BLUF

There’s little consensus on what a ‘psychopath’ really is; however, academics Crego and Widiger have identified six people—both real and fictional— who could be classified as psychopaths.

Summary

This article by Emma Young, writing for the British Psychological Society, makes the following points:
  • Famous psychopaths have included: Theodore (Ted) Bundy, Clyde Barrow, Bernie Madoff, Chuck Yeager, James Bond and Sherlock Holmes.
  • The authors presented their work in a Personality Disorders: Theory, Research and Treatment paper. 
  • Psychopathic traits are not always negative and can include fearlessness and absolute dedication to pursuing a goal.
  • Rather than taking traits that have been associated with psychopathy and checking to see if they matched the purported personalities, the authors took the reverse approach.
  • The results led Crego and Widiger to identify eight traits associated with psychopathic behaviour.
Learn more about new research into psychopaths.

References

Recent Runway Posts related to this topic:
How to stop psychopaths and narcissists from winning positions of power | The Runway (govcms.gov.au)
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