When you think of the classic psychopath, you might think of the suit-and-boots Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, but one expert says the number of women who suffer from neuropsychiatric disorders may be much more common than previously thought.
Psychopaths are generally thought to lack empathy or guilt, exhibit antisocial behavior, lie frequently, and are cruel, narcissistic, and manipulative.
“Psychopaths are after money, power and control,” says Dr Clive Boddy of Anglia Ruskin University, an expert on psychopaths in the corporate world.
The idea that psychopaths are violent, sociopathic criminals has been replaced by a more nuanced view, including Boddy, who argues that psychopaths are common in large corporations. The idea that most psychopaths are men remains.
“The behavior of female psychopaths seems to be less recognized because it's much more subtle and less obvious than that of male psychopaths,” says Boddy.
“Small but growing evidence suggests that female psychopaths tend to express violence verbally rather than physically, that their violence is relational and emotional in nature, and that male psychopaths express less violent “It shows that it's more subtle and less obvious,” he added. It may involve spreading rumors and lies for personal gain.
Boddy said one problem is that some of the assessments used to identify psychopaths (known as the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, or LSRP) are less likely to identify male psychopaths. He said that it was biased towards
That is, the first part of the assessment considered how emotionally isolated, selfish, indifferent, and manipulative the person was, whereas the second part targeted psychopathic lifestyles. He said this was because the focus was on violence and anti-social behavior.
“Secondary factors and their measures were primarily based on studies of mentally insane offenders who were in prison at the time. Therefore, among recent researchers, those measures were based primarily on studies of mentally insane offenders who were in prison at the time. There is a sense that we are not at all suited to specify the
There are also fewer studies examining female psychopaths than men, and raters may be reluctant to classify women as psychopaths, she said.
Some estimates suggest that the ratio of male to female psychopaths may be 10:1, but Boddy's research using only the first part of the LSRP suggests that the number is much higher. suggested something different.
“It's almost 1:1,” Professor Boddy said, but noted that larger studies of randomly selected adults were needed to get a more definitive picture.
Mr Boddy, who will be speaking on female psychopaths at next month's Cambridge Festival, said that while an estimated 1% of men are psychopaths, the diagnosis falls on one end of the spectrum.
“Estimate [using the first part of the LSRP suggest] “About 23% of men are not clearly psychopaths, but they have enough traits to be a problem for society,” he said.
Boddy's own research, based on surveys of white-collar workers, suggested that such traits were not uncommon in women. “About 12% to 13% of women have enough of these traits to potentially be problematic,” he said.
Boddy said it's important to recognize psychopathy in women and men, especially as such people can have a huge impact on the workplace, with employees feeling marginalized, abused and bullied. He said that. Additionally, businesses led by such individuals can lose direction, which can affect how people view large organizations, he noted.
“They are witnessing the greed, dishonesty and ruthlessness of those at the top, which undermines democracy and the rule of law,” he said.
Boddy advocated screening job applicants to protect employees.
“Especially the higher you go in seniority, the more power and control you have, the more you need those kinds of screening tests and psychometric tests,” he says.