PSYCHOPATHY-
10 Films/Movies That Help Explain Female Psychopaths.
A Personal Perspective: 10 films offer fresh takes on psychopathic manipulation.
Reviewed by Devon Frye

KEY POINTS-
Female psychopathy may be more complex than research psychologists suggest.
Ten recent films bring nuance to discussions about gender and psychopathy.
Film can give viewers insight into what psychopathic manipulation feels like.
The best films about psychopathy behave psychopathically towards viewers.
The best films about psychopaths, female or otherwise, behave like psychopaths—that is, they actively manipulate a viewer using film techniques that cause a viewer to feel betrayed.

A “psychopathic film,” I argue, uses film techniques like flashbacks, unreliable narrators, and mise-en-scene to give viewers a visceral experience of manipulation. These films titrate manageable feelings of betrayal for viewers so that they may recognize these feelings in the real world. When viewers know what manipulation feels like, they don’t need to rely on checklists, professional diagnoses, or gender differences to protect themselves from predacious people. (To read part 1 of this series, about gender differences in psychopathy, click here.)

Top 10 Female Psychopaths on Film
*Some spoilers ahead*

10. "Motherly" (Craig David Wallace, 2022)
This film is best left unspoiled. While imperfect in some ways, the film does offer a final act that upends viewers' expectations about who the real psychopath is in any given situation.

Lora Burke and Kristen MacCulloch in Craig David Wallace's
Lora Burke and Kristen MacCulloch in Craig David Wallace's "Motherly" (2021).

9. "The Stylist" (Jill Gevargizian, 2020)
Claire (Najarra Townsend) is an isolated hair stylist with a killer obsession. She uses her unique skills to scalp unwitting clients, later wearing their hair in front of a mirror to boost her low self-esteem.

Claire’s psychopathy is sympathetic: she’s socially awkward, desperately lonely, and eager for belonging. Her sexuality is almost non-existent. Instead, Claire craves an idealized romantic or friendship connection in a way that aligns with recent scholarship on female psychopathy. Claire may not break the “female psychopath” mold, but she’s a memorable representative example nonetheless.

Najarra Townsend and Brea Grant in Jill Gevargizian's
Najarra Townsend and Brea Grant in Jill Gevargizian's "The Stylist" (2020).

8. "Sissy" (Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes, 2022)
"Sissy" is a film that will keep viewers guessing throughout its runtime. Aisha Dee’s hilarious and heartfelt portrayal of a Black wellness influencer plagued by recognizable struggles like imposter syndrome and social anxiety initially invites viewers into Sissy’s point of view. We see Sissy as a victim because Sissy sees herself as one—until, that is, she reconnects with a childhood friend.

Her friend invites Sissy to her engagement party, along with a hostile friend group filled with queers, disabled folks, and people of color, when things go awry. This film more than any other on this list takes great pleasure in challenging viewers’ expectations about wellness, race, gender, sexuality, and ability, speaking directly to the issues of our time.
Aisha Dee in Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes's
Aisha Dee in Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes's "Sissy" (2022).

7. "What Keeps You Alive" (Colin Minihan, 2018)
In a classic horror set-up, wives Jules (Brittany Allen) and Jackie (Hannah Emily Anderson) spend their wedding anniversary in a remote cabin in the woods. When Jackie’s childhood friend shows up unannounced, Jules finds herself worried about how little she seems to know about her wife. Little white lies start adding up, and soon Jules discovers the truth.

Jackie’s character is a poster child for the argument that psychopaths are born, not made. Jackie even says that it's “nature, not nurture” that she behaves in such callous, violent ways. After capturing her recently escaped wife, Jackie holds Jules’ fingers to her pulse. She demands Jules count her heartbeats. Jules, drenched in sweat, tears, and blood, cries and pants as she realizes Jackie’s heartbeat is steady.

