankly, because they're concerned about how other people view them.

Shame is a public emotion.

So they don't like being viewed negatively in the public eye or by other people.

That's where the shame comes from.

But they'll feel a little bad.

Like if they cheat on their wife, I probably shouldn't have done that.

Psychopaths are different animals.

They're all of those things except no guilt, no shame.

don't feel remorse when they do something bad so they're they're great

serial killers hired assassins people who are gonna go in

and literally sort of gut a business these are your guys

they're like I don't I don't care who gets hurt

that they'd say that

and they'd mean it okay we're a narcissist like I hope

no one gets hurt okay the difference between the psychopath

and the sociopath is the one where most people get confused because the sociopath is a a lot like the psychopath.

They do bad things and they don't care.

Okay?

Here's the key difference.

A psychopath is born and a sociopath is made.

Okay?

That's the key.

So a psychopath, in fact, we know in the research on psychopathy, which has also been called antisocial personality disorder in our diagnostic manual,

these are people who are actually believed to have slightly different autonomic nervous systems.

Our autonomic nervous system is actually that part that That holds our sympathetic nervous system, which is our fight and flight system.

So when our autonomic nervous system for a normal person gets charged up, which it would if we broke a rule, if we did something embarrassing or rude,

if we ran through a red light, our heart starts racing.

We sweat, our pupils get wide, we look around because we're afraid of the consequence.

A psychopath doesn't have that same kind of arousal.

That's why they're able to lie on lie detector tests.

That's how they get away with it they don't have that same kind of arousal.

So where you or I may go on a roller coaster feel that sense of excitement, we need to get that arousal in a good way, we don't like feeling it when we do something wrong.

They don't feel it.

So do they get stressed?

No, not in the same way.

So if they're driving, mm-hmm, because if I'm driving and I see police sirens coming behind me, I mean it is a full-on, oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm gonna get pulled over.

But a psychopath would see that and go, oh I'm gonna get pulled over.

Well this could be, they could have a dead body in the trunk and they wouldn't, they wouldn't.

And so they pull over, they get the ticket and they don't care.

No, they don't care.

And they pay the ticket?

If and, maybe not, they'll even probably get an attorney to get them off or say, yeah, you know, my understanding of your state laws is you can't really be doing this

and they'll be cool as can be.

And this is a difference in their makeup.

They're actually how the nervous systems are wired and their brains are.

There's actually been interesting research done with PET scans where you can see brain function and what we've shown.

Just to clarification, not PET like dogs and cats, PET scans.

Positron, emission, tomography, scans of the brain, which show brain functioning, if you will.

And what they see is that the section of the brain that serves empathy, that doesn't naturally light up in them.

And you can actually teach them to be empathic for a minute, but it doesn't last.

A lot of psychopaths who commit violent crimes end up in jail.

And the ones who commit more like white collar crimes, I guess they end up as multi-billionaires because they're willing to do really,

really rough stuff in their business and get through like a cartel leader or something like that, call for the killings of other people.

Now, their interesting counterpart are the sociopaths.

Psychopaths born.

They tend to, their belief is that they may very well have, this might be genetic.

In fact, psychopaths often have fathers who have lots of antisocial tendencies.

Now how much of it is learned, how much of it is genetic, it's a little bit harder to suss out.

But we do see that there is that difference in your true psychopath.

They also tend to be, have really glib, shallow charm.

They tend to be really intelligent.

That's why they get away with stuff.

If they were really a hot mess.

So they've learned behavior to assimilate into society.

Oh, yeah.

But it's all a facade.

It's all a facade.

They're so charming.

So if they're born this way, would a three-year-old then not get stressed out if it got scared?

So that's incredible.

So what we see when we diagnose antisocial personality disorder, which is sort of our diagnostic equivalent being a psychopath.

In order to get that diagnosis, you have to have shown a pattern prior to the age of 15 of things like truancy,

violence towards other kids, stealing, skipping school, and not felt bad about it.

