Well...the beginning of the article discusses Trump - and asks the question, essentially, what's gone so wrong that people would even consider electing him - when even respected psychiatrists have broken the Goldwater rule to say that he has Narcissistic personality disorder. When regular people don't need to be psychiatrists to see that something is amiss with his empathic and moral sense. A variant of sociopathy - in the same cluster of personality disorders. Yet, only psychiatrists can diagnose it, so that leaves the world in a bit of a hard place, doesn't it? I think because sociopaths tend to be "successful" in a world that rewards strong competitiveness, and setting emotions aside - and shuns "feelers", and "bleeding hearts" - sociopaths and narcissists are not going to find themselves getting mental health help. The people they affect, might.
Sociology looks at the health of society. Maybe you are used to seeing health from the perspective of individual functioning. Sociopaths would thrive quite well in an environment that rewards their behaviour. Empaths, would not. And I think the article makes that point quite clearly. It's saying that the social environment in many ways - including predictors of success - we've created in society, have become increasingly sociopathic. Some of the emotional lability that might be seen in those considered "empaths" would not be there, not be problematic, if it wasn't socially constructed to be a problem.
And actually, the authors of the study are attempting to mediate the dichotomy by presenting the concept of "apaths" and the role they can play.
