The Bones of Contention

Contradictions and inconsistencies in psychopathy research

Example of projectile trauma with an entrance wound to the frontal bone and exit wound visible on the occipital. Credit: Trauma: Gunshot Wounds by Smithsonian [exhibit: Written in Bone, How Bone Biographies Get Written] is used for educational and non-commercial purposes as outlined by the Smithsonian.

For the link below for part one of this series:

Chapter 2 of Dr. Karen Mitchell’s thesis covers the “areas of contention regarding attributes of people of dark personality,” highlighting a handful of disagreements between the various models on the market and the academics who have developed them. Her own research, covered later in the thesis, is designed to resolve as many of these inconsistencies as possible. For instance, are all PPP’s (persistent predatory personalities) sadistic, or only a subset? Are they all impulsive and poor at planning, or controlled and premeditated in their actions? How does sexuality fit into the picture?

But the disagreements go deeper than that. For instance, some researchers believe that the three “dark triad” conceptualizations (psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism) are really three ways of describing the same thing. Others think they are distinct from each other, perhaps with some overlap. Still others add several varieties of narcissism, for instance. Researchers like Robert Hare include criminality as feature of psychopathy; others like David Cooke see it not as a core attribute but as a behavioral manifestation. There is also disagreement over whether these types should be conceptualized as discrete disorders or just as extremes on the continuum of “normal personality.”

Pretty much everyone will agree that there is something going on—some object of interest that we’re trying to capture and understand with all of these concepts. But wherever you look there is confusion. Mitchell would agree with those few other researchers who have “discussed the need to refine, simplify, and clarify rather than to continue researching overlapping, contradictory conceptualisations.” You can’t fight what you don’t understand. As she writes:

A mismatch exists in the academic literature between extensive narrative about DP characteristics, such as drive for control and power, predatoriness, and vindictiveness, and models and assessment tools created and/or promoted by the same researchers that do not contain these attributes.

These are the specific bones of contention Mitchell focuses on in this chapter:

• the fundamental nature of those of DP

• control, power, and dominance

• impulsiveness versus strategic orientation

• the nature of sexuality

• transparency and information usage

• grooming and impression management

• sadism, including deriving pleasure from causing harm, pain, discomfort, and humiliation to others

• instrumental aggression

The Fundamental Nature of DP

It’s crazy how inconsistently researchers think about these concepts. Mitchell quotes Paulhus and Williams (of Dark Triad fame) describing Machiavellians and narcissists as “interpersonal irritants.” Widom describes dark personalities as “carefree.” Contrast that with Shengold, who calls them soul murderers, or Babiak: “cold-blooded” and “shameless.” The latter capture something of the “malevolent core” of these people; the former, not so much. Needless to say, there’s a pretty huge gap between annoying people and those who murder souls.

Control, Power, and Dominance

Spoiler: Mitchell will identify control as the key feature of the PPP. Yet in Robert Hare’s PCL-R, the current standard for assessing psychopathy, “The words control, power, and dominance are not mentioned.” Machiavellians, who manipulate in order to get their way, can arguably be described as controlling. Lobaczewski sometimes refers to this feature as “controlled pathological egotism,” sometimes manifesting as “egotistic thought-terrorization.” Mitchell calls it “coercive control.” She cites an interesting study:

In Kirkman’s (2005) in-depth study of women who had partnered men living in the community who met all or most of the criteria for psychopathy, based on women’s reporting using the Hare P-Scan (Hare & Herve, 1999), 60% of the men did not commit physical violence but engaged in coercive control, emotional abuse, and psychological torture, including the implementation of rules and punishment, character assassination, and controlling eating and sleeping. Women in the study reported the creation of a climate of fear that terrified them and served as a means of domination or control.

It is also the means used by pedophile clergymen and “the core driver of petty tyranny in organisations … when one ‘lords his or her power over others’.” She cites another researcher who considers coercive control “a liberty crime that erodes personal freedoms and choice, resulting in a state of subjugation in the victim.” In cults this egotism takes a form “whereby their truth is the absolute and only truth, and no opposing view is tolerated.”

Translate all this onto the macroscial level and you get totalitarianism (or pathocracy). Here’s how Lobaczewski described one aspect of such a system:

Both inside and outside the boundaries of countries affected by [pathocracy], a purposeful and conscious system of control, terror, and diversion is thus set to work whose task was to prevent the pathological nature of the system from being revealed.