Setting fires.

They just do it.

They don't care.

And that before the age of 15, so it's a longstanding pattern.

That's what makes us call them a psychopath or having antisocial personality.

Now, this is different than sociopathy.

Yes, okay.

Sociopathy, they look a lot like the psychopaths.

The difference is they were made.

So some examples here, the kid who grows up in a really, really, really, really rough neighborhood and learns criminality to get by or learns to be a bully or like,

you know, gets involved with sort of like the wrong kids

and uses a lot of muscle because that's survivalism

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but they it's not necessarily always comfortable for them they just

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learn it it's the person who grows up with a father who teaches them the business

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and teaches them how to break the rules they he made

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but they don't they would would they feel would they start sweating

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and have their heart race if they got pulled over they might they may not feel

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so good about they'll be a little bit more uncomfortable with it

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but in time they learn it and that

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that what it's almost like they they get trained in not being as aroused by it listen

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if you broke enough rules

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if you lived under certain conditions of lawlessness long enough you'd adjust to

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that new world or you will sociopath done and

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so they're the person who someone who said he was actually a great kid until he got to high school

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and then it seems like you got him with the wrong kids

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that feels more like the sociopath okay that's It's almost like a training that might happen from within the family, within their community, within even the job they get,

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some cases even within some form of military training.

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Have you had sociopaths and psychopaths as clients?

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Not really, no. They don't tend to come in for therapy.

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They don't see any benefit to it.

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The only time you would tend to see psychopaths

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or sociopaths come into therapy with any consistency is if they were court ordered.

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I thought you were going to say couples therapy.

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No, God, no. It's because they're court ordered, so the judge will make that a condition of release kind of thing.

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Or they're within prisons and jails and getting some treatment in there.

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This is so incredibly fascinating to me.

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If a psychopath goes to jail, he isn't upset about going to jail?

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In some ways, it becomes a cost of doing business.

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But it's also—no, they're not happy about it.

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Psychopaths, and to some degree sociopaths, don't think about consequences.

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That's why they pull really penny-ante silly crimes like holding up a liquor store.

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Basically, I need 150 bucks, here's a liquor store, it's open, let's go get the money, kind of thing.

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So it's like they act first and think later, so they often don't plan in terms of consequences.

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That's why they have a tendency to lie, cheat, steal, and they tend to have very inconsistent work histories because they're not able to hold a job.

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There's aliases.

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It's definitely like it's more of a grifter-y kind of a space.

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So we've talked in previous videos about how to cope while dating a narcissist.

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If you find yourself dating a sociopath or a psychopath, is there any coping or you just got to get out?

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You're in trouble.

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That could actually be a very dangerous relationship.

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It sounds like it.

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Yeah.

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In fact, even with the narcissistic piece, I've done research and work in the area of domestic violence or what's also called intimate partner violence.

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Most people who perpetrate domestic violence are either narcissistic or psychopathic.

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And so there's a danger there.

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In other words, they will dispose of you if you get in their way.

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I want to share a story with you to get your feedback.

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This was told to me by a friend.

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And she said in college she dated a guy for a year

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but the guy started to get just a little weird and they broke up.

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For the next year, he courted her and did everything she wished he had done the first year.

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Showed up on time, brought her gifts, blah blah blah.

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They started dating again.

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He was perfect for a year.

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They went to Thanksgiving at her family's house.

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He was perfect to her parents, just became the perfect man for her because he knew what she wanted.

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And after a year on the one year anniversary, he broke up with her and said, I've been playing you this whole time because I wanted to crush your heart.

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I am not actually behaving this way or this isn't real.

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I've been faking it for a year just so I can crush you.

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Would that be a psych- That's more psychopathic.

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Psychopathic.

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That's more psychopathic.

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You know, or sociopathic is more likely, you know.

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But if they have no empathy, then why would they want to hurt somebody?

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Because empathy is a positive emotion, okay?

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Wanting to hurt someone is a very antagonistic emotion.

