#psychopathy — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #psychopathy, aggregated by home.social.
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DATE: August 11, 2026 at 12:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Narcissism and psychopathy linked to entrepreneurial mindsets
People who possess certain dark personality traits, along with specific traditional traits like openness, show a higher natural inclination toward entrepreneurship. A recent psychological survey of working adults revealed that individuals scoring high in narcissism and psychopathy also reported stronger entrepreneurial tendencies. These results were published in the journal Acta Psychologica.
Psychologists often study entrepreneurship not just as an occupation, but as a deep-seated personality construct. In this framework, entrepreneurial tendency is defined as a latent psychological disposition. It involves a strong preference for innovation, a knack for recognizing opportunities, and a drive to create societal value.
According to this perspective, a person can possess a highly entrepreneurial mindset even if they currently work a traditional salaried job. By treating this tendency as a stable pattern of thoughts and emotions, researchers can investigate how it relates to other established facets of human psychology.
To describe general human personality, scientists typically rely on a model known as the Big Five, which categorizes personality into five broad domains. Openness to experience involves imagination and a preference for novelty, while conscientiousness relates to organization and goal-directed behavior. Extraversion is tied to sociability, agreeableness reflects cooperativeness, and emotional stability refers to how well a person handles stress.
In recent years, psychologists have also focused on a cluster of socially undesirable characteristics known as the Dark Triad. Narcissism involves grandiosity, dominance, and an inflated sense of self-worth. Psychopathy is characterized by high impulsivity, arrogance, and low empathy, while Machiavellianism refers to a calculated willingness to manipulate others to achieve personal goals.
Because starting and running a business requires a high degree of confidence, risk tolerance, and a desire for control, these dark traits might naturally appeal to prospective founders. M. Inmaculada López-Núñez and her colleagues at the Complutense University of Madrid wanted to see how these different personality models predict an individual’s internal drive to be an entrepreneur. They designed a study to examine these relationships while accounting for demographic factors like age, gender, and current occupational status.
The researchers recruited 591 adult workers in Spain to participate in the study. The participants ranged in age from 26 to 76 and included both men and women. They represented a variety of employment situations, including traditional salaried employees, self-employed individuals, and unemployed workers. The participants also had diverse educational backgrounds, ranging from primary schooling to advanced university degrees.
Each participant completed a series of online questionnaires. The first survey measured their entrepreneurial tendencies by asking them to rate statements about how often they identify business opportunities or generate new ideas in team settings. The participants rated their agreement on a five-point scale.
Next, the participants completed a brief ten-item inventory to assess their Big Five personality traits. They rated how well certain pairs of adjectives described their typical behavior. Finally, the researchers measured the Dark Triad traits using a specialized twelve-item scale. This survey asked participants to rate their agreement with statements reflecting manipulation, grandiosity, and a lack of remorse.
The researchers used statistical models to determine how much of the variation in entrepreneurial tendencies could be explained by the collected data. They found that demographic factors, traditional personality traits, and dark traits collectively accounted for about 41 percent of the total variation in entrepreneurial tendencies among the participants.
Several traditional Big Five traits were strongly associated with an entrepreneurial mindset. People who scored higher in openness to experience, conscientiousness, and extraversion tended to report higher entrepreneurial tendencies. Openness to experience emerged as the most relevant trait among the Big Five for predicting this business-oriented disposition.
The Dark Triad traits also provided unique predictive value. Specifically, higher scores in narcissism and psychopathy were positively correlated with the entrepreneurial mindset. Narcissism showed the strongest association among the dark traits. The inclusion of these socially undesirable characteristics improved the accuracy of the predictive model, indicating that dark traits offer information about entrepreneurial tendencies that traditional personality models miss.
Demographic and occupational factors played a measurable role in the results as well. Being younger and being male were linked to a stronger psychological disposition toward entrepreneurship. This aligns with some historical data regarding business creation, though the researchers noted that gender gaps in actual start-up activity are narrowing globally.
Additionally, current occupational status was linked to psychological tendencies. Self-employed individuals showed higher entrepreneurial scores than traditional salaried workers. The researchers suggested that choosing self-employment might be an active expression of a person’s latent psychological traits, as individuals naturally gravitate toward work environments that fit their internal needs.
The study has a few limitations. The researchers relied entirely on self-reported data collected at a single point in time. Because of this cross-sectional design, they cannot determine the direction of the relationship between these variables. The data do not prove that possessing dark personality traits causes a person to become more entrepreneurial.
