Some Apparent Advantages of Subclinical Psychopathy

Summary

Classical descriptions of the psychopathic personality include a number of highly desirable characteristics in addition to the obviously undesirable ones. Following Eysenck, it is hypothesized that this personality type is not a type at all but merely an extreme of normal personality traits. Subclinical manifestations of psychopathy are therefore studied. The MMPI “PD” scale was administered together with other scales to a random postal sample of the Australian State of New South Wales. The resulting sample of 128 people showed a representative demographic structure. High “PD” scores were found to be associated with honesty (low lie scale scores), permissiveness, good perceived relationships with others, denial of being tough and rejection of punitiveness. They were also correlated with Machiavellianism and lesser education. It was concluded that as long as psychopaths can keep out of trouble, they may have many advantages over others.