Jackie is teaching Jules (and the audience) that typical fight-or-flight responses for organisms in life-or-death scenarios can’t touch a psychopath’s nervous system. Jackie isn’t coded as psychopathic because she has unstable emotions, high anxiety, or covert forms of aggression, as research psychologists would suggest. Instead, it’s her biology that’s psychopathic.

This film could have done more to explore the psychological and emotional manipulation that typifies psychopathy rather than relying on biology alone to account for psychopathic behavior. That said, it’s a nice surprise that Jackie’s queerness has nothing to do with her psychopathy.

Brittany Allen and Hannah Emily Anderson in Colin Minihan's
Brittany Allen and Hannah Emily Anderson in Colin Minihan's "What Keeps You Alive" (2018).

6. "Speak No Evil" (Christian Tafdrup, 2022)

I would categorize "Speak No Evil" as “hard to watch.” The film follows a Danish couple who visits a Dutch couple they met on vacation. What follows is a black social satire about the ways face-saving social niceties can keep people trapped within the snares of psychopaths all too willing to exploit people’s inability to say “no” for fear of social rejection.

In many films with murderous couples, the male character is usually portrayed as the “true” psychopath while the woman is cast as a brainwashed victim. Here, however, the psychopathic characters are on equal footing. Take caution when watching: This film is mean (and eminently watchable).

Morten Burian and Fedja van Huêt in Christian Tafdrup's
Morten Burian and Fedja van Huêt in Christian Tafdrup's "Speak No Evil" (2022).

5. "M3GAN" (Gerard Johnstone, 2023)

"M3GAN" was a late entry to this list, mostly because the psychopath under consideration was neither male nor female, but silicon.

The black horror comedy—and queer cultural sensation—follows a family beset by grief. A young girl loses both her parents in a car crash. Her workaholic aunt takes her in but, distracted by the demands of her job, doesn’t have the maternal skills required to help her niece heal. The aunt creates M3GAN, an AI robot toy, to protect her niece’s physical and emotional health. M3GAN takes this directive seriously, with deadly consequences.

What elevates "M3GAN" from camp to horror is the doll’s desire to manipulate her victims before death. Before a kill, M3GAN gives dispassionate evaluations of her victims that are a hallmark of psychopathic manipulation. She destroys her victims emotionally before the final visceral kill.

Still from Gerard Johnstone's
Still from Gerard Johnstone's "M3GAN" (2023).

4. "Titane" (Julia Ducournau, 2021)

This French language film from Julia Ducournau still has me scratching my head. The striking use of mise-en-scene, lighting, and dream-like sequences create a hallucinogenic atmosphere as viewers follow the exploits of a murderous psychopathic woman who enjoys having sex with muscle cars.

Agathe Rousselle plays Alexia, a woman who goes on the run after a murder spree puts her in the crosshairs of law enforcement. To escape, she transforms her appearance to look like a young boy that went missing a decade earlier.

This gender swap is less about Alexia dismantling gender norms by living life as a man and more about how she views her body as a hunk of matter that must be molded like clay. She tapes down her breasts, bloodies and breaks her nose, and hides her pregnancy belly to survive, not to say anything political about how gender is a social construct. Her psychopathy overrides her gender at every stage.

Agathe Rousselle and Vincent Lindon in Julia Ducournau
Agathe Rousselle and Vincent Lindon in Julia Ducournau "Titane" (2021).

3. "Pearl" (Ti West, 2022)

There’s a final scene in the film where Pearl (played by the ferocious Mia Goth, who co-wrote the film) stares directly into the camera. We’ve seen her commit atrocities for the past two hours, yet Goth’s emotional range compels us to feel sympathy and understanding for Pearl’s actions.

The scene is a long take. Goth’s face transforms into several deranged expressions that almost look human. I read this final scene as a beautiful articulation of the psychopathic “mask,” that is, the image psychopaths present to those in their orbit.

What Goth so powerfully shows is that a psychopathic individual is a chameleon in social situations. If a neighbor wants to believe she’s a helpless victim, that’s the role Pearl plays. If a love interest sees her as an innocent lamb, that’s the role Pearl plays.

