Psychopathic personality traits and life-success

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Personality and Individual Differences 44 (2008) 1162–1171

Psychopathic personality traits and life-success

Simone Ullrich a,*, David P. Farrington b, Jeremy W. Coid a

a Queen Mary College, University of London, Forensic Psychiatry Research Unit, UKb University of Cambridge, Institute of Criminology, UK

Received 12 February 2007; received in revised form 30 October 2007; accepted 12 November 2007

Abstract

Psychopathy is an important personality construct, particularly within forensic settings. However, thefirst comprehensive description of psychopathic personalities was based on non-criminal, civil psychiatricpatient samples. Case reports included highly maladaptive individuals but also suggested that milder traitscan be found in persons with considerable success in life. More recent studies suggested that the interper-sonal traits of psychopathy might be of advantage to achieve professional success but less successful inother important domains of life.

This study aimed to investigate the hypothesis that some features of psychopathy are related to life-suc-cess in a community sample of 304 men at age 48. This hypothesis was not confirmed. Despite strong sim-ilarities with narcissistic personality disorder traits which have been demonstrated to have beneficial effectson life-success, the interpersonal domain was not related to ‘‘status and wealth” or ‘‘successful intimaterelationships”. Impulsiveness and antisocial behavior negatively predicted ‘‘status and wealth”, and affec-tive deficiency was negatively associated with both aspects of a successful life. It is concluded that psycho-pathic traits do not contribute to a successful life and that the findings cast doubt on the existence of thesuccessful psychopath.� 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Psychopathy; Dimensional representation; Factors; Life-success; Life-failure; Community sample

0191-8869/$ - see front matter � 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.paid.2007.11.008

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 (0) 20 7601 7511; fax: +44 (0) 20 7601 7969.E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Ullrich).

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S. Ullrich et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 44 (2008) 1162–1171 1163

1. Introduction

Psychopathy is an important personality construct within clinical and forensic settings associatedwith serious problem behavior and poor outcome. High scores on psychopathy measures are robustpredictors of violence and general recidivism in both forensic and community samples (Gendreau,Goggin, & Smith, 2002; Hemphill, Hare, & Wong, 1998; Salekin, Rogers, & Sewell, 1996), predatoryviolence (Cornell et al., 1996), and disruptive behaviors in institutional settings (Hill, Neumann, &Rogers, 2004). However, despite the strong link between psychopathy and forensic issues, the firstclinical portrayal of psychopathic personalities (Cleckley, 1941) was not based on observationsamong criminal samples but non-criminal, civil psychiatric patients. In his pioneering book, TheMask of Sanity, Cleckley provided a catalogue of criteria to describe the personality structure ofindividuals constituting a severe and constant problem to the hospital and to the community dueto their dangerousness, irrationality, and incompetence. But he also described psychopaths as indi-viduals who did not necessarily engage in severe criminal behaviors. Furthermore, he hypothesizedthat psychopathic personalities could be found within nearly every occupation and at any level ofsociety. Case reports comprised individuals who displayed the more core psychopathic traits suchas superficial charm, egocentricity, and lack of remorse. He referred to these individuals as incom-plete manifestations or suggestions of the disorder and gave examples of psychopaths as successfulbusinessmen, scientists, physicians, and psychiatrists. Moreover, at the trait level, he stated that:

More often than not, the typical psychopath will seem particularly agreeable and make a dis-tinctly positive impression when he is first encountered. . . .Very often indications of goodsense and sound reasoning will emerge, and one is likely to feel soon after meeting him thatthis normal and pleasant person is also one with high abilities. (Cleckley, 1982, p. 205).

More recently, Lykken (1995) has argued that some traits of the interpersonal domain of psy-chopathy such as glibness and superficial charm might be of advantage to achieve professionalsuccess in certain areas. However, the ‘‘successful psychopath” might be less successful in otherimportant domains of life as these achievements are often accompanied by broken relationshipswith family, friends and co-workers (Hall & Benning, 2006).