It is possible that the way individuals view themselves skews their survey responses. For example, individuals who score high in narcissism might naturally overestimate their own business acumen, reporting higher entrepreneurial abilities than they actually possess. Self-report surveys capture an individual’s perception of their traits, which may differ from their actual behavior in a business setting.
Future research should track participants over an extended period to see how these personality traits influence actual career choices over time. Observing individuals as they start and manage businesses could help clarify exactly how dark traits interact with traditional personality measures in the real world.
Scientists also need to explore the specific reasons why people choose to start businesses. Distinguishing between those who start companies to seize a new opportunity and those who do so out of economic necessity could reveal different underlying personality profiles.
The study, “Individual differences in entrepreneurial tendencies: The impact of self-employment and the Dark Triad,” was authored by M. Inmaculada López-Núñez, Sara Esteban-Gonzalo, Teresa Diéguez-Risco, and Juan F. Díaz-Morales.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #EntrepreneurialMindset #DarkTriad #Narcissism #Psychopathy #OpennessToExperience #Conscientiousness #Extraversion #EntrepreneurshipResearch #SelfEmployment #BigFiveTraits
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DATE: August 11, 2026 at 12:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Narcissism and psychopathy linked to entrepreneurial mindsets
People who possess certain dark personality traits, along with specific traditional traits like openness, show a higher natural inclination toward entrepreneurship. A recent psychological survey of working adults revealed that individuals scoring high in narcissism and psychopathy also reported stronger entrepreneurial tendencies. These results were published in the journal Acta Psychologica.
Psychologists often study entrepreneurship not just as an occupation, but as a deep-seated personality construct. In this framework, entrepreneurial tendency is defined as a latent psychological disposition. It involves a strong preference for innovation, a knack for recognizing opportunities, and a drive to create societal value.
According to this perspective, a person can possess a highly entrepreneurial mindset even if they currently work a traditional salaried job. By treating this tendency as a stable pattern of thoughts and emotions, researchers can investigate how it relates to other established facets of human psychology.
To describe general human personality, scientists typically rely on a model known as the Big Five, which categorizes personality into five broad domains. Openness to experience involves imagination and a preference for novelty, while conscientiousness relates to organization and goal-directed behavior. Extraversion is tied to sociability, agreeableness reflects cooperativeness, and emotional stability refers to how well a person handles stress.
In recent years, psychologists have also focused on a cluster of socially undesirable characteristics known as the Dark Triad. Narcissism involves grandiosity, dominance, and an inflated sense of self-worth. Psychopathy is characterized by high impulsivity, arrogance, and low empathy, while Machiavellianism refers to a calculated willingness to manipulate others to achieve personal goals.
Because starting and running a business requires a high degree of confidence, risk tolerance, and a desire for control, these dark traits might naturally appeal to prospective founders. M. Inmaculada López-Núñez and her colleagues at the Complutense University of Madrid wanted to see how these different personality models predict an individual’s internal drive to be an entrepreneur. They designed a study to examine these relationships while accounting for demographic factors like age, gender, and current occupational status.
The researchers recruited 591 adult workers in Spain to participate in the study. The participants ranged in age from 26 to 76 and included both men and women. They represented a variety of employment situations, including traditional salaried employees, self-employed individuals, and unemployed workers. The participants also had diverse educational backgrounds, ranging from primary schooling to advanced university degrees.
Each participant completed a series of online questionnaires. The first survey measured their entrepreneurial tendencies by asking them to rate statements about how often they identify business opportunities or generate new ideas in team settings. The participants rated their agreement on a five-point scale.
Next, the participants completed a brief ten-item inventory to assess their Big Five personality traits. They rated how well certain pairs of adjectives described their typical behavior. Finally, the researchers measured the Dark Triad traits using a specialized twelve-item scale. This survey asked participants to rate their agreement with statements reflecting manipulation, grandiosity, and a lack of remorse.
The researchers used statistical models to determine how much of the variation in entrepreneurial tendencies could be explained by the collected data. They found that demographic factors, traditional personality traits, and dark traits collectively accounted for about 41 percent of the total variation in entrepreneurial tendencies among the participants.
Several traditional Big Five traits were strongly associated with an entrepreneurial mindset. People who scored higher in openness to experience, conscientiousness, and extraversion tended to report higher entrepreneurial tendencies. Openness to experience emerged as the most relevant trait among the Big Five for predicting this business-oriented disposition.
The Dark Triad traits also provided unique predictive value. Specifically, higher scores in narcissism and psychopathy were positively correlated with the entrepreneurial mindset. Narcissism showed the strongest association among the dark traits. The inclusion of these socially undesirable characteristics improved the accuracy of the predictive model, indicating that dark traits offer information about entrepreneurial tendencies that traditional personality models miss.