This final scene shows what happens when there’s no one left for Pearl to mimic. She’s a series of surface emotions that glide across her face but aren’t anchored to anything below.

Still of Mia Goth in Ti West's
Still of Mia Goth in Ti West's "Pear" (2022).

2. "Possessor" (Brandon Cronenberg, 2020)

Brandon Cronenberg’s "Possessor" is challenging to summarize. The sci-fi film uses hallucinatory sequences to depict how assassins in an alternate reality hijack the body of an unsuspecting victim to cause that person to murder a target.

Andrea Riseborough’s performance as assassin Tasya Vos is decidedly un-gendered. She’s numb, save for opportunities to kill. Her boss, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, has her own brand of psychopathy that makes for a compelling duo.

The most striking aspects of this film occur when Vos is inside the head of one of her victims, played by Christopher Abbot. The scene captures what happens when a psychopath attempts to hijack a person’s sense of self. Sound distorts, colors blur, and bodies enmesh within one another such that easy distinctions between Vos and her victim become indiscernible. Vos even dons a grotesque mask that looks like skin melting off her face.

The disquieting imagery and silent dance between these two characters get at something about psychopathic manipulation that’s difficult, if not impossible, to put into words. The dream-like logic of this scene provides affect rather than rationale. Viewers feel discomfort, confusion, and disorientation in our attempts to understand what’s happening. Like Vos’ victim, we end up succumbing to dissociation and defeat.

Still of Andrea Riseborough in Brandon Cronenberg's
Still of Andrea Riseborough in Brandon Cronenberg's "Possessor" (2020).
1. "Soft & Quiet" (Beth de Araújo, 2022)

"Soft & Quiet" played on my expectations about white women to such a degree that my mouth was on the floor for most of it. Unlike "Titane" or "Possessor," this film is firmly grounded within the reality of everyday life in the U.S. The editing makes it feel as though it was shot in one long take, giving it an urgent, real-time quality.

The film highlights how white women enact white supremacy with just as much ferocity and vitriol as any other gender, albeit with a twist.

The film begins with women gathering for a female empowerment group for overworked suburban women looking to find connection outside their roles as wives, mothers, and teachers. They use language from feminism to articulate the ways suburban norms isolate women from support, leading to low self-worth and self-efficacy. The gonzo violence that follows is shocking given how these women use their whiteness and femininity as a smokescreen for their racist agenda.

What’s more, the film gives the viewer insight into the difference between strictly narcissistic characters and psychopathic characters. A narcissistic character, for instance, initially takes on a leadership role in the group. Viewers are led to believe she’ll be the most violent when given the chance. Viewer expectations are upset, however, once the violence reaches a fever pitch. Suddenly the narcissistic leader dissolves into a small child. She begins to dissociate. Shaky camera movements, sound distortions, and strange camera angles work to capture her disorientation.

A psychopathic character, on the other hand, is initially introduced as less put together than the leader of the group. But once in the throes of violence, she’s enthralled. The camera keeps focus on her without distortion, suggesting this character doesn’t want or need to dissociate from the violent spectacle. This quality of presence while enacting horrific violence, to me, differentiates a person with narcissism from one with psychopathy.

Final Words
These films ask viewers to look beneath surface appearances of how someone presents to reflect on what they feel when in the presence of a predator. Personally, the moment I begin to feel chronic confusion, dissociation, nausea, shock, or betrayal, I know it’s time to walk away, gender be damned.

PSYCHOPATHY-
What Gender Does—and Doesn't—Tell Us About Psychopathy.
Female psychopaths may be more complex than most research suggests.
Reviewed by Devon Frye

KEY POINTS-
Female psychopaths are widely seen as different from their male counterparts.
The social conditioning hypothesis argues that female psychopaths are neurotic, hypersexual, and driven in part by a need for social acceptance.
But in reality, gender norms don't fully capture how psychopathic individuals might behave.
Researchers who study female psychopaths may not factor in the influence of their own biases and social conditioning.
Liz Lemon, Tina Fey’s character in the TV show "30 Rock," poses a question that’s plagued feminists for decades: Why aren’t there more female serial killers? Today we have an answer. They’re on our movie screens.