Recent studies, using a more contemporary conceptualization of psychopathy (Cooke & Mi-chie, 2001; Hare, 2003), have tested Cleckley’s hypothesis of the intellectual abilities of the psycho-path. Across all studies, a specific pattern of association of cognitive abilities and the differentcomponents of psychopathy has been established. The interpersonal traits of psychopathy dem-onstrated a positive association with verbal IQ (Salekin, Neumann, Leistico, & Zalot, 2004; Vit-acco, Neumann, & Jackson, 2005), fluid intelligence and the total score of the Mini Mental StateExamination (MMSE) (Ullrich & Marneros, submitted for publication), and an intellectual mea-sure reflecting creativity, practicality, and analytic thinking (Salekin et al., 2004). Psychopathictraits reflecting disturbances in affective processing, however, were inversely related with verbalintellectual abilities (Salekin et al., 2004), and fluid intelligence and MMSE total score (Ullrich& Marneros, submitted for publication). Furthermore, a negative relationship between the behav-ioral components of psychopathy and verbal intelligence was found (Vitacco et al., 2005). It wasconcluded that the interpersonal traits of psychopathy associated with social dominance wouldrelate to greater cognitive resources, as the latter are often useful in effectively navigating complexsocial situations (Salekin et al., 2004).

1164 S. Ullrich et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 44 (2008) 1162–1171

Clinical similarities have been observed and statistical associations reported between the inter-personal facet of psychopathy (the conning and manipulative interpersonal style) and narcissisticpersonality disorder traits (Coid, Yang, Ullrich, Roberts, & Hare, submitted for publication; Hart& Hare, 1998). A recent study which investigated the relationship between dimensional represen-tations of DSM-IV personality disorders and indicators of life-success (Ullrich, Farrington, &Coid, 2007) demonstrated that narcissistic personality disorder symptom score positively pre-dicted measures of life-success, including high socio-economic status, good income, supervisoryresponsibilities at work, spacious living conditions, and home ownership.

The majority of empirical research on psychopathy has been conducted with correctional,forensic, and psychiatric samples. Only little is known about psychopaths who have avoided con-tact with the criminal justice and forensic mental health systems. Particularly due to the low base-rates of psychopathic traits in community samples, such studies are rare and have to overcomevarious methodological obstacles (Hall & Benning, 2006). However, clinicians and researchershave long speculated that psychopaths exist in the general population (Kirkman, 2002) and haverecognized the importance of studying psychopathic traits in non-institutionalized samples. More-over, studying psychopathy in non-forensic samples allows one to rule out the effects of long-termdrug use, acute effects of incarceration, and recurrent institutionalization on dependent measures(Lilienfeld, 1994). Lilienfeld (1998) has also suggested that dimensional approaches to definingpsychopathy are useful because psychopathy is likely to be multiply determined and thus wouldreflect a dimensional latent trait. Therefore, psychopathy research in community samples is gen-eralizable to more severely affected individuals.

Few studies have addressed the question as to whether differences exist in psychopathic per-sonality traits between forensic, clinical and community samples. Benning, Patrick, Blonigen,Hicks, and Iacono (2005) compared three samples of community and undergraduate men andwomen and incarcerated men to establish the criterion validity of two distinct factors of psy-chopathy measured with the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI). PPI-I was negativelyassociated with internalizing disorder symptoms and fearfulness and positively with thrill andadventure seeking, sociability, and narcissism, and demonstrated a positive association withthe interpersonal/affective Factor 1 of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). PPI-IIwas negatively associated with socialization and positively with externalizing disorder symp-toms, impulsivity, disinhibition and boredom susceptibility, trait anxiety and negative emotion-ality, and the impulsive/antisocial component (Factor 2) of the PCL-R. To test the hypothesisthat non-institutionalized psychopaths manifest psychopathy primarily in terms of personalityfeatures (interpersonal/affective) rather than behavioral features (impulsivity/antisocial behav-ior), DeMatteo, Heilbrun, and Marczyk (2006) compared PCL-R data of 54 participants ofthe general population with PCL-R normative data. Their results provided some empirical sup-port for the assumption that individuals with elevated levels of psychopathy can be found in thegeneral population, even when compared with correctional and forensic psychiatric populations.Participants of the general population demonstrated the core personality features of psychopa-thy to a greater extent than the core behavioral features indicating that these features do notresult in as much contact with the criminal justice system. However, there was only little differ-ence between a high psychopathic group and the forensic psychiatric normative samples whichsuggests that the severity of psychopathy places them at risk for engaging in future criminalbehavior.


