Talk:Psychopathy

Placement of information on psychopathy according to the AMPD

Very recently, while reading this article, I stumbled upon the Sociopathy section under History. I was surprised to see it focuses heavily on the relation of psychopathy to the diagnostic conceptualization of antisocial PD as described in the Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders, which, incidentally I published an article on (<= the one linked to) two weeks ago. Naturally, I decided to wikilink to it, and I also made a few minor changes. This got me thinking, though, "why is this information included under Sociopathy?". I find it very unclear in which way this has anything to do with sociopathy, or even really the history of psychopathy, as the AMPD is a very recent model, introduced in the DSM-5. This is an important article and I don't want to do anything too radical, but wouldn't it make much more sense for the AMPD-related stuff to be included under Diagnosis, as the AMPD is notable in this regard due to it actually at least almost having psychopathy as a specifier to ASPD? BlockArranger (talk) 18:43, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

BlockArranger, I fully agree with you that it should be removed from history - sociopathy and into diagnosis. Lova Falk (talk) 14:17, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Done! I have moved the content and also made a few changes. BlockArranger (talk) 17:49, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Choice of imagery

It is notable that the image under "Criminality" features exclusively men of colour. Perhaps a more diverse image of a prison population could be chosen? Jestaniforth (talk) 14:51, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

I had never thought of that; perhaps spotting it requires an American eye, considering this likely also being more of an issue there. Anyway, obviously, an image must be captured before we can utilize it; furthermore, it needs to be freely available. If you are able to take a photo and release it at Wikimedia Commons or you find one there, feel free to suggest a specific image we should change it to. BlockArranger (talk) 22:49, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Article layout

While there are questions surrounding the medicalization of psychopathy, would there be any opposition to rearranging this article in accordance with WP:MEDSECTIONS, as I think that layout is rather good? I have not looked into this article's history thoroughly enough, but this would depend on whether the current state is the result of a weak push towards standardization or it having crumbled over time, or of a deliberate decision to do things differently in this article. BlockArranger (talk) 22:55, 19 October 2025 (UTC)

Reasoning behind removals

Asklepiass, can you explain why you removed much of the content of this article, then placed a "more medical citations needed" tag, even though none of the citations here are primary sources, and all of them fit WP:MEDRS, even though psychopathy in general is not a medical topic (but more of a psychology construct). Can you explain your reasoning for this? Thank you. Plasticwonder (Cat got your tongue?) 02:21, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

I can do my best!

I thought I was transparent in the edit summaries, there are limitations on what can be explained. The major issue I see in this article is an overemphazize on the boltness/fearless aspect of psychopathy, combined with a conceptual misunderstanding what psychoapthy is, such as the implied distinction between psychopathy and NPD/ASPD. Even the sources used within the body of the text point out that ASPD is not a separate diagnosis, yet there are frequent attempts within the article two distinguish between ASPD and psychopathy. Sometimes, it is not even covered by the citation.

There is also a conceptual confusion on what the clinical terms "primary psychoapthy" and "secondary psychopathy" even mean. This is why I added the medical attention template. Yes, the sources are mostly fine, but taken out of context, that the entire psychopathy construct gets an entirely new meaning. I would recommand using a medical source to guide through the sources used. One I would like to use, if I am allowed to make some major changes, would be the Textbook of Anti-Social Personality Disorder, which dedicates an entire chapter to psychopathy. Because as it is now, it overemphazizes experimental attempts - such as the Triarchic Model - to find psychopathy in community samples, while neglecting the actual defined diagnosis as per Dr. Hare, which is still until to day the Golden Standard to both define and diagnose psychopathy.

For the record, psychopathy is defined through an affective-interpersonal factor (Factor 1 or "Primary Psychopathy") and an impulsive- life style factor (Factor 2, Secondary Psychopathy). The article is written at many parts, as if these are two different concepts or diagnosis. This is not accurate. However, the basic definition of psychopathy is barely touched upon, rather it treats it as if psychopathy could occur without ASPD or the entirety of Factor 2, and seems to promote the quite popular, yet unscientific idea of "pro-social psychoapthy". This concept is more or less debunked as non of the proposed examples ever met the criteria nor showed the neurological anomalies discovered within those who qualify as psychoapthic within forensic samples. A famous example is James Felon, who claimed to have the brain of a psychopathy yet to be socially adapt, could never replicate his alleged neuro-scans as evidence for his self-proclaimed psychopathy. The article seems to push the narrative that such a thing exists. There are successful psychopaths, to whom I planned to dedicate an entire section, but they are only better at covering their factor 2 traits, and criminal behavior engaging in white collor crimes than blue collor crimes.

Next, there is also this strange emphazise on fearlessness, i already mentioned before. It is probably a prime example why the Triarchic Model fails to cover actual clinical psychopathy, as psychopaths in prison samples do experience fear and anxiety, just differently from control groups. Therefore, many experts have abandonned the outdated "low fear"-theory in favor of the "attentionbottleneck"-theory. There is also at least one study to "debunk" it, but it has lots of holes the paper itself admits to, so it is still the leading theory. I wanted to add a section about the three major ideas about the neurological deficits among psychopaths: Lack of emotions-theory (lack of fear, anxiety, etc driving psychophs to reckless behavior), Attention Bottle-Neck theory (they focus on their main goal and this renders them blind to context cues during an action), and deficits to mental-time travel. A fourth one considers the "low resting heart-rate" to be causing psychopathic behavior, and while there is some evidence, this theory is outpaced by any other except the fearless-model. I wanted to do this after pointing out the correlations between Psychopathy and BPD, I was about doing today. But I will rest it for now.