This two-part series will look at the construct of the “female psychopath.” In part 1, I dissect the concept of the “female psychopath” to question whether gender is a helpful lens to consider the different ways psychopathic tendencies present. In part 2, I'll explore ten films with female psychopaths from the past five years and detail how they help us better grasp the true heart of psychopathy: predation without dissociation.

The “Female” Psychopath
A glance at contemporary research on female psychopathy brings up a few themes. There are those hoping to determine if Hare’s psychopathy checklist can adequately screen for differences in gender (Vital et al, 2002). Others ask if the Rorschach test might give trace clues as to a woman’s psychopathic tendencies (Smith et al, 2021). Still more rely on brain scans and the medical model to determine what’s unique about female psychopaths’ physiology (Harenski et al, 2014).

What’s certain for most researchers is that the female psychopath is a different beast than her male counterpoint. She’s eager for social acceptance, displays more neurotic tendencies, has unstable emotions, is more prone to social and relational forms of manipulation, and uses her sexuality rather than brute force to coerce her victims.

These mainstream studies on female psychopathy use cultural norms to explain the different presentations in male and female psychopaths. Young girls are socialized to be kind, polite, and internalizing, we’re told, while young boys are socialized for aggression and acting out. It’s therefore a given that female psychopaths are more eager for social acceptance and sexual manipulation than male psychopaths, given the impact of social conditioning.

While these well-worn tropes about the differences between men and women are tempting to believe, they may have the unintentional effect of simplifying a much more complex situation. As a cultural studies researcher, I can see the value of these “social construction” arguments. I’ve spent a career studying the insidious ways culture can influence developing brains, hearts, and minds. The impact of social conditioning cannot be overstated.

And yet.
How certain can we be that it’s the psychopathic individual—and not the researchers studying them—that are in fact the ones most impacted by social conditioning?

Epistemology: How Do We Know What We Know?
I approach this question as an epistemologist might. Epistemology is the philosophy of asking, “How do we know what we know?”

When reading research articles about female psychopathy, I take this epistemological approach seriously: How do researchers know what they know about women, about psychopathy, and about the explanatory power of their chosen research methodologies?

To help answer these questions, I consider a researcher’s “positionality,” as well as my own. Positionality is a concept developed by feminist scientists and philosophers, like Donna Haraway, who claim that a scientist’s position in society—their race, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, etc.—influences how they come to know the world (Haraway, 1988). When researchers don’t consider their own socialization, assumptions, and biases, the knowledge they produce tends to maintain social hierarchies and unequal power dynamics the researcher inherited from her cultural upbringing.

Let’s think of a hypothetical researcher socialized as white and male who has spent a significant amount of time training to interview inmates thought to be somewhere on the psychopathic spectrum. His research would indicate what behavioral and emotional traits to pay attention to when talking to men vs. women (in this hypothetical situation, considerations for race, sexuality, or nonbinary/transgender identities aren’t in play). He may rely on his binary understanding of gender given both his training and the fact he was raised and socialized in the U.S. as a white male.

This hypothetical researcher may underestimate the effects of what I might call his cultural countertransference and projection when interviewing women. That is, if this male researcher expects a female interviewee to behave in a hyper-sexualized, validation-seeking manner, it’s possible, and even likely, that a true psychopath will sense this and play into those assumptions as a tool of manipulation.

Or more troubling, if this same researcher doesn’t find a woman behaving in a sexualized or internalizing way, he may miss the signs that the person in front of him is in fact psychopathic. In short, his positionality, education, upbringing, and diagnostic tools produce blind spots through no fault of his own.

That’s why I think we can’t rely on the social conditioning hypothesis alone to explain how a female psychopath might behave. And I think Liz Lemon might agree with me when I argue that the term “female psychopath” is like Bic's "For Her" pens: a head-scratching category that misses the point that pens are pens, regardless of the hand that uses them.

