Are Women Psychopaths More Common Than We Think? (image: unsplash/Eric Ward)Recent studies have pointed out that more women may be psychopaths than previously expected. Dr Clive Boddy, a professor at Anglia Ruskin University, and an expert specialising in corporate psychopathy, said that since female psychopaths seems to be subtle and less obvious than male psychopaths, they’re not recognised as much.
Psychopaths are generally characterised by a lack of empathy and guilt, showing antisocial behaviour, frequent lying, and exhibiting attributes of ruthlessness, narcissism, and manipulation.
“People generally attribute psychopathic characteristics to males rather than to females. So even when females display some of the key traits associated with psychopathy – such as being insincere, deceitful, antagonistic, unempathetic and lacking in emotional depth – because these are seen as male characteristics they may not be labelled as such, even when they should be,” Dr Clive Boddy said.
Psychopaths are after money, power and control, Professor added. Continuing further, Dr Boddy said that a small and increasing body of data suggest that the female psychopaths are inclined to expressing violence verbally than physically, where violence is characterised by relational and emotional nature and more subtle and less clear than expressed by male psychopaths.
Professor pointed out that the assessment used to help identify psychopathic traits known as the Levenson self-report psychopathy scale (LSRP) was skewed towards men was a problem. He mentioned that the first part of the assessment observed emotional detachment, selfishness, lack of empathy, and manipulation where the second part, looked at the psychopathic lifestyle including violence and antisocial behaviour.
“The secondary element, and the measures for it, were largely based on studies of criminals who were in jail at the time and psychopathic – so the feeling is, among researchers these days, that those measures are just not suited to identifying female psychopathy,” he added.
Dr Clive Boddy observed that female psychopaths employ deceit and seduction more than male psychopaths to obtain social and financial advantages. He held that recognising psychopathy in women and men was important, especially in the context of its impact in the workplace.