Core traits of psychopathy.

There remains considerable debate as to what are the core traits of psychopathy. One approach to addressing this question is to identify the traits that are present in persons said to be actual or even prototypic examples of psychopathy. Ted Bundy, Clyde Barrow, Bernie Madoff, James Bond, Chuck Yeager, and Sherlock Holmes have all been described as being a psychopath. The current study conducted nine data collections, obtaining ratings on these six persons. Biographical summaries of each person were provided. In addition, for 3 cases (Bundy, Bond, and Holmes), participants who indicated that they knew the person well provided ratings without the biographical history. Each person was described with respect to the five-factor model, the Cleckley criteria, and additional traits from more recent models of psychopathy (e.g., boldness and fearlessness). Traits evident across all six persons were fearlessness, boldness, feels invulnerable, thrill-seeking, and excitement-seeking. However, this includes persons who would not be said to be psychopaths. The traits that were most specific to psychopathy were traits of antagonism, such as callousness, manipulativeness, dishonesty, arrogance, and cruelty. The results are discussed with respect to historical and current models of psychopathy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).