By Dr. Todd Grande

When it comes to personality constructs, psychopathy is probably one of the most prominently featured and sensationalized in the media, but one of the least understood by the general public. Psychopathy is a technical term used in personality research; however, it goes by many names in popular culture, such as sociopathy and antisocial personality disorder.

Psychopathy is a collection of traits, which tend to cluster together, but these traits do not necessarily appear together in every instance. It can best be understood as a two-factor construct, which means it does not necessarily represent one overarching construct and individuals with these personality traits tend to manifest characteristics from one factor or the other. This is well illustrated in one of the most popular instruments used to assess psychopathy, the Psychopathic Checklist Revised, which was developed by a researcher named Robert Hare. In this instrument, we see that factor one psychopathy contains characteristics like grandiosity, superficial charm, callousness, manipulativeness, pathological lying, and a lack of remorse. Factor two psychopathy features traits like a need for stimulation, impulsively, irresponsibility, juvenile delinquency, and trouble controlling behavior. Sometimes factor two psychopathy is referred to as sociopathy, but this term is largely absent from contemporary research literature. In terms of language that occurs in current research, factor two psychopathy overlaps considerably with antisocial personality disorder, which is an official diagnosis listed in the 5th edition of “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual” (DSM-5). The DSM-5 contains classifications of mental disorders that a counselor, psychologist, social worker, psychiatrist, as well as other related mental health professionals can reference to make diagnoses that inform treatment. So someone can be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, but they cannot be diagnosed with psychopathy or sociopathy.

Whether we are talking about psychopathy, sociopathy, or antisocial personality disorder, it’s clear that a number of the traits associated with these constructs are considered to have negative consequences for the individual who possesses the traits and society as a whole. In fact, evidence strongly supports this theory. We know that individuals with antisocial personality disorder, for example, are at higher risk of engaging in a variety of criminal activity and often become involved with the criminal justice system. It is estimated that about 70 to 80 percent of the male prison population qualifies for diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder. Individuals with antisocial personality disorder are at greater risk to use drugs or alcohol excessively, to suffer from depression or anxiety, and be diagnosed with other personality disorders, like narcissistic or borderline personality disorder. There is also a pervasive and destructive stigma associated with antisocial personality disorder, which in addition to the symptom characteristics of the disorder, contribute to a failure to seek mental health treatment. Mental health clinicians often regard antisocial personality disorder and by extension, psychopathic traits, as difficult to treat and as having a poor prognosis.

Although there is no question that psychopathy comes at a high cost for many individuals, it is simplistic to think of psychopathy as binary — as a condition that is either present or not present — or as a construct that is uniformly negative. Psychopathic traits, like other collections of personality traits and characteristics, run on a continuum, and at some levels are adaptive (functional and productive) and at other levels are maladaptive (non-productive). Similarly, specific psychopathic traits may be adaptive in many situations, without necessarily being associated with some of the negative consequences like criminality or irresponsibility.

Two articles, both published in 2018 in the journal “Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment,” give examples of how certain psychopathic traits tend to be overrepresented in certain occupations and how these traits may actually be quite helpful. The first article, titled “Psychopathy and Heroism in First Responders: Traits Cut from the Same Cloth?” was written by Patton and colleagues and examined the relationship between heroism and psychopathic traits. The second article was written by Falkenbach and colleagues. This article, titled “From Theoretical to Empirical: Considering Reflections of Psychopathy Across the Thin Blue Line” had a similar research focus, but was based on police recruits.

The findings of these studies offer new perspectives about how we can think about psychopathy and personality traits. Heroism and altruism were positively associated with traits like narcissism, boldness, and sensation seeking, which are traits that could be considered adaptive in this context. Heroism and altruism were also positively associated with workplace conduct problems and interpersonal workplace deviance, indicating that the relationship between antisocial and prosocial behavior is a little more complex than the previous theory that suggested they are opposite poles of the same dimension. The trait of cold-heartedness, specifically a lack of empathy, was found to be elevated in police recruits, which at first glance may seem disheartening. However, in this context, a lack of empathy may actually be adaptive. When one is working in violent and stressful situations, it may be helpful to have the ability to distance oneself from emotions. Furthermore, in the study of first responders, there was a negative association observed between heroism and a lack of empathy, so there were mixed results on this specific point. Both articles made it clear that the findings do not indicate that first responders or police recruits meet the definition of classic psychopathy, rather there are certain psychopathic traits that were more elevated in these groups. It appears that psychopathy is more complex than we once thought and the traits that are associated with psychopathy seem to represent a paradox. Adaptive and maladaptive traits tend to appear together, and they can be helpful or harmful depending on the occupation or context.

This information about psychopathy supports the theory that the usefulness of classifying psychopathic traits in distinct categories may be limited. Although this is helpful in a number of situations like diagnosing a mental disorder, it misses the nuances of psychopathic trait profiles and specifically, the advantages that some of the profiles carry. These helpful psychopathic trait profiles bolster the argument in favor of recognizing “successful psychopathy,” which retains the prosocial components of psychopathy with only minimal levels of the antisocial traits. Our society certainly needs cautiousness, but we also need, to some extent, boldness and sensation-seeking. Although many appreciate the value of empathy and experiencing emotions intensely, those traits are not ideal for every situation. What we have here is more evidence that supports the value of diversity. There are a lot of different types of diversity, including diversity of personality traits. Personality traits are relatively stable over time and all traits can potentially offer value to society. Perhaps we need to learn to adapt to the personalities around us, within reason, rather than believing that others should change a core part of themselves. A society without diversity of personality traits, including psychopathic traits, would be a society that simply could not function.

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Dr. Todd L. Grande, Ph.D., LPCMH, LCDP, CAADC, NCC, is an associate professor at Wilmington University’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Click here for more information on Wilmington University.

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