In fact, pathocracy is perhaps the supreme expression of the PPP’s desire for power, control, and dominance.

Impulsiveness vs. Strategic Orientation

I believe the idea that psychopaths are inherently impulsive traces back to Cleckley (though he also described some “high-functioning” professionals as psychopaths). Again, there is a stark difference between the bumbling psychopath who just can’t control himself and the evil genius pulling strings and manipulating others to achieve his ends. But there are hints that the latter might be closer to the truth. For instance, “A study of 125 Canadian criminal homicide offenders found that 93.3% of the homicides carried out by psychopathic offenders were instrumental—that is, ‘associated with premeditation, motivated by an external goal and not preceded by a potent affective reaction’.”

In an article on the “successful psychopath,” Mullins-Sweatt et al. took a novel approach:

The researchers collected data from psychologists with an interest in law, from attorneys, and from clinical psychology professors to obtain descriptions of individuals with whom they worked and who were considered psychopaths successful in their endeavours. It was the first substantial data collected on people thought to be of DP who were not perpetrators in the justice system. The researchers argued it would be difficult to sample enough individuals within a respective profession to find the rare psychopath, and once identified, the psychopathic person would be unlikely to be forthcoming with accurate data about themselves.

Psychopaths in Mullins-Sweatt and colleagues’ study did not demonstrate irresponsible or impulsive behaviours.

Similarly, Babiak, in a corporate study, “found that participants with high psychopathy scores held high-ranking executive positions in their companies,” again, not impulsive.

Back in 1948 Karpman distinguished between primary and secondary psychopathy (similar to Lobaczewski’s characterization of genetic/psychopathy vs. environmental/characteropathy), with some later researchers associating impulsivity with the secondary type. I personally think this may be the case, perhaps best represented as a Venn diagram with a portion of the “primary” psychopaths also having “secondary” features. In other words, maybe that infamous psychopathic impulsivity is a bug, not a feature.

Woodworth and Porter attempt to reframe the issue, writing that “it may be that impulsivity in psychopaths has less to do with a lack of control than with conscious decision making that depends on a rapid consideration of the gravity of the consequences.” What we see as an impulsive decision could simply be the external manifestation of a conscious choice we simply do not understand. As Lobaczewski writes, asking “who benefits” with these people is often a futile task:

Pathological egotism is a constant [feature when someone] is driven by motivations or battles for goals a normal person considers unrealistic or unlikely. The average person might ask: “What could he expect to gain by that?” … We should thus always remember that the principle of law cui prodest becomes illusory whenever some pathological factor enters the picture.

Sexuality and Sexual Expression

Here’s a quotation from a self-declared “sociopath”:

One of the manifestations of [dark personality] in me is an ambivalence towards sex and sexual orientation. … we don’t observe social norms, we don’t have a moral compass, and we have a fluid definition of what is right and wrong. 

Sounds just like modern culture!

Many researchers have noticed the overlap between sexual deviance and psychopathy. For instance, “offenders with histories of both child sexual offending and adult rape had the highest levels of psychopathy.” However, Mitchell writes: “Despite prolific amounts of data regarding people of DP and deviant sexuality, the difference in assessment tools in this area is profound.” Some tools mention it; others don’t.

How might the private lives of upstanding pillars of the community with somewhat murky psyches differ from their incarcerated brethren? We’ll find out as we proceed, but for now here is what Mitchell has to say: “There may be other factors that preclude the incarceration of some people of DP engaging in equally as immoral antisocial sexual behaviours.”

Transparency and Information

How do PPPs typically conceal or dole out the truth? Different conceptualizations place varying emphasis on this feature. For instance, key psychopathic features are lying and conning. Babiak and Hare, in their work on corporate psychopathy, describe “clever impression management and secrecy” using “a range of covert strategies.” Additionally, “They often punish those who expose them and put considerable effort and energy into this endeavour…, which discourages further exposure.”

This feature is also a focus of research on Machiavellianism:

Personality researchers point out that Machiavellians are highly proficient at concealing their true intentions … and are also effective at covering their actions and minimising risk of exposure … Self-disclosure is done strategically to achieve goals …

Machiavellians are less likely to engage in altruistic behaviour, except as a tactic to get what they want … In one DT study, Machiavellianism scored highly on extrinsic social religiosity, showing that Machiavellians may use religion to achieve personal goals …

This aspect is also highlighted in the work of the behavioral researchers:

There is considerable discussion regarding the use of intimidation to silence people, isolation and punishment of potential exposers, use of personal information against others, and maintaining a distance with or destroying the reputation of parties who may be able to expose the truth.

