About the rule breakers and psychopaths - I think most people actually switch to reward/punishment reasoning for rule following when empathy and social feedback is lacking. For example, if you know that no one will get hurt (eg running a red light with no cars around) the reasoning switches primarily to risk/reward (are there cameras or cops?) and habits (mental shortcuts and pathways that have been reinforced).
Most of our decisions are made out of habits trained on common situations, and only when the underlying assumptions are violated do we start re-evaluating the stories and heuristics we tell ourselves for our actions.
Regarding rules, I suspect we apply different sets of rules in different situations. Running a red light breaks "would the cops catch me?" yet does not break "would my friends be angry with me?"
I've not looked into habits much. They are obviously powerful shortcuts that save on cognitive workload.
Is it some sort of a hyperbole or I really have to hate people and be physically sick to qualify as a lonely person according to psychiatrists?
You rise a valid point though, while often being objectively lonely and "disconnected" I seldom felt discomfort about it. That would explain good health marks.
These physical sensations follow the emotion (of loneliness) itself--an affective experience preceding, and triggering, the physical after-effects--which PieterH did not speak much about. I wonder why.
[1] See https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bakbc/e...
I don't feel loneliness in my gut; I feel it in my head.
I'm lonely, but sleep a solid 8 hours (except if bothered by other factors such as mismanagement of heat etc which will wake me up). I don't get sick, eat a normal amount and don't feel colder than usual.
I tried (like a good nerd) to reverse engineer all our emotions in my book "The Psychopath Code." Loneliness fell into my group of "Tribal Emotions" (thus evolved to help us form extended families), and here is how I defined it:
"Loneliness - the emotion of being disconnected. You feel physical pain in your intestines and chest when you see others enjoying themselves. You sleep lightly and wake often. Your immune system starts to slow and you start to get sick. Your metabolism slows down, yet you eat more often than usual. Your circulation slows, and you feel cold."
http://content.psychopathcode.com/chapter6.html