Based on Cleckley’s observations of the more successful psychopath, the reported positive asso-ciation between measures of intellectual abilities and the interpersonal facet of psychopathy, andthe beneficial impact of narcissistic personality disorder on status and wealth, we hypothesizedthat not all the features constituting psychopathic personality are inevitably associated with prob-lem behaviors and life-failure. To take into consideration the low base-rates of psychopathic traitsin the general population, dimensional representations of psychopathy were used in the presentstudy. We aimed to investigate the association between the four domains of psychopathy (inter-personal, affective, impulsivity/lifestyle, and antisocial) and indicators of life-success measured ina community sample of men at age 48 to test the assumption of the existence of the ‘‘successfulpsychopath”. It was expected that the narcissistic, interpersonal component of psychopathywould be positively associated with a more successful life, particularly ‘‘status and wealth”. ‘‘Suc-cessful intimate relationships”, however, were expected to demonstrate a negative association withthe factors of psychopathy.

2. Method

2.1. Sample and Procedures

The Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development is a prospective longitudinal survey of 411boys first investigated in 1961 at age eight. The majority of the boys (87%) were of white Britishethnic origin. When first contacted, all participants were living in a working-class, inner-city areaof South London, UK. A more detailed description of the study can be found elsewhere (Farring-ton, 2003). The data reported in this paper were collected in the latest phase of the study at age 48.Three hundred and ninety-four participants from the original sample were still alive and living inEurope. Of these, 365 men (93%) completed a social interview. Information on psychopathyscores, Axis I and Axis II mental disorders, and clinical history was available for 304 (83%)men. The study was approved by the Ethical Committee of the Institute of Psychiatry, London,UK. Written informed consent to take part in the study was obtained from all participants.

2.2. Measures

The standardized social interview included questions about the participants’ childhoods, theirliving conditions, personal relationships, employment and finances, physical and mental health,problems with their children, leisure activities, alcohol and drug use, and violence and criminalbehavior. A measure of life-success was not an explicit component of the social interview. How-ever, a previous operational definition (Parker & Chusmir, 1992) which included status andwealth, contribution to society, family and relationships, personal fulfillment, professional fulfill-ment, and security was used to screen the social interview for adequate indicators of a successfullife. Altogether, 12 variables were identified and are listed in Table 1. All were rated on a three-point scale (0–2), with higher scores indicating greater success.

The Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV; Hart, Cox, & Hare, 1995) is a 12-item-scale derived from the PCL-R (Hare, 1991). It was constructed as a screen for psychopathyin forensic settings and to assess and diagnose psychopathy outside of forensic settings. Because

Table 1Factor structure of indicators of life-success

Component

1 2

Social class 0.772 �0.045Income 0.749 �0.080Number of rooms at home 0.652 0.193Supervision of others in job 0.633 �0.104Home owner 0.577 0.319Perspective of relationship �0.037 0.786

Partner 0.134 0.738

Stability of relationship 0.198 0.672

Quality of relationship �0.203 0.574

Satisfaction with area of home 0.202 0.176Satisfaction with accommodation 0.035 0.209Satisfaction with job �0.132 0.139

Note. Extraction method: principal components analysis. Rotation method: Oblimin with Kaiser normalization.Loadings exceeding 0.40 are in italics.


