Psychopathic traits can be difficult to spot because people who have them may be adept at concealing them. However, new research suggests that the way someone describes personal experiences could offer subtle clues.
After examining more than 1,200 autobiographical accounts, researchers identified distinct language patterns, including fewer references to fear and unexpectedly negative descriptions of memories that should have been positive.
Participants with higher levels of boldness—a trait associated with fearlessness and self-confidence—were less likely to use anxiety-related terms such as “fear,” “afraid” and “worry.” They also mentioned mental illness less often.
Those scoring higher in disinhibition, which refers to difficulty managing impulses, tended to use more negative language when writing about the happiest moments and major turning points in their lives.
Their accounts also contained fewer positive words overall, along with fewer mentions of friends, accomplishments and personal success.
By contrast, people with higher levels of meanness—a trait linked to reduced empathy—used more positive language and referred more frequently to achievement and rewards.
Yet when discussing important life transitions, they used fewer terms connected with negative emotions.
Laura Drislane, a University of Mississippi researcher, said the findings suggest that psychopathic traits may influence not only behavior but also how people interpret and give meaning to their life stories.
Researchers found that psychopathic traits may be reflected in the language people use to describe their personal experiences
The research is based on the Triarchic Model of Psychopathy, which views psychopathy as a combination of three personality dimensions rather than a single, fixed condition.
Researchers Ky Bray and Drislane, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Mississippi, studied autobiographical writing from 451 participants. The group included 307 college students and 144 adults who said they had previously been incarcerated.
Each participant was asked to write about a high point, a low point and a significant turning point in their life. They also completed a questionnaire designed to measure psychopathic personality traits.
Computer software analyzed the written responses, counting words connected to positive and negative emotions, achievement, social confidence, risk-taking and other categories.
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The results question the common image of people with psychopathic traits as consistently cold or emotionless. Instead, their word choices shifted according to both the specific trait they displayed and the type of experience they were describing.
“People tend to think of psychopathy as one thing, but it’s actually multidimensional,” Bray said.
“What we mean by that is that everyone falls somewhere along a spectrum. Everyone shows some degree of meanness, boldness and disinhibition.
“Looking at psychopathy through these separate dimensions makes it possible to study how such traits appear in nonforensic populations, including people who have never committed a crime.
“It also helps researchers examine how these characteristics may influence college life, professional settings and personal relationships.”
Focusing on individual traits could reveal behavioral and relationship differences that might otherwise be hidden by applying one broad label to everyone.
“That’s one reason there has been a move away from calling people ‘psychopaths,’ because we don’t view psychopathy as a category,” Drislane said.
‘But psychopathic dimensions can predict important outcomes, things like crime, recidivism or intimate partner violence.
‘What our research, including this paper, suggests is that it’s important to look beyond that label and into the different components or dimensions of psychopathy, because each of those dimensions actually has a unique set of outcomes or things that it can predict.’
The researchers hope that a clearer understanding of these traits could eventually inform efforts to address them and understand how they develop.
‘If we want to be able to treat or ideally even prevent psychopathy from developing, we need to understand the mechanisms at play,’ she said.
‘That comes down to understanding the unique contributors for all three of these dimensions.’
