Charming Monsters:
A review of psychopathy testing
Have you ever known someone who was so charming that they quickly gained your trust only to have manipulated you for their own ends? Moreover, they seemed not to have any remorse for their immoral actions; it’s as if they lacked a conscience. The likelihood you came across a psychopath is low since the prevalence of this disorder is about 1%, but maybe you wish you could have tested them to explain their awful behavior. The problem is psychopathy, unlike other mental illnesses, does not cause suffering for the individual with the disorder, therefore the individual rarely seeks treatment. Most psychopaths who are tested and forced into therapy can be found in prison populations. This not only makes it hard to guess the prevalence of the disorder, but also means the tests of psychopathy have mainly been used and validated with incarcerated populations.
There are two main facets of the disorder, the interpersonal/affective factor, and the antisocial factor. The former relates to the lack of conscience and empathy as well as their superficial charm that allows them to manipulate people. The later includes behaviors that get them in trouble with the law such as impulsivity, irresponsibility, criminal versatility and poor behavioral controls. The two factors together insure that they will not only commit antisocial acts, but also have the tools to do it cunningly and not to feel any emotional guilt after. Thus, not only is psychopathy a good indicator of who will be inclined to commit crimes, but it is also a good predictor of who will re-offend once they are released. Therefore, a valid and reliable test has many social benefits especially in the forensic field.
One of the leading researchers in this field is Robert Hare. He created the PCL-R which is a twenty item symptom scale, in which each of the twenty items is given a score of 0, 1, or 2 based on how well it applies to the subject tested (0 being not at all, and 2 being a good match). Following the structured interview, the psychologist reviews the subject’s file records and history. The final score is from 0–40. A score of above 30 qualifies an individual for a diagnosis of psychopathy. People with no criminal backgrounds often score around 5 and many non-psychopathic criminal offenders score around 22. Indicating they are perhaps borderline psychopaths.
Although you can find a multitude of psychopath tests online which are not only entertaining to complete but are often based on the PCL-R, these results are often not very reliable or valid. Hare argues that the PCL-R should be used by trained licensed professionals under standardized conditions.
Therefore, if you want to find out if someone is a psychopath I urge you to look at the 20 item checklist and see how many of the symptoms that individual displays, and to what degree. However, take the results with a grain of salt. When you administer the test you are projecting your unexperienced personal bias on results that were obtained under unstandardized conditions.