the PCL:SV can be completed in the absence of criminal record information, it is more appropri-ate than the PCL-R for use in non-forensic settings and is particularly well-suited for use in civilpsychiatric evaluations and studies of community samples. Its 12 items represent the interper-sonal, affective, impulsive, and antisocial features of psychopathy. The items are rated 0 ‘‘no”,1 ‘‘maybe”, and 2 ‘‘yes”. Taking into consideration recent findings on the underlying factor struc-ture of psychopathy (Cooke & Michie, 2001; Hare, 2003), factor scores were generated by addingthe scores of the relevant items. Factor 1 (interpersonal) consisted of items ‘‘superficial”, ‘‘gran-diose”, and ‘‘deceitful”. Affective deficiency (Factor 2) comprised ‘‘lacks remorse”, ‘‘lacks empa-thy”, and ‘‘does not accept responsibility”. In the third factor score (lifestyle or impulsiveness)items ‘‘impulsive”, ‘‘lacks goals”, and ‘‘irresponsible” were included whereas ‘‘poor behavioralcontrols”, adolescent” and ‘‘adult antisocial behavior” constituted the fourth factor (antisocial).

3. Results

3.1. Descriptive statistics

The mean total score of psychopathy was 5.15 (SD: 4.23, range: 0–19). Mean scores on the fac-tors were 0.95 (SD: 1.07) for interpersonal, 1.01 (SD: 1.21) for affective, 1.20 (SD: 1.08) for life-style, and 2.00 (SD: 1.87) for antisocial. Only two participants (0.6%) reached the threshold for acategorical diagnosis of psychopathy indicated by a total score of 18.

3.2. Exploratory factor analysis of indicators of life-success

A principal components analysis was carried out to identify the underlying factor structure ofthe selected indicators of life-success. Assuming that the factors share common variance, rotationfollowed the Oblimin criterion (d = 0). Factor loadings exceeding 0.40 were considered relevant.


Inspection of scree plot and eigenvalues (2.54, 2.12, 1.40, 1.08, and 1.02) suggested two domi-nant factors underpinning the life-success indicators. As can be seen in Table 1, variables loadingon factor 1 included social class, income, number of rooms at home, supervision of others in job,and home ownership. This factor was labeled ‘‘status and wealth”. Items loading on factor 2 wereperspective of intimate relationship, living in a relationship, stability and quality of relationship.This factor was named ‘‘successful intimate relationships”. Three items had to be excluded due tounsatisfactory factor loadings. The structure matrix of the remaining items yielded no relevantcross-loadings. The factor scores were inter-correlated by r = 0.29 (p < 0.001).

To obtain composite measures of the factors of life-success, variable ratings were added, yield-ing quasi-dimensional scores. The maximum score for the five variables constituting ‘‘status andwealth” was 10 with a mean of 3.97 (SD: 2.36, MD: 4.00). The maximum score for ‘‘successfulintimate relationships” was 8 with a mean of 5.78 (SD: 2.74, MD: 7.00).

3.3. Factors of psychopathy and life-success

Zero-order correlations of the factor scores of psychopathy and the measure of ‘‘status andwealth” were negative for all domains of psychopathy. The interpersonal factor showed a corre-lation of r = �0.17 (p = 0.003), affective deficiency was correlated by r = �0.25 (p = 0.000),impulsiveness was correlated by r = �0.37 (p = 0.000), and the antisocial factor by r = 0.26(p = 0.000). Apart from the antisocial factor (r = 0.08, p = 0.167), ‘‘successful intimate relation-ships” was inversely correlated with the interpersonal (r = �0.15, p = 0.011), affective(r = �0.19, p = 0.001) and impulsive domain (r = �0.20, p = 0.000).