Film and Psychopathy
Filmmakers, unhindered by the constraints of a research psychologist, are able to provide many more accurate, diverse, and compelling examples of psychopaths who happen to be women, though this is a relatively recent trend.

In their comprehensive overview of psychopaths on film, Samuel J. Leistedt M.D., Ph.D., and Paul Linkowski M.D., Ph.D., have only this to say about female psychopaths on movie screens: “As in reality, film female psychopaths are rare (and not well known and studied), and when used, they often serve as scheming manipulators whose main weapons are sexual” (Leistedt and Linkowski, 2013). I’m happy to report that in the ten years since their analysis, female psychopaths of all stripes are starting to have their day at the movies.

The films I'll introduce in par 2 explore how gender intersects with other identities, like race, ability, sexuality, nationality, political affiliation, and religion, to complicate any easy distinction between male and female psychopathy. Many times when research psychologists discuss women, there's little by way of an intersectional analysis—that is, an analysis of how gender is also influenced by a person's race, socioeconomic status, sexuality, and other markers of identity that mediate behavior.

Many of these psychopathic characters wouldn’t fit within the models provided by contemporary research into “female” psychopaths. These characters therefore offer valuable lessons about the ways cultural norms can obscure reality rather than describe it.

Do Psychopaths Really Understand Emotions?
It may depend on their childhood.
Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

KEY POINTS-
Individuals with psychopathic tendencies show a lack of empathy, but they can also be charming and manipulative.
Low empathy could stem from low awareness of others' emotions, while manipulation skills seem to suggest high awareness of others' emotions.
A study shows lower emotional awareness in those with greater psychopathy levels, but only if they also experienced childhood abuse/neglect.
Many high-psychopathy individuals without childhood abuse/neglect had high levels of emotional awareness, possibly helping them be manipulative.

When you hear the word psychopath, some scary people come to mind. In the extreme, psychopathy can be associated with torture, murder, and an utter disregard for the well-being of others.

An open question, however, is why psychopaths do not show empathy or remorse for the suffering they cause in others. One possibility is that they have low emotional awareness. In other words, they could fail to show empathy simply because they don’t recognize or pay attention to how others are feeling; that is, they may not really know about or understand others' emotions.

But another possibility is that they truly don’t care. In other words, they might be very aware that another person is suffering, but simply feel no desire to help them (and perhaps even enjoy it).

In a recent study [1], we tried to answer this question by measuring both emotional awareness and psychopathic tendencies in the same individuals. This allowed us to test whether higher psychopathy scores were associated with lower emotional awareness scores, or whether high-psychopathy individuals were just as aware of emotions as anyone else.

What did we find? As is often the case in research, the answer wasn’t a simple “yes” or “no.” Instead, as I will explain below, it appeared to depend on whether an individual experienced childhood maltreatment, such as abuse or neglect.

Before conducting the study, we weren’t sure what we might find. This is because some psychopathic traits seem to indicate high emotional awareness, while others suggest low emotional awareness.

For example, some psychopaths can be very charming and manipulative. This suggests they know how others are feeling and are good at exploiting that knowledge for their own gain. These so-called “successful psychopaths” can also attain corporate leadership positions that require good social and emotional skills [2].

On the other hand, many psychopaths have trouble paying attention to things that aren’t helpful in serving their own selfish goals [3]. So, you might think they are simply unaware of others’ emotions due to a lack of attention. Psychopaths show other traits linked to low emotional awareness as well, such as impulsivity and lack of reflective thinking [4, 5].

But there is also a third possibility: that some types of psychopathy are associated with low emotional awareness, while others are not. Although less frequently discussed outside of research settings, psychologists actually distinguish between two types of psychopathy: so-called “primary” and “secondary” psychopathy [6]. A major difference between these two types of psychopathy is in how a person’s traits were acquired.