Demographic and occupational factors played a measurable role in the results as well. Being younger and being male were linked to a stronger psychological disposition toward entrepreneurship. This aligns with some historical data regarding business creation, though the researchers noted that gender gaps in actual start-up activity are narrowing globally.
Additionally, current occupational status was linked to psychological tendencies. Self-employed individuals showed higher entrepreneurial scores than traditional salaried workers. The researchers suggested that choosing self-employment might be an active expression of a person’s latent psychological traits, as individuals naturally gravitate toward work environments that fit their internal needs.
The study has a few limitations. The researchers relied entirely on self-reported data collected at a single point in time. Because of this cross-sectional design, they cannot determine the direction of the relationship between these variables. The data do not prove that possessing dark personality traits causes a person to become more entrepreneurial.
It is possible that the way individuals view themselves skews their survey responses. For example, individuals who score high in narcissism might naturally overestimate their own business acumen, reporting higher entrepreneurial abilities than they actually possess. Self-report surveys capture an individual’s perception of their traits, which may differ from their actual behavior in a business setting.
Future research should track participants over an extended period to see how these personality traits influence actual career choices over time. Observing individuals as they start and manage businesses could help clarify exactly how dark traits interact with traditional personality measures in the real world.
Scientists also need to explore the specific reasons why people choose to start businesses. Distinguishing between those who start companies to seize a new opportunity and those who do so out of economic necessity could reveal different underlying personality profiles.
The study, “Individual differences in entrepreneurial tendencies: The impact of self-employment and the Dark Triad,” was authored by M. Inmaculada López-Núñez, Sara Esteban-Gonzalo, Teresa Diéguez-Risco, and Juan F. Díaz-Morales.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #EntrepreneurialMindset #DarkTriad #Narcissism #Psychopathy #OpennessToExperience #Conscientiousness #Extraversion #EntrepreneurshipResearch #SelfEmployment #BigFiveTraits
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DATE: August 9, 2026 at 09:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: The dark triad and problematic sexual behavior: A small piece of a complex puzzle
A recent study suggests that people with antagonistic personality traits, such as narcissism and psychopathy, tend to report higher levels of problematic sexual behavior and momentary sexual urges. However, these associations are relatively small, indicating that personality is just one piece of a much larger psychological puzzle. The research was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
Problematic sexual behavior refers to patterns of sexual thoughts or actions that feel difficult to control and cause negative consequences in a person’s life. Rather than classifying this as a formal addiction, psychologists often view it on a spectrum of severity. Sexual activity can play a positive role in adult well-being and act as a healthy way to cope with life’s challenges. However, when a person repeatedly uses sexual behavior as their primary method to manage difficult emotions, it has the potential to become an unhealthy coping mechanism.
To better understand who might be most prone to these patterns, researchers looked at the “Dark Triad” of personality. This group of antagonistic traits includes Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. Machiavellianism involves a tendency to be manipulative and strategic, usually to exploit others for personal gain. Narcissism is characterized by a sense of grandiosity, perceived superiority, and a strong sense of entitlement. Psychopathy involves emotional detachment, low empathy, and poor impulse control.
Past evidence indicates that people scoring higher on these traits often struggle with regulating their emotions and managing stress. Because problematic sexual behavior is frequently linked to poor emotional control, scientists wanted to see if these antagonistic traits correlated with a higher tendency to rely on sex for stress relief. They also aimed to test whether experiencing acute emotional stress would amplify momentary sexual urges.
“Problematic sexual behavior is widely discussed and debated, but we still do not fully understand what drives it,” said Emanuele Fino, corresponding author and an assistant professor at Queen’s University Belfast. “We wanted to examine whether certain personality traits are linked to difficulties controlling sexual thoughts or behaviors, whether emotional stress strengthens these links, and whether the patterns differ between men and women.”
To explore these questions, the authors conducted two separate studies using undergraduate students in Romania. In the first study, 418 participants completed online questionnaires measuring their personality traits and their levels of problematic sexual behavior over the past year. The sample included 213 women and 202 men, with an average age of 22. The researchers used established psychological scales to measure the three dark personality traits, along with a standardized questionnaire to capture frequency-based indicators of dysregulated sexual behavior.
The findings from the first study suggested slight differences between men and women in how these traits related to sexual behavior. Among women, higher scores in all three traits, including Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy, were associated with more problematic sexual behavior. Among men, only psychopathic traits were associated with these behaviors. The associations involving Machiavellianism and narcissism in men were not statistically significant.