Since the distributions of the factor scores were extremely skewed towards 0 and demonstrateda great overdispersion, a multivariate Poisson regression analysis was conducted to establish asso-ciations between the dimensional representations of the factors of psychopathy and life-successscores. As the factor scores were considerably inter-correlated (F1/F2: r = 0.405; F1/F3:r = 0.379; F1/F4: r = 0.464; F2/F3: r = 0.528; F2/F4: r = 0.570; F3/F4: r = 0.628; all correlationswere significant at the 0.01 level), it was investigated to what extent each factor predicted life-suc-

Table 2Factor scores of psychopathy and indicators of life-success

Factors of psychopathy Life-success

Status and wealth Successful intimate relationships

b SE Z b SE Z

Interpersonal �0.073 0.041 �1.781 �0.052 0.032 �1.625Affective �0.108 0.043 �2.512* �0.065 0.032 �2.031 *

Impulsivity/lifestyle �0.216 0.041 �5.268*** �0.041 0.029 �1.414Antisocial �0.088 0.026 �3.385** �0.009 0.022 �0.409

Note. To control for confounding effects, adjustments were made for longstanding physical illness and lifetime diagnosisof Axis I mental disorder.

* p < 0.05.** p < 0.01.*** p < 0.001.


cess independently of other factors. The factors of psychopathy were treated as correlated mea-sures within each individual. The full variance-covariance structure was then captured by themodel. Associations between the factors of psychopathy and life-success scores were tested bystandard Z-score statistics. Extra Poisson variation was allowed to reflect the excessive variationof the factor scores due to extreme values.

Table 2 shows the associations between the factors of psychopathy and the two domains of life-success. No significant association was found between the interpersonal factor and either measureof life-success. Affective deficiency was negatively related to both ‘‘status and wealth” and ‘‘suc-cessful intimate relationships”. The impulsive/lifestyle and antisocial factors also negatively pre-dicted ‘‘status and wealth”, but showed no association with ‘‘successful intimate relationships”.

4. Discussion

Against the background of the hypothesized existence of the ‘‘successful psychopath”, thisstudy aimed to investigate the potentially positive impact of certain psychopathic personality fea-tures on indicators of life-success in a community sample of 304 men. It was hypothesized that theinterpersonal psychopathic traits would positively predict greater success in life. However, thishypothesis was not confirmed. No association was found with ‘‘status and wealth” or ‘‘successfulintimate relationships” as indicators of life-success. This lack of association was at first surprising.The traits constituting the interpersonal factor of psychopathy show considerable similarities tothe symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder according to DSM-IV (American PsychiatricAssociation, 1994). Clinical observations (Kernberg, 1984) and empirical findings (Ullrichet al., 2007) have suggested potentially beneficial effects of narcissistic personality disorder onlife-success, particularly status and wealth. However, previous theories on narcissistic personalitydisorder (Kernberg, 1975; Wilson, 1989) have postulated two levels of adaptation and emotionalhealth associated with this personality disorder. Level 1 has been referred to as the more poorlyadapted presentation with a marked lack of empathic skills, pseudo-grandiosity, paranoid symp-toms, depression, and denial. Level 2-narcissism represented the more adapted version showingselective empathy, true grandiosity, a scanning and hyper-vigilant paranoid cognitive style,guilt-ridden depressive symptoms, and disavowal. Taking into consideration the possibility oftwo distinct representations of narcissistic personality, this may explain the lack of association be-tween the interpersonal traits of psychopathy and measures of life-success. Using a psychody-namic formulation, the features constituting the interpersonal psychopathy component couldbe described as level 1- narcissism and more maladaptive than the level 2 narcissistic traits.

According to Cleckley (1982), intellectual skills are one prominent feature of the (successful)psychopath. Recent studies have confirmed this association but only for the interpersonal compo-nent of psychopathy. Research has shown that individuals characterized by elevated scores onsuperficiality, grandiosity and deceitfulness demonstrated greater cognitive resources such as ver-bal IQ, fluid intelligence, creativity, practicality, and analytic thinking (Salekin et al., 2004; Ullrich& Marneros, submitted for publication; Vitacco et al., 2005). However, the reported magnitude ofthe associations was only small to moderate. Intellectual skills, though, have not been explicitlyincluded in later operational definitions of the construct (Hare, 1991; Hare, 2003; Hart et al.,1995). Against this background it could be hypothesized that individuals with elevated scores


on the interpersonal component of psychopathy and higher intelligence demonstrate greater suc-cess in life when compared to those with elevated interpersonal features but lower intellectualskills. Further research is necessary to investigate this hypothesis.