Defining Primary vs. Secondary Psychopathy
People with primary psychopathy may have been “born that way". In other words, they may have genes that promote psychopathic personality traits, and no specific event may have caused them to start acting the way they do.

In contrast, secondary psychopathy may be caused by childhood trauma, such as abuse/neglect. In other words, psychopathic tendencies in such individuals may develop in response to traumatic events as a coping mechanism. To be clear, the vast majority of people who experience childhood trauma do not become psychopaths, but this does appear to happen on occasion.

People with primary and secondary psychopathy also show important behavioral differences. For example, individuals with primary psychopathy tend to be more socially successful, deceitful, ruthless, and manipulative, and their emotional responses appear dampened.

In contrast, those with secondary psychopathy can experience intense negative emotion (e.g., anger, frustration), they show greater risk-taking, impulsivity, short-term thinking, and antisocial/violent criminal behavior, and they often end up in prison [7]. When considering these differences, one might therefore think secondary psychopathy is more likely to involve low emotional awareness.

To examine this possibility, our study also gathered information about whether individuals had experienced childhood maltreatment, whether they felt intense negative emotions, and whether they showed other traits and behaviors consistent with primary vs. secondary psychopathy.

The Role of Childhood Abuse and Neglect
Our findings showed that emotional awareness was lower in people with stronger psychopathic tendencies, but only if they had experienced childhood abuse/neglect. This and other results suggested that emotional awareness was only lower in those with secondary psychopathy. In contrast, many people with primary psychopathy (i.e., high psychopathy without childhood trauma) still showed high levels of emotional awareness.

These results help make sense of certain aspects of psychopathy that might seem contradictory. For example, one might ask how a psychopath can be skilled at manipulating others’ emotions but also unaware of those emotions. Our study suggests that both of these things probably aren’t true for any single psychopath and that the specific type of psychopathy matters.

One type of psychopath may have high emotional awareness, and this may help them ruthlessly “manipulate their way to the top” in corporate positions through charm and deceit (primary psychopathy). Another type of psychopath may have low emotional awareness, act on their own emotions without reflecting on them, and make risky/impulsive choices that land them in prison (secondary psychopathy).

Our findings also link together with other work to highlight ways low emotional awareness in secondary psychopathy could result from early learning processes. If a child is left alone all day (parental neglect), or if they most often observe anger and feel fear/shame (in the context of abuse), then they would be expected to have trouble understanding emotions. This is because they simply wouldn’t get to see and experience a wide enough range of emotions in themselves and others to learn from.

In support of this idea, a previous study in our lab [8] specifically showed that emotional awareness was lower in people who had experienced abuse/neglect. In this light, one might even gain a bit of empathy for individuals with secondary psychopathy, as their undesirable traits may stem largely from getting “unlucky” with poor parenting and a lack of opportunities for social/emotional learning.

It's important to keep in mind that this was just a single study and that it recruited volunteer participants from around a university. While some participants had high psychopathy scores, this is still different than studying prisoners or ruthless businessmen. More research is needed to make sure we would see the same pattern when studying such individuals.

That being said, it is helpful to see how the puzzle of psychopathy, empathy, and emotional awareness may fit together and how childhood maltreatment may lead to these dangerous patterns of behavior. Exploring ways to improve emotional awareness in individuals with secondary psychopathy, as is done in some psychotherapies, may also be important as we seek ways to minimize its negative impact.

Is "Successful Psychopath" an Oxymoron?
Personal Perspective: There is no such thing as a "successful psychopath."
Reviewed by Kaja Perina

The “successful psychopath” has become a trendy phrase. People talk about it and believe successful psychopaths exist. Some may even cultivate psychopathic traits because they have read that many leaders and executives who possess such traits are deemed successful.

One almost gets the sense that some people admire psychopaths because they have traits that can bring success. For example, Dr. Robert Hare, a foremost psychopathy researcher for over fifty years, has described psychopaths as “cool under fire.”1 They often have charisma and are disarmingly glib.

