People with high levels of psychopathy tend to define themselves differently depending on which specific traits they possess, and emotional callousness is associated with being less likely to identify with social relationships. A recent study published in Social and Personality Psychology Compass investigated these patterns by testing how different models of psychopathy match how people view their personal identity.
Psychopathy is a personality framework characterized by traits such as a lack of empathy, emotional shallowness, and manipulative tendencies. In social interactions, people with high levels of psychopathy often prioritize personal interests over others. They are less likely to follow social conventions and may exhibit a reversed sense of social reward. This means that you may prefer cruelty to kindness.
Although researchers agree on the general profile of psychopathy, they debate the structure underlying these traits. Modern personality science relies heavily on two major frameworks to define states.
The first framework is a four-factor model. This approach views psychopathy as a combination of emotional traits, interpersonal manipulation, impulsive lifestyle choices, and antisocial behavior. Emotional traits include emotional callousness and lack of guilt, while interpersonal traits involve grandiosity and deceptive charm.
The second framework is the triarchic model. This theory constructs psychopathology around three distinct dimensions: meanness, disinhibition, and boldness. Meanness refers to a lack of close attachment or empathy, disinhibition involves impulsivity, and boldness refers to a lack of social control and fear.
To understand how these traits function in everyday life, researchers examine a concept called self-construal. Self-construal describes how individuals think and define themselves in comparison to those around them.
There are two main types of self-construal. Independent self-construal involves viewing oneself as a unique entity defined by personal attributes and distinct from others. Interdependent self-construal involves defining oneself through connections with other individuals and larger social networks.
Interdependent self-construals also fall into two distinct subcategories. Relational self-construals focus on immediate social connections, such as one’s identity as a mother or friend. Collective self-construal is related to membership in broader social groups, such as sports fandom or identity as an American.
David A. Lishner, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, led the study along with colleagues from multiple academic institutions. The researchers wanted to determine how specific psychopathic traits match these different types of self-construals. Previous research on this topic has often grouped together rather than analyzed all psychopathic traits individually, resulting in mixed results.
The research team conducted a series of three replication studies with a total of 446 university students. Study participants completed a series of psychological surveys designed to measure various aspects of psychopathy and self-construal.
To obtain a complete picture of psychopathy, participants completed questionnaires based on both the four-factor model and the three-factor model. This approach allowed researchers to isolate specific factors such as insensitivity, manipulativeness, and boldness.
The researchers also used two different methods to assess self-construal. Participants first completed a self-report rating scale agreeing or disagreeing with statements about their independence and social interconnectedness.
After the survey, participants completed a task-based measure, commonly referred to as the 20-statement task. The instructions simply asked subjects to write 20 free-recall responses to the “I am” prompt. An independent judge then coded these responses into categories based on whether they described personal, relational, or collective attributes.
The research team applied a statistical model that held the participants’ gender and other characteristics constant. This method helped isolate the specific contribution of individual characteristics, such as emotional callousness, without interference from redundant variables. By separating the data, the current study avoided artificial associations caused by common measurement styles.
The data revealed specific associations between specific psychopathic traits and how participants defined themselves. Emotional callousness was a major factor in lower interdependent self-construal.
This negative association remained consistent whether rigidity was measured through a four-factor model or a three-factor model. Participants with high callousness or meanness scores were less likely to define themselves in terms of their relationships with others.
When researchers looked closely, they found that this disconnect was primarily tied to self-interpretation of the relationship. Insensitive people do not see themselves as part of a close interpersonal network, such as a family unit or peer group.
The researchers also found associations regarding independent self-construal. Boldness, a key component of the Triarchy model, had a strong positive association with independent self-construal.
Participants who scored high on boldness were more likely to define themselves as different from traditional social expectations. This is consistent with the concept of boldness as a trait associated with social dominance and interpersonal confidence.
Other psychopathic traits showed mixed or less pronounced associations. For example, interpersonal manipulation was negatively associated with independent self-construal. Disinhibition was negatively associated with both independent and relational self-construals.
Task-based measures of self-construal yielded different results than self-report surveys. The researchers found no statistically significant association between psychopathic traits and free-response statements.
Most of the participants in the study wrote down independent features for the 20 statements, but rarely listed interdependent features. The researchers believe this is due to a possible measurement limitation called range restriction. This means that the data has not changed enough to show a statistical pattern.
Several factors limit the generalizability of these findings. First, this sample featured only undergraduate students from a highly individualistic culture. Young people in the United States generally feel strong pressure to be independent, which may explain the preponderance of independent voices in task-based measures.
Furthermore, the study participants’ total psychopathy scores mostly fell in the low to moderate range. Different associations may emerge in clinical or forensic populations where severe antisocial traits are more prevalent.
Differences between self-report surveys and task-based questionnaires suggest that researchers need to distinguish between identities based on general traits and thoughts based on momentary states. The survey asks participants how they view themselves in general, while the fill-in-the-blank task assesses immediate cognitive accessibility.
Future research should investigate whether similar patterns hold across different cultural groups or among individuals diagnosed with clinical psychopathy. By parsing these clear connections, we can gain a deeper understanding of how extremely insensitive or bold people relate to the society around them.
The study, “Psychopathy and self-construal: Trait-specific associations with independent and interdependent self-construals,” was authored by David A. Lishner, Luke J. Tacke, Ben Saltigerard, Haley R. Jack, Vanessa Hillman, Makenzie Mendering, Brittany Burgess, Allison Smith, Michael J. Vitacco, and Craig S. Newman.
