Interesting food for thought working in mental health, And have looked up both these terms at various times, and I know there are various definitions for each of them. Neither of them is officially a diagnosis, at least not anymore.

I personally like this tidbit distinction between the two, articulated in "Psychology Today:"
" Sociopaths are individuals whose callous, deceitful behavior is shaped primarily by environmental factors, such as child abuse or exposure to expedient behavior in others. Psychopathy is inborn and immutable."

In other words, functionally, they are loosely the same. But while life has damaged the sociopath's conscience and weakened his or her empathy, the psychopath's brain lacked these functions to begin with. In movies, the psychopath is creepier, because no matter how healthy, loving, and responsible parents and comnunity may be with this person, it may not matter in how they ultimately deceive and misuse people, even kill if it suits them.

I like the analogy (albeit flawed) of dogs vs wolves. Most dangerous dogs were conditioned into being that way. They are the sociopath equivalent. Healthy dogs are brilliant at reading our emotions and responding apppropriately to them. Wolves, on the other hand, and the very occasional "bad seed" dog, the psychopath equivalent, are inherently pre-programed as cold, calculating hunters, devoid of any sense of motivation to even care what others are feeling. Some may learn, through careful human socialization, to act certain ways for sake of reward, but most really don't ever care how we're feeling or fairing. Contrast that with the dogs that pine away when their beloved human dies.

One of my favorite references on the subject.....and the source of the quoted excerpt above:
[psychologytoday.com]

Most of the time I felt like I was reading about Donald Trump.

Thanks. I bookmarked the back site -- PsyBlog.
it looks like some interesting reading.

Psychopath vs. sociopath thinking dates from before neuroscience, and before ASPD, antisocial personality disorder. The word “disorder” may soon be dropped, replaced by terms like “criminally-inclined” and “non-criminally-inclined” pragmatists.

Non-criminally inclined pragmatists perform important functions. They do run for and easily win election to public office. Few people want to see surgery being performed. Few have the calm required of judges or military leaders. They can sell almost anything to almost anyone.

Yes, interesting. I've read a number of books on the topic. Their fearlessness led to them being used as commandos in WW2 and in bomb squads during the sixties. Both experiments were a fail, their impulsiveness and failure to be team players more than offset any advantages their fearlessness entailed. And curiously enough by middle age about a third of them lead normal lives, some even studying psychology to better mimic and understand normal emotions? Why ... because they figured out that friends, family, career were ultimately more fun and rewarding than screwing over everyone they meet for short term gain. The other two thirds are mostly dead or in jail for the long haul, in fact they are wildly overrepresented in prison populations.

Interesting, Familiar with this