Psychopathic individuals have the ability to empathize — they just don’t like to

Authored by psypost.org and submitted by mvea

Psychopathic individuals have the ability to empathize — they just don’t like to

Individuals with high levels of psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism — known as the “dark triad” of personality traits — do not appear to have an impaired ability to empathize, according to new research published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. But these individuals are not inclined to use this ability.

“There seems to be so many misunderstandings about ‘normal’ psychopaths among us,” remarked study author Petri Kajonius, an associate professor in psychology at University West in Sweden.

“Sometimes psychopaths (people with dark traits) are understood as callous persons, not being able to empathize with others, while at other times they are understood as fully functional in that regard, but just don’t care. We wanted to find out what the data in a HR-community sample, purposed to be in tune with personnel, would say?”

The study of 278 participants found that dark personality traits were negatively related to the disposition to empathize, but had no relationship with the ability to empathize.

People who scored high on a measure of Dark Triad traits tended to agree with statements such as “Sometimes I don’t feel very sorry for other people when they are having problems” and “Other people’s misfortunes do not usually disturb me a great deal.”

But the Dark Triad traits were unrelated to scores on the Multifaceted Empathy Test, in which the participants were shown pictures of people expressing different emotions and asked to identify which feeling the person in the picture was experiencing.

“The results show that overwhelmingly, HR-people with dark traits, are not lacking the ability to empathize, but score low in their dispositions to do so,” Kajonius told PsyPost.

“In other words, psychopaths, Machiavellians, and narcissists in the common population (i.e. non-clinical) don’t care much about other people’s feelings, but still have the ability to empathize.”

“This may clear things up about the nature of the Dark Triad, which is becoming a more and more used psychological measurement, especially in work psychology.”

The researchers also found that cognitive ability was positively related to the ability to empathize.

But the study — like all research — includes some limitations.

“These results don’t inform us on clinical samples (people diagnosed with psychopathy or narcissism). These people may very well be lacking the ability, and not only the disposition, to empathize. Furthermore, the study rests on a rather small sample and the trait scales are based on self-reported questionnaire items, which arguably holds some social desirability-error,” Kajonius explained.

The study, “Individuals with dark traits have the ability but not the disposition to empathize“, was authored by Petri J. Kajoniusa and Therese Björkmana.

name_man on December 11st, 2019 at 10:12 UTC »

Everyone's running a little wild with interpretations here. The sample population here was non-clinical, meaning zero of the participants were actually clinically diagnosed psychopaths. Plus, the sample was actually very specific/niche. The participants were all HR people. Add to that, the only assessment measure used was a self-report assessment, which is prone to lots of biases and limitations methodologically (not that it's completely invalidated as a tool, just with noteworthy flaws). The title implies that what most people would consider "a psychopath" was functionally capable of empathy, just resistant or reluctant to engage in it, which is not really what this study can actually conclude.

So basically, saying that psychopathic individuals can empathize, but just choose not to is misleading.

Also, I know the second sentence says "high in psychopathic traits", but I still think a lot of laypeople reading that headline would come away with a very misinformed conclusion based on how it's written.

AntifaSuperSwoledier on December 11st, 2019 at 06:45 UTC »

Keep in mind Dark Triad psychopathy refers to trait psychopathy. This is related to, but not the same as being diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, or alternatively scoring high on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist.

When someone is called "a psychopath" it usually refers to the latter. People who score high in DT traits are usually not going to meet all of those criteria.

(I'm not sure anyone ever said DT persons couldn't empathize. Although they may score lower in affective empathy or cognitive empathy.)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S019188691300202X

purplewhiteblack on December 11st, 2019 at 05:32 UTC »

So, now psychopaths are regular people who are jerks?