ASPD or Antisocial Personality Disorder remains a highly controversial and yet poorly illuminated subject even with the significant research on the matter over the past few decades.
Yet, the portrayal of psychopathy(or any other antisocial personality disorder) in most Hollywood films grossly misinterpret and misinform the masses. They portray psychopaths mostly as highly intelligent, violent, charismatic and even at times 'sexy' individuals. But this is only superficially correct and even this doesn't reach the tip of the iceberg. The analysis of psychopathy is deeply complex at best and completely elusive in the worst case scenarios.
So how do you detect or spot a psychopath? The answer as expected isn't so simple but it isn't so complicated that it is incomprehensible. We have Robert Hare's Psychopathy Checklist- Revised (PCL-R) which gives twenty criteria which determine the traits of a psychopath.
1. Do you exhibit glib and superficial charm?
2. Do you have a grandiose (exaggeratedly high) estimation of self?
3. Do you have a constant need for stimulation?
4. Are you a pathological liar?
5. Are you cunning and manipulative?
6. Do you have lack of remorse or guilt?
7. Do you have shallow affect (superficial emotional responsiveness)?
8. Are you callous, and do you lack empathy?
9. Do you have a parasitic lifestyle?
10. Do you have poor behavioral controls?
11. Are you sexually promiscuous?
12. Did you display early behavior problems?
13. Do you lack realistic long-term goals?
14. Are you overly impulsive?
15. Are you irresponsible?
16. Do you fail to accept responsibility for own actions?
17. Have you had many short-term marital relationships?
18. Do you have a history of juvenile delinquency?
19. Have you experienced a revocation of conditional release?
20. Do you display criminal versatility?
Each of the 20 items in the PCL-R is scored on a three-point scale, with a rating of 0 if it does not apply at all, 1 if there is a partial match or mixed information, and 2 if there is a reasonably good match to the offender. This is said to be ideally done through a face-to-face interview together with supporting information on lifetime behavior (e.g. from case files), but is also done based only on file information. It can take up to three hours to collect and review the information.
Out of a maximum score of 40, the cut-off for the label of psychopathy is 30 in the United States and 25 in the United Kingdom. A cut-off score of 25 is also sometimes used for research purposes. However, this is not a self grading test and must essentially be monitored and collected by a professional practitioner.
One of history's more notorious psychopaths Ted Bundy scored an astonishing 39/40 on the test. However the checklist isn't infallible, as it is somewhat oversimplified and doesn't account for physiological factors. Karla Homolka, a serial killer of three only scored 5/40. But this does give us deeper insight into the disorder. The most difficult part of identifying a psychopath is the diagnosis, as there it is very hard to distinguish one from normal. This is because people who have the disorder barely ever realize anything about their condition, no polygraph test, truth serum can determine the truth. This makes analysis of a psychopathy, much like dissociative disorders(see split personality) very problematic and one intelligent enough can even fool a trained psychologist. But there is a silver lining.
No matter how intelligent or crafty, psychopaths are still creatures of habit and through thorough observation, definite behavioral patterns like narcissism, persistent violence, compulsive behavior emerge. This is easier said than done, however, as relationships are built on trust and are destroyed on suspicions. So how do you know if you're seeing a psychopath?
Simply put, you don't. At least unless you have damning evidence of highly disturbing behavior or have caught them doing something heinous and wrong. Even to establish this you might have to severely strain your relationship by harboring constant doubt and once that starts, psychopath or no, your relationship is more or less finished. But there is good news, psychopaths constitute less than one percent of the entire population and even against the odds the chance that you'll encounter one is less than one in hundred, let alone date one.
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