A new study has identified a key sign that indicates someone might be psychopath.
Researchers in Australia performed eye-gazing experiments with more than 200 volunteers in the UK.
Those who scored highly for psychopathy showed difficulty regulating their focus of attention, meaning they were better at seeing the bigger picture but not as good as seeing the finer details.
In a social situation – whether an office meeting or a pub gathering – this means that psychopaths quickly lose interest in subtle details or have difficulty noticing them at all.
Affecting about one per cent of the population, psychopathy is a personality disorder characterised by anti-social behaviour, and extreme lack of empathy or remorse.
On-screen psychopaths include American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman, played by Christian Bale, and Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr Ripley, played by Matt Damon.
Prior psychopath studies have revealed that the biggest psychopaths keep their heads very still during conversations, possibly to hide clues about their personality.
Meanwhile, people who can handle greater levels of pain are more likely to be psychopaths, another recent study shows.
Spotting a psychopath can be tricky, but a new study identifies a key sign to be on the lookout for (stock image)
From American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman (played by Christian Bale, pictured) to Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr Ripley, on-screen psychopaths show anti-social behaviour, callousness and extreme lack of empathy or remorse
The new study was conducted by Stephanie C. Goodhew and Mark Edwards, two psychologists at the Australian National University in Canberra.
‘There are multiple dimensions of psychopathic personality traits, including egocentricity, callousness, impulsivity, and antisocial behavior,’ they told PsyPost.
‘Our results indicate that people who demonstrate higher levels of impulsivity and antisocial behavior have difficulty regulating their focus of attention.’
Generally, people who are described as psychopaths show traits such as antisocial behaviour, untruthfulness, irresponsibility, egocentricity, callousness and lack of remorse or empathy.
For their study, published in Personality and Individual Differences, the researchers focused on three psychopathy traits – antisociality, egocentricity and callousness.
Psychopaths are considered to have a severe form of antisocial personality – which can manifest as everything from occasional bad behaviour to repeatedly breaking the law and committing serious crimes.
Egocentricity is only being concerned with one’s own interests, while callousness is feeling no emotion or feeling or showing no sympathy for others.
Over two experiments, researchers recruited 236 participants between 18 and 40 years of age residing in the UK, who were required to participate via computer.
One psychopathic trait is having difficulty ‘regulating their focus of attention’, meaning they may quickly lose interest in the finer details (file photo)
Their psychopathic traits were measured using the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (E-LSRP), a questionnaire consisting of 26 statements that participants have to agree or disagree with.
For example, a statement on the E-LSRP testing for anti-sociality is ‘I have been in a lot of shouting matches with other people’.
Researchers assessed their ‘attentional breadth’, which is how good they are at mentally processing ‘global’ and ‘local’ information – where local information is the finer details and global information is the bigger picture.
To determine their attentional breadth, participants were presented with the Navon stimuli – images consisting of a large letter made up of multiple smaller letters.
For example, one of the Navon images is a large T shape made up of lots of much smaller E shapes.
As they were presented with the image, participants had to say what letter they noticed first by quickly pressing the corresponding key on the keyboard.
If they clocked the large letter it suggested they had a ‘broad’ attentional breadth, meaning they focused on the bigger picture.
Meanwhile, if they saw the small letter it suggested they had a ‘narrow’ attentional breadth, meaning they were prone to focusing on the small details.
Navon stimuli involves visual stimuli of letters made up of smaller ‘local’ letters. Pictured, a larger T made up of smaller Es
Psychologist David Navon suggested people mentally process ‘global’ and ‘local’ information – where local information (left) is the finer details and global information (right) is the bigger picture
By scoring for both speed and accuracy, the Navon test also assesses how good people are at repeatedly narrowing and expanding their field of vision.
Overall, the team found no link between attentional breadth and the three psychopathy traits.
But the researchers found ‘clear evidence’ that one of the psychopathic traits – anti-sociality – is linked with quicker attentional expansion.
In other words, people who scored higher for anti-sociality also tended to quickly increase their field of vision to see the bigger picture.
So in a social situation, anti-social psychopaths may be constantly sizing up the wider environment while missing subtle details.
Conversely, team found no noticeable links between the other two psychopathic traits – egocentricity and callousness – and attentional expansion or narrowing.
That means that the tendency to see the bigger picture and might only apply to psychopaths who have a strong tendency for anti-social behaviour.
The team admit that their group of volunteers was small, but hope a bigger sample of people from around the world will replicate or expand on the new findings.
‘It would be informative to assess the extent to which the present findings replicate, or whether new relationships between primary psychopathic traits and attentional breath emerge in such samples,’ they conclude.
WOULD YOU KNOW HOW TO SPOT A PSYCHOPATH?
Psychopaths display different traits depending on their disorder.
Common signs include superficial charm, a grandiose notion of self-worth, the need for stimulation and impulsiveness, pathological lying, the ability to manipulate others and a lack of remorse and empathy.
But despite the popular association, not all psychopaths become killers.
Experts claim people usually find psychopaths intriguing, but can’t put their finger on why.
This is down to incongruous behaviour because psychopaths tend to do a lot of acting to deceive, or mimic normal reactions, sometimes changing their views and reactions quickly.
For example, Self-professed psychopath Jacob Wells said that upon meeting someone, he tries to become ‘the most interesting person they know’ and presumably adopts suitable interests and responses to do this.
His response also gives away another common trait – a grandiose notion of self-worth – in that he can be the most interesting person in the room.
Psychopaths occasionally tend to exhibit unconvincing emotional responses, with slip-ups including tone of voice or body language.
This may be because they are unable to understand emotions such as fear and love, but can mimic them.
Psychopaths display different traits depending on their disorder, but common signs include superficial charm and the ability to manipulate others. Despite the popular association, not all psychopaths become killers (stock image)
Generally psychopaths’ ’emotions’ are shallow and short-lived and there is a manipulative ulterior motive to showing them.
For example, Mr Wells said he offers to do favours and tells false secrets to people to gain their complete trust.
He also displays insincere charm – another trait associated with psychopaths.
He says: ‘I keep secrets, and tell them fake secrets to further gain their trust, and once they trust me enough, I ask for favours, reminding them of the favours I did them. I can get literally anything from them, which is incredibly useful.’
Psychopaths typically display an incredible ability to manipulate others and sometimes take pleasure in doing so.
Psychopaths often have an air of superiority about them, perhaps shown by Mr Wells’ belief he can spot other psychopaths
Even expert Dr Hare, who came up with the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) used as a diagnostic tool to determine where someone lies on the psychopathy spectrum, warns that anyone can be duped during a short interaction with a psychopath.