Overall, the entire idea, large chunks the article is based on, that psychopathy is a construct based on fearlessness, and distinct from ASPD or NPD, is unscientific and has little to no support of the clinical concept of psychopathy. I would have given the entire article an overhaul. If my edits are controversial I would refrain from that though and stay with more minor edits on the Buddhism articles. I hope my explanation, though lenghty, helped to become more transparent about my edits. And I would like to know, how other editors feel about a general overhaul of the article to comply with more recent studies and to ground it in the actual diagnostic criteria used for psychopathy. Asklepiass (talk) 23:04, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

I may need to add, because it often gets forgotten udner the rug. Psychopathy is not only a personality construct, the PCL-R manual(s) do speak about a diagnosis of psychopathy, and it is treated as a clinical illness. Yes, the Triarchic Model and even the levenson Psychopathic Inventory treat psychopathy as a personality construct. But we need to keep in mind, they are designed to find psychopaths in community samples and meant to find personalities mimicking true psychopaths. Maybe it could help to make two separate articles? One for the speculative personality construct and one for the clinical psychopathy assessed within forensic settings? Asklepiass (talk) 23:07, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

I think both concepts can fit in here without issue.

However, I also believe that this article will inevitably need an update (in regards to content and sources) in some aspects, how should this article proceed in your opinion? I will not hesitate to revert my edit (save for adding back the medical sources tag) if it is necessary. Plasticwonder (Cat got your tongue?) 18:10, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

They definately can co-exist. And I would argue it is incomplete without also diving into the attempts to reconstruct a psychopathic personality in community settings. It is more the weight the rather speculative part takes over the established clinical definition. Also I see issues with some of the sources misused, either intentionally or not, as the mentioned NPD misconception. The idea that NPD requires a fragile core is also outdated, hence primary psychopathic items arenot like but they are NPD traits. The source also has a neat shard showing the overlaps between psychopathy and therapeutic diagnosis used in the DSM-5.

My first step was to clean up sources either exaggarated, misunderstood, or clearly misrepresented, as in the case of the citation of Yildirim BO, Derksen JJ to the NPD descriptions, and being more clear about the sections, such as differential diagnosis. For example, the differntial diagnosis between ASPD/psychopathy and autism is crucial. The differential diagnosis is meant to distinguish these two disorders, they do not associate with one another. Fritz Meyer is cited as one of the first and perhaps only scientist who argued that there is an overlap between Autism and Psychopathy. Blaire's studies are much more well-received and he shows in his studies (I would add them as citations then) that CU traits (the emotional core deficit within psychopathic individuals) that CU traits (or "psychopathic symptoms") can cooccur with Autism Spectrum Disorder, but are distinct. I think it is also mentioned within the article already. Even more recent studies have demonstrated that the CU traits are often misdiagnosed, due to phenotypical overlaps in children with either disorder. I would need to dig through my sources for that one though, and I would do it in this step. Yet, this addition or not, the section seems to be about a differential diagnosis, as autism is usually a "ruling out" factor for psychopathy and receives a more lenient treatment. Where they overlap with psychopathic traits, is their sudden anger outbursts, Fritz Meyer also was refering to. But in case of autism, it stems from an overload, in psychopathy it is calculated, and hence psychoapthy often warrants a harsher punishment at court. The differntiating between psychopathy and autism is thus crucial. In practise, we look at the act and if it requires an intact theory of mind or not as well as the act of the subject afterwards.

My second step would be to add relevant data to what I cleaned up. For example, the differntiation between autism and psychopathy. How CU traits play into this. I would also expand on the overlaps of therapeutic diagnosis such as NPD, ASPD, and BPD, and how they relate to the psychopathy constructs. But probably most importantly: I would add a table for an overview over the standard 20 items and their factor domain somewhere in the first sections, as the basic definition of the psychopathy construct. Maybe even add the less prominent items of the Screening verison, but of course without how the items are ranked, as this is confined information obviously. I would also add a history of the concept (not the term) of psychopathy, beginnig with Cleckley's observations, and then proceeding with Dr: Hare's diagnostic tool, the PCL and then th PCL-R test. In that section, I would also go into the hunt of finding psychopathy in community settings as the levenson self-report and the triarchic model. In the history section, I would only briefly allud to the reasoning behind these tests and their validity, but grand more space in the already established tool-section. It exists, but I would also make the lines separating these tools more transparent, rather than sneaking the Triarchic model into all of them. The Triarchic model is fine, for what it is, but it does not need to mingle with other tools and models.

I would also like to make a section about th "successful psychopath"-concept (not to be confused with the oxymoronic "pro social" psychopath), not sure yet where exactly. This is now lots of information and a pretty huge project. If the community writing on this article is fine, I would prepare a proposal for some chunks of my ideas and then ask if they fit according tot he community consensus. I would start with a smaller chunk though, because in case of a rejection, it would not be a great waste of time, only a mediocre waste. Since we dispute my cleaning now, I would then proceed with the autism differntial diagnosis, and then witht he CU traits. I might need to request rearranging some sections then, but we will see as soon as I propose my changes then.

That beign said, as you can probably tell from my delayed response, I cannot garantee a proposal within a short time span. I might need some time to work on it and find a gap in my schedule to dig through all my stored papers, write proper text and add the citations, until I can make the request. I hope this works out! Asklepiass (talk) 23:19, 12 August 2026 (UTC)