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Wanting to hurt someone at some level might even give them a little pleasure, power for sure.

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It's interesting to me that someone cannot be empathetic but then want to hurt somebody Because to me, you would have to have the empathy in order to even know what it's like to hurt somebody.

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There's a difference between empathy and understanding.

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You can understand what, because if you're hurt, it's like, that's why psychopaths make great salesmen.

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Because they understand a person.

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They can read a person and immediately say, I got his vulnerability.

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I'm going to make him buy a car.

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Psychopaths are great salesmen.

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Salesmen of cars, timeshares, all that stuff where they're upselling and almost taking advantage of someone sometimes,

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making them take on more money and cost of something than they really should.

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But no, no, no. It's that he was able to be superficially charming.

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Psychopaths and sociopaths and narcissists make great chameleons.

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They're definitely able to change the situation to get what they want.

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And psychopaths in particular and sociopaths, they view the world as an instrument to fulfill their desires.

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That's really what they're about, which is what it's awful because they're going to often discard a partner

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when they don't have much use for them or expect them to have a very specific role.

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So they may have married her and she may have had their kids.

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Now she's gonna have to put up with their affairs

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because they want something else and too bad

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if you don't like it This is the new world order and I will destroy you in court.

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It's that kind of thing.

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That is insane.

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Yeah, it's chilling I want to leave it right there I have learned more about sociopaths

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and psychopaths that I ever thought possible make sure you check out as well our discussion about narcissism with Dr. Ramani.

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Thanks again for being here.

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For more information on all things mental health, make sure you go to medcircle.com.

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There you can curate your own list of your preferred mental health topics.

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It'll be delivered to you exactly when you need it.

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I'm Kyle Kittleson.

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Thanks for watching.

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145 sentences

What You'll Practice in This Lesson

Explore the nuances of personality traits while improving your English listening and speaking skills. This lesson breaks down a conversation about narcissists, psychopaths, and sociopaths, helping you understand complex vocabulary, natural speech patterns, and how to articulate detailed ideas clearly.

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

Grandiose: Excessively proud or self-important (e.g., "His grandiose claims made others skeptical").
Autonomic nervous system: The body's automatic control system for functions like heart rate (e.g., "Stress affects the autonomic nervous system").
Remorse: Deep regret for one's actions (e.g., "She felt no remorse for her lies").
Positron Emission Tomography (PET scan): A brain imaging technique (e.g., "The PET scan showed reduced activity in the empathy region").
White-collar crimes: Non-violent crimes committed by professionals (e.g., "He was convicted of white-collar crimes like fraud").

Practice Tips for Shadowing

The video features a conversational tone with moderate speed, making it ideal for practicing the shadowing technique. Here's how to improve:

Start slow: Pause after each sentence and repeat it, focusing on matching the speaker's rhythm. Use a shadowing app to loop short clips if needed.
Emphasize key terms: Words like "narcissist," "psychopath," and "sociopath" are stressed in the dialogue—mimic this emphasis to sound natural. Practice shadow speak by mirroring the speaker's tone when explaining differences (e.g., the casual "Mm-hmm" or the firm "No, they shouldn't").
Focus on intonation: The conversation shifts from curious questions to informative explanations. Notice how the speaker's pitch rises for questions ("Makes sense?") and falls for statements. This helps with shadow speech fluency.
Repeat challenging phrases: Clauses like "slightly different autonomic nervous systems" require clear articulation. Break them into chunks and use shadowspeak to master pronunciation.

Consistent practice will help you internalize natural speech patterns and improve your ability to follow complex discussions.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	If and, maybe not, they'll even · if they're born this way, would a
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	I've been playing · I've been faking
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	is entitled · being viewed · is born
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	somebody who lacks · people who are · psychopathy, which has

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Narcissist, Psychopath, or Sociopath? - Learn English Speaking with Video

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What You'll Practice in This Lesson

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

Practice Tips for Shadowing

Grammar in this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?