Affective deficiency was negatively associated with both indicators of a successful life, suggest-ing that lack of remorse, lack of empathy, and callousness are counterproductive for ‘‘status andwealth” and ‘‘successful intimate relationships”. This finding is in accordance with a recent study(Ullrich et al., 2007) where schizoid personality disorder criteria scores, which have been demon-strated to correlate positively with psychopathic affective deficiency (Coid et al., submitted forpublication), and which comprise similar emotional coldness and detachment, were associatedwith life-failure.

It was unsurprising that impulsiveness and persistent antisocial and criminal behaviors pre-dicted negatively ‘‘status and wealth”. However, no inverse association was found with ‘‘success-ful intimate relationships”. Taking into consideration the operational definition of ‘‘successfulintimate relationships”, though, this component of life-success was defined by more subjectiveparameters when compared to the indicators constituting ‘‘status and wealth”. The behavioralcomponents of psychopathy include aggressive impulsivity, irresponsibility, lack of goals, andadolescent and adult antisocial behaviors. These traits and behaviors indicate that the potentialconsequences of these behaviors for other persons are considered as less important than the imme-diate beneficial effects for the person who acts. This attitude might lead to a subjectively biasedevaluation of intimate personal relationships and, therefore, explain the lack of negativeassociation.

4.1. Strengths and limitations of the study

It can be argued that this study was limited by the skewed distribution of psychopathy scores.As the maximum total score achieved was 19, the whole range of the syndrome was not availablefor analysis. Furthermore, mean scores for the interpersonal traits were the lowest. However, re-cent studies (Guay & Knight, 2003; Marcus, John, & Edens, 2004) have provided empirical sup-port in favor of a dimensional representation of psychopathy and each of the facets. Hence, thetraditional understanding of a qualitative different diagnostic entity has to be questioned. More-over, the successful psychopaths described by Cleckley (1982) were referred to as incomplete man-ifestations of the disorder, indicating a milder form of psychopathy. A recent study (Coid et al.,submitted for publication) has also demonstrated that the distribution of psychopathic traits in arepresentative community sample is more skewed towards the absence of or only a mild form ofpsychopathy when compared to forensic samples.

One distinctive feature of this study is the homogeneity of the sample. Since all participantscame from a comparable social background and were the same age when psychopathy and indi-cators of life-success were assessed, the influence of confounding effects of variables on the mea-sures of life-success were considerably reduced. However, information on psychopathy and life-success was not available for all the phases in this longitudinal design. Therefore, this study can-not answer the question of causal ordering and reciprocal influence of these two measures.

Forensic settings are unlikely to be the optimal location to identify successful psychopathic per-sonalities. Therefore, a strength of the current study is that the associations between psychopathictraits and measures of life-success were established in a community sample.


5. Conclusions

The findings of this study do not support the assumption that psychopathic personality traitscontribute beneficially to a successful life. In a community sample of men at age 48, psychopathicpersonality traits of any domain did not positively predict any indicator of life-success. At best,the interpersonal traits showed no association at all. Elevated affective deficiency, impulsiveness,and persistent antisocial behaviors, though, were correlated with life-failure. Deficient affectivityseemed to have the worst effects, as it both negatively affected ‘‘status and wealth” and ‘‘successfulintimate relationships”.

Although some personality disorder traits seem to positively contribute to a successful life, thisdid not hold true for the psychopathy components. These findings cast doubt on the existence ofthe successful psychopath and suggest a qualitative difference between the syndrome of narcissisticpersonality disorder and the arrogant and deceitful interpersonal psychopathic style.

Acknowledgement

This project was funded by the UK National Programme on Forensic Mental Health.

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Psychopathic personality traits and life-success