“People with higher levels of antagonistic traits, such as callousness, manipulation and self-centeredness, tended to report more problematic sexual thoughts and behaviors,” Fino told PsyPost. “Also, in one of our studies, psychopathic traits were the only traits significantly linked to problematic sexual behavior among men, specifically, which may reflect characteristics such as impulsivity, sensation-seeking or reduced empathy.”
It is important to note that the effect sizes were quite small across the board. In statistics, shared variance refers to how much of the variation in one trait can be explained by another. The dark traits accounted for only about 3 to 7 percent of the shared variance in problematic sexual behavior scores among women. For men, psychopathic traits accounted for about 6 percent of the variance.
This means that over 90 percent of the variation in this behavior is explained by factors outside of these personality traits. “The links were statistically significant but fairly small,” Fino explained. “Human behavior is complex, and no single personality trait is likely to explain it fully. It is therefore more accurate to say that these traits may contribute slightly to someone’s likelihood of experiencing difficulties, alongside many other factors.”
The second study involved a separate group of 455 undergraduate students, including 249 women and 206 men, with an average age of 22. This time, the researchers focused on momentary sexual preoccupations and urges rather than behavior over the past year. They also added an experimental element to see how acute stress influenced these momentary urges. Half of the participants were asked to vividly recall and write about a highly distressing childhood memory to induce emotional stress, while the other half completed a neutral control task.
Following the memory task, the researchers measured the participants’ current sexual urges, dark personality traits, and anxiety levels. They adjusted the statistical models to account for age and general trait anxiety. Trait anxiety refers to a person’s baseline tendency to feel anxious, while state anxiety refers to temporary feelings of worry in the moment.
The stress manipulation worked as intended, with participants in the distressing memory group reporting higher state anxiety than the control group. Despite this increase in anxiety, the induced stress did not change the relationship between the dark traits and momentary sexual urges. “We expected emotional stress to strengthen the link between personality and sexual urges, but it did not,” Fino said.
“Our stress task increased anxiety, so the task worked, but it did not change the relationship between personality and urges,” Fino continued. “Longer-term or everyday stress may be more relevant for problematic sexual behavior than brief, experimentally induced distress.” Gender also did not alter this relationship in the second study, contrasting slightly with the findings of the first study.
When looking at basic correlations, all three dark traits were linked to higher momentary sexual urges in both men and women. Again, the associations were small, with the traits explaining about 3 to 6 percent of the variation in momentary urges. The researchers then analyzed all three traits together in a single statistical model to see which one was the strongest predictor. When grouped this way, no individual trait uniquely predicted the sexual urges.
To make sense of this, the researchers used a technique called structural equation modeling, which allows scientists to look at the mathematical overlap of traits. They found that a general antagonistic personality style, shared across all three traits, was linked to the sexual urges. Psychopathic traits were the strongest indicator of this shared antagonistic dimension. This suggests that a broad tendency toward emotional callousness and disinhibition might be driving the association, rather than the specific individual features of narcissism or Machiavellianism alone.
These findings do not indicate that certain personality types are destined to develop sexual compulsions. “Our findings do not mean that people with certain traits are destined to develop problematic sexual behavior, nor can these traits predict what any individual will do,” Fino cautioned. “These traits do not determine a specific person’s behavior and should not be used to judge or label individuals. They are only one part of a much larger picture.”
The data is also correlational, meaning it cannot determine whether dark personality traits directly cause problematic sexual behavior. The study relied exclusively on undergraduate university students, which introduces some limits to the research. “We studied university students, not people diagnosed with personality disorders or compulsive sexual behavior, so the findings should not automatically be generalized to clinical populations,” Fino stated.
Young adulthood is a period of active sexual exploration and identity development, which restricts how well the conclusions apply to older adults. Additionally, the stress experiment specifically used childhood memories to induce distress. This type of emotional recall might not mirror the everyday stressors that typically trigger sexual urges in the real world.
Future research would benefit from tracking participants over longer periods to see how personality and sexual behavior influence one another over time.
“We want to understand what connects personality to behavior,” Fino stated. “Factors such as impulsivity, emotion regulation, trauma as well as social and cultural contexts may help explain why some people experience these difficulties while others do not. Observing people over time will also help us understand how these patterns develop.”
“We tested our ideas in two separate groups using different approaches, which strengthens the overall evidence,” Fino concluded. “More broadly, we hope the study supports a balanced conversation. Overall, problematic sexual behavior is complex and cannot be explained by one personality trait alone or one brief stressful experience.”
