Psychopaths are more likely than the average person to end up in jail. People with psychopathy often deceive & manipulate others, are unable to love, feel shallow emotions, and show little remorse or shame. Since many of these traits makes one more likely to flout the law, there are many more psychopaths (as a proportion) among people in jail than in the general population.
Some psychopaths, however never commit a crime and lead lives of relative normalcy (but they inevitably show tell-tale signs of psychopathy). What proportion of the people we meet in daily life is a psychopath?
“What fundamentally defines psychopathy is not criminal behavior, but the presence of a series of personality traits, generally related to a lack of emotion.”
A recent meta-analysis has estimated the prevalence of psychopathy in the general adult population to be 4.5% (or 1 in every 22). The prevalence of psychopathy was estimated by averaging samples from 15 studies with a combined total of 11,497 participants.
To measure psychopathy researchers and clinicians use a behavioral checklist. The gold standard among psychopathy checklists is the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). When using the PCL-R, a researcher rates a participant on 20 items like superficial charm, pathological lying, impulsivity, criminal versatility etc. Each item has a weightage of 2 points and a score of 30 or above results in the diagnosis of Psychopathy.
However, not all studies included in the meta-analysis used the PCL-R. The meta-analysis notes that studies using other methods to identify psychopaths reported much higher rates of psychopathy (3 or 4 time greater on average). When using PCL-R, the prevalence was only 1.2%.
It is believed that psychopaths thrive in some work environments. For example, it has been suggested that psychopaths find it easier to climb the corporate ladder since they naturally exude charisma and confidence. Seemingly substantiating this hypothesis, the meta-analysis found that the prevalence of psychopathy in samples of organizations is far higher than community samples. The prevalence was also found to be higher in samples of university students.
“The combined prevalence of psychopathy in samples of organizations (12.9%) was higher than in samples of university students (8.1%) or in community samples (1.9%)”
The meta-analysis also found the prevalence in samples of men to be more than twice than in those of women. The samples in studies reviewed came from the USA (31.25%), the United Kingdom (18.75%), Canada (12.5%), Australia (12.5%), Sweden, Portugal and Belgium.
Read more about the study by Ana Sanz-García, Clara Gesteira, Jesús Sanz and María Paz García-Vera here.