Pathological Personality Impairments Preclude “Success”
But the truth is that the "successful psychopath" is an oxymoron. Kent Kiehl, a preeminent psychopathy researcher and professor at the University of New Mexico, has categorically supported this position: “It is an oxymoron to suggest that someone is a ‘successful’ psychopath because by definition, to be afflicted with a personality disorder (e.g., psychopathy) one must have pathological symptoms that cause impairment in multiple domains of one’s life.”2 With such impairments present, there can be no “success.”

Aversion to Sustained Effort and Planning Preclude “Success”
When considering those who display many psychopathic personality traits, it is important to pay attention to what they do and how they do things. Having lived with two psychopaths—a mother and sister—I noticed early on that they like the quick fix. “Do it fast and get it over with” was their modus operandi. How things were done did not matter. According to Dr. Martha Stout, psychologist and author of The Sociopath Next Door, people high in psychopathy tend to have “an aversion to sustained effort and organized projects of work, and, of course, this preference for ease is extremely self-limiting where success in the real world is concerned.”3

Psychopaths Don't Often Contemplate Consequences
Dr. Hare has concluded that psychopaths much prefer “life in the fast lane,” an easy deal, a clever scheme, a convincing act, a smooth lie, and often, “the action involves breaking the rules.”4 Psychopaths care little about consequences. They often show little or no forethought about the tasks at hand. If they should be found out for misdeeds, they will rely on manipulation and lies to cover their tracks. They are egotistical and believe they get things done better and faster than anybody else. According to Dr. Hervey Cleckley, author of The Mask of Sanity: "Their behavior demonstrates an irrationality and incompetence that are gross and obvious.”5

“Partial” or ”Complete” Psychopath
Cleckley, a pioneer of psychopathy analysis from the mid-twentieth century marked a distinction between what he called a “partial” versus a “complete” psychopath. In The Mask of Sanity, Cleckley uses this distinction in his analysis of Scarlett O’Hara, the protagonist of the historical novel Gone with the Wind. He stated that she was a partial psychopath, in that she had displayed characteristics and actions that separated her from being a “complete psychopath.” 6 Scarlett O’Hara, while often icily cold, calculating, and manipulative, akin to a psychopath, nevertheless successfully completed tasks with careful attention to detail. While she was often selfish and emotionally impoverished in matters of love, she shouldered many burdens to keep life going during the Civil War.

Today, using the gold standard for psychopathy measurement, the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised,7 some might say that her traits would put her somewhere on a psychopathic spectrum, but they would not rise to a sufficiently high level for her to be deemed a clinical psychopath. If she had been a psychopath, she simply could not have been successful. The term is an oxymoron.

Why Some Psychopaths Succeed.
New findings on the "successful psychopath" phenomenon.
Reviewed by Tyler Woods

KEY POINTS-
Psychopathy is characterized by callous and unemotional traits.
People with more psychopathic traits may be more susceptible to engaging in immoral or criminal acts.
A subset of people with psychopathic traits could use these to their advantage and be more successful in their lives.

The concept of psychopathy conjures up stereotypes from films of aggressive and callous individuals willing to inflict harm on unsuspecting strangers purely for their own amusement. However, the science of psychopathy is somewhat less exciting than this and has tended to focus on measurement issues and the degree to which it is accurate to label somebody a "psychopath" at all.

More recently, however, attention is being turned toward the notion that people can have relatively high levels of psychopathic traits while still living productive and socially-meaningful lives.

Defining Psychopathy
Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of empathy, guilt, and remorse, and a tendency towards impulsive and risky behavior. Traditionally, psychopathy has been seen as a negative and maladaptive trait, and individuals with psychopathic tendencies have often been associated with criminal behavior and social dysfunction.

There are several tools that are commonly used to measure psychopathy and its associated traits, including the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R), which is currently the gold-standard assessment method. These tools assess various aspects of psychopathy, including traits such as manipulativeness, lack of remorse, and grandiosity.