The existing DP assessment tools do not appear to give the attention to this issue that it deserves. The ability to achieve goals through sophisticated and complex manipulations of people using fact and fiction, the prevention of exposure of deceit through pitting people against each other, the masquerade of authentic motivation, and the ability to maintain secrecy of motive are discussed throughout the literature but in a way that is dispersed.

These strategies become standard operating procedure in a pathocracy (e.g., “a purposeful and conscious system of control, terror, and diversion”).

Grooming and Impression Management

In this and the previous area, we see a focus on PPP tactics. Most personality researchers do not devote much attention to these, but they are just as important. A product of the “special psychological knowledge” Lobaczewski ascribes to psychopaths, the identification of the use of these tactics might in fact turn out to be diagnostic of a deeper personality problem. With that said:

Techniques for impression management include attributing blame for nefariousness to the victim…, avoiding any form of transparency regarding manipulative and underhanded techniques…, promotion of an image of perfection, capability, and strength while concealing vulnerability and weakness…, and a complex form of gaining and giving information in one-on-one contexts that undermines threats and builds on their reputation…

A review of the research suggests people of DP play whatever role they believe optimal for grooming and influencing.

If a PPP isn’t cheating, they’re probably engaging in impression management, i.e. trying to convince you that they’re not cheaters. This can extend to all areas of life. A few have already been mentioned briefly, e.g., sex and relationships (“the maintenance of longer term relationships or marriages in higher functioning people of DP as a means of hiding their true nature”), religion (“extrinsic social religiosity”) and altruism (“pretended altruism”).

Sadism

As asked above, is sadism a “separate conceptualization” to psychopathy, an attribute of only a subset of dark personalities, or a key feature?

Studies of people who actively violate social norms and harm and disadvantage others in real life, however, show that sadism is likely to be an attribute common to all people of DP. In a study by Porter et al. (2003) on the relationship between psychopathy and the perpetration of sexual homicide, 82.4% of the psychopaths exhibited some degree of sadistic behaviour in their homicides. Holt et al. (1999) investigated the prevalence of sadistic traits in 41 violent psychopathic and nonpsychopathic inmates at a maximum-security prison, and psychopaths were found to be significantly more sadistic than nonpsychopaths.

Research undertaken by behavioural researchers in fields such as cults, intimate partner violence, and corporate organisations, for example, shows that people of DP engage in behaviours to create fear and terror in others to maintain control and are amused by or take pleasure in the resultant suffering…

Instrumental Aggression and the Use of Intimidation

Instrumental aggression is “cold” and strategic. It’s “just business.” Contrast that with “hot,” emotional, reactive aggression. Research on bullying associates it with instrumental aggression, done without emotion and for the purpose of intimidation. In response, the victim often lashes out with reactive aggression—that’s often its purpose.

Mitchell cites statements made by staff members in a corporate study on strategic bullying: “‘quite personal in attacks on me,’ ‘very aggressive,’ ‘continually being attacked,’ ‘shocked at what I was accused of,’ ‘ambushed,’ ‘adversarial attitude,’ ‘confrontational and intimidating style of management, ’ and ‘bewildered and distressed at accusation’.”

This is another expression of controlled pathological egotism, used to “intimidate, punish, or set boundaries,” and to counter challenges to one’s sense of self-importance or “in the event of exposure.”

Victim Vulnerability, Target Choice, and Predation

Finally, here is another expression of the psychopath’s special psychological knowledge. The second “P” in PPP stands for predatory, and PPPs seem to have a knack for predation that others lack. They know who to select as victims. In fact, “victims inadvertently attract the hostility of potential perpetrators as a product of their own demeanour that may present as anxious, insecure, and vulnerable.” This is because “Vulnerability can be identified rapidly and accurately by those of DP.”

…research has shown there are nonverbal behaviours indicating vulnerability that people of DP can recognise and use to choose their targets. Issues such as body language, gait, facial expression, and stance present a picture of how robust a person is. 

If we can recognize predators, and the prey signals we’re giving up, maybe we can stop being prey?

Coming up next: we will cover Mitchell’s own research approach and findings.