What is a Psychopath/Sociopath

Firstly, and most importantly, we are talking about a medical condition, which is biological in nature and a condition that is already present at birth and will affect the person throughout his life. Nobody chooses to be a sociopath, and typically it is not something that one develops later in life, though it may manifest itself to other people at any age. There is no viable "cure" or treatment for this condition, especially past childhood. This condition has very many similarities with autism, which people seem to be more aware of and should be regarded quite similarly.

Sociopathy is characterised by certain abnormalities in the orbitofrontal cortex of the brain. These abnormalities cause certain stimuli to be processed differently, leading to the observable differences in behavior. The affected areas, among others, are primarily connected to social interactions like empathy and reactions to punishment, as well as the feeling of remorse. According to many of the researchers the condition is highly hereditary. I would recommend to read up on this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy

Secondly, Sociopathy is not a uniform condition, with each case being unique. There are differences in empathy levels between sociopaths, whether antisocial or violent tendencies will manifest or not, stress tolerance levels et c. Similarly to Autism, there is a spectrum to sociopathy. There have been numerous attempts to create a system for classifying and rating sociopathy. The most prevalent approach is the Psychopathy Checklist, Revised (PCL-R), created by Robert D. Hare. Though, since much of the research and statistics on the topic have been done within the penal system, they tend to be more focused around the more severe cases: people with manifested antisocial tendencies and and clear existing problems with integration into the society. This further contributes to the public's misunderstanding of the topic

At the same time, many of the sociopaths integrate into the society successfully and display no antisocial behaviors. Those people have hardly been studied, and the awareness of their condition and the challenges they are facing in their everyday lives is virtually non existent.