The PCL-R is scored on a scale from 0 to 40, with higher scores indicating a greater presence of psychopathic traits. Each item on the checklist is scored on a 3-point scale, with 0 being "not present," 1 being "presently or possibly present," and 2 being "definitely present."

The total score is calculated by summing the scores on each item. Although not a diagnostic tool, the summed score can be used for assessing psychopathic traits and for providing information that can be used in treatment and management decisions in clinical or forensic contexts.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), psychopathic traits are characterized by a pervasive pattern of disregard for the rights of others, as well as a lack of remorse or guilt. These traits can manifest in a variety of ways, including manipulation, impulsivity, and a lack of empathy or concern for others. Individuals with such traits may be more likely to engage in criminal or unethical behavior, and they may struggle with relationships and other aspects of life.

"Successful Psychopaths"?
Despite the negative framing of the DSM, there have been recent investigations into the concept of "successful psychopathy," as researchers have begun to explore the ways in which individuals with psychopathic traits might be able to achieve success in society. Successful psychopathy refers to the ability of individuals with psychopathic traits to achieve success in their careers or other areas of life, despite their lack of empathy and other traditionally negative traits.

There are a variety of factors that might contribute to successful psychopathy, including intelligence, charm, and a lack of fear or anxiety. People with psychopathic traits may also be more likely to take risks and be more confident and decisive, which can be valuable qualities in certain careers or situations.

These ideas were recently investigated by a team of psychologists led by Louise Wallace, a lecturer in forensic psychology at the University of Derby (U.K.). The researchers reviewed data from 18 published studies of psychopathy and were looking for things that might associate psychopathy with positive outcomes, rather than the negative issues reported within the traditional literature.

What they found was particularly interesting. Writing in their paper, Wallace and colleagues suggest:

"The combination of fearless dominance and affective-interpersonal traits (e.g., charm, manipulativeness, and grandiosity), which are more consistently associated with success, but an absence of impulsivity and an erratic lifestyle... could suggest that moderate levels of psychopathy could enable an individual to become more successful, but extremely high levels could be detrimental to successful outcome."

This may mean that those with more immunity to stress and a willingness to take risks within their personal and professional lives—despite these being indicators of subclinical psychopathic traits—may be at a unique advantage for living successful lives. The authors take aim at the existing psychopathy literature within their paper, identifying how a research focus on violence and antisocial behavior from those working within forensic psychology has obscured the presence of the "successful psychopathy" construct.

The Multifaceted Nature of Psychopathy
It is important to recognize that psychopathy is a complex and multifaceted concept, and that successful psychopathy does not necessarily mean that individuals with psychopathic traits are healthy or well-adjusted. In fact, many people with psychopathic traits may struggle with relationships and other aspects of life, and may also be more prone to engaging in unethical or criminal behavior.

That said, the concept of successful psychopathy highlights the ways in which individuals with psychopathic traits may be able to achieve success in society. It represents an exciting development in the psychological literature on psychopathy, describing how psychopathic traits may be associated with certain advantages in certain situations. It is important to recognize the limitations and complexities of the concept of psychopathy and to approach it with the nuance that this new research identifies as being necessary.

Haaland on song at Etihad stadium

Not So Bad
There’s no perfect situation. No perfect job. No perfect community. No perfect house. No perfect spouse.
There won’t be a day when everything will be exactly the way you want it to be. Being thankful for the things that are mostly the way you want them to be, will make what isn’t seem not so bad.

Bedtime Worries
Bedtime isn’t the time to solve problems. You probably won’t solve the problem and you’ll create a new one: you’ll be exhausted the next day.
Solve problems when your mind is fresh.

Quiet Thought
Mindfulness teaches you that there’s not that much you need to think about. That if you’re quiet and observant, much of what you need to know will become apparent. Not everything, but a lot.
Slow down, quiet down, focus.

Music And Your Mood
Listening to sad songs will make you sad. So why do it?
Listening to angry music will make you angry. So why do it?
Listen to music that calms you.
And listen to music that makes you feel positive.