Sociopathic behavior is characterized by the ability or lack of ability to fit in with society due to lack of emotional understanding. A sociopath may be able to learn behaviors that make them appear "normal" bit their actions and emotions will have a disconnect. The behaviors they adopt will more be based on observation and emulation, rather than from a place of emotional motivation. They can still feel emotions, but tend not to really understand them. Many times, emotions coincide with direct physical symptoms. So, a sociopath may feel stressed out, but wouldn't recognize that feeling, instead, they would have severe stomach pain, headaches, or other physical symptoms because they don't understand what they are feeling and the don't deal with their feelings appropriately. Psychopathy is similar, in that there is a disconnect between what most people feel emotionally, and what they understand about emotions. Psychopaths could be completely unemotional, literally lacking the ability to feel anything. Many times, a psychopath will have one default emotion. They go through life, and as long as things go the way they want, or go in a way they are comfortable with, they could appear perfectly normal. But when anything happens where a normal person would feel sad, nervous, etc. They would instead always feel the same thing. Anger is the most common default emotion for psychopaths. So if something happened that would make a "normal" person sad, the psychopath would get angry. Often times, because a psychopath rarely feels anything when they do actually feel that one emotion, it becomes addicting. It is while feeling anger, to use that emotion as an example, that they feel a surge of adrenaline, the rush of being emotional, and it can cause them to seek situations in which they feel that more often and more intensely. This can mean that a psychopath feels no fear, sadness, regret, but is addicted to feeling angry. While angry, they may act in any number of ways, being prone to violence, because they feel no empathy toward others, nor do they have emotional ramifications based on the consequences of their actions. The main difference is that a sociopath feels emotions in a way that isn't the same as anyone else, tries to understand how to fit in, and works to cease feeling emotions because of the negative physical effects they have. A sociopath coukd feel guilt, which woukd result in really bad physical symptoms. A psychopath gets a high off of one particular feeling, and often starts seeking that high. They would never feel guilt, and if being angry causes them to be violent, they may become violent to create anger and feel that high. This is a pretty general and loose explanation, it's obviously way more complex than this. If you read a book called "The Iceman" about Richard Kuklinski, or watch the HBO interviews with him, it will show you a good example of a psychopath. I can't think of any great examples of a sociopath off the top of my head.