The study, “Investigating the relationship between antagonistic personality traits and problematic sexual behaviour: The role of gender and emotional stress,” was authored by Simona A. Popușoi, Cara Finn, Eduard Ionut Apetrei, Cian Leppard, Andrei C. Holman, Nadja Heym, and Emanuele Fino.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DarkTriad #ProblematicSexualBehavior #Narcissism #Psychopathy #Machiavellianism #EmotionalStress #PsychologyResearch #SexualBehavior #PersonalityTraits #MentalHealthScience
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DATE: August 9, 2026 at 09:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: The dark triad and problematic sexual behavior: A small piece of a complex puzzle
A recent study suggests that people with antagonistic personality traits, such as narcissism and psychopathy, tend to report higher levels of problematic sexual behavior and momentary sexual urges. However, these associations are relatively small, indicating that personality is just one piece of a much larger psychological puzzle. The research was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
Problematic sexual behavior refers to patterns of sexual thoughts or actions that feel difficult to control and cause negative consequences in a person’s life. Rather than classifying this as a formal addiction, psychologists often view it on a spectrum of severity. Sexual activity can play a positive role in adult well-being and act as a healthy way to cope with life’s challenges. However, when a person repeatedly uses sexual behavior as their primary method to manage difficult emotions, it has the potential to become an unhealthy coping mechanism.
To better understand who might be most prone to these patterns, researchers looked at the “Dark Triad” of personality. This group of antagonistic traits includes Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. Machiavellianism involves a tendency to be manipulative and strategic, usually to exploit others for personal gain. Narcissism is characterized by a sense of grandiosity, perceived superiority, and a strong sense of entitlement. Psychopathy involves emotional detachment, low empathy, and poor impulse control.
Past evidence indicates that people scoring higher on these traits often struggle with regulating their emotions and managing stress. Because problematic sexual behavior is frequently linked to poor emotional control, scientists wanted to see if these antagonistic traits correlated with a higher tendency to rely on sex for stress relief. They also aimed to test whether experiencing acute emotional stress would amplify momentary sexual urges.
“Problematic sexual behavior is widely discussed and debated, but we still do not fully understand what drives it,” said Emanuele Fino, corresponding author and an assistant professor at Queen’s University Belfast. “We wanted to examine whether certain personality traits are linked to difficulties controlling sexual thoughts or behaviors, whether emotional stress strengthens these links, and whether the patterns differ between men and women.”
To explore these questions, the authors conducted two separate studies using undergraduate students in Romania. In the first study, 418 participants completed online questionnaires measuring their personality traits and their levels of problematic sexual behavior over the past year. The sample included 213 women and 202 men, with an average age of 22. The researchers used established psychological scales to measure the three dark personality traits, along with a standardized questionnaire to capture frequency-based indicators of dysregulated sexual behavior.
The findings from the first study suggested slight differences between men and women in how these traits related to sexual behavior. Among women, higher scores in all three traits, including Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy, were associated with more problematic sexual behavior. Among men, only psychopathic traits were associated with these behaviors. The associations involving Machiavellianism and narcissism in men were not statistically significant.
“People with higher levels of antagonistic traits, such as callousness, manipulation and self-centeredness, tended to report more problematic sexual thoughts and behaviors,” Fino told PsyPost. “Also, in one of our studies, psychopathic traits were the only traits significantly linked to problematic sexual behavior among men, specifically, which may reflect characteristics such as impulsivity, sensation-seeking or reduced empathy.”
It is important to note that the effect sizes were quite small across the board. In statistics, shared variance refers to how much of the variation in one trait can be explained by another. The dark traits accounted for only about 3 to 7 percent of the shared variance in problematic sexual behavior scores among women. For men, psychopathic traits accounted for about 6 percent of the variance.
This means that over 90 percent of the variation in this behavior is explained by factors outside of these personality traits. “The links were statistically significant but fairly small,” Fino explained. “Human behavior is complex, and no single personality trait is likely to explain it fully. It is therefore more accurate to say that these traits may contribute slightly to someone’s likelihood of experiencing difficulties, alongside many other factors.”
The second study involved a separate group of 455 undergraduate students, including 249 women and 206 men, with an average age of 22. This time, the researchers focused on momentary sexual preoccupations and urges rather than behavior over the past year. They also added an experimental element to see how acute stress influenced these momentary urges. Half of the participants were asked to vividly recall and write about a highly distressing childhood memory to induce emotional stress, while the other half completed a neutral control task.
Following the memory task, the researchers measured the participants’ current sexual urges, dark personality traits, and anxiety levels. They adjusted the statistical models to account for age and general trait anxiety. Trait anxiety refers to a person’s baseline tendency to feel anxious, while state anxiety refers to temporary feelings of worry in the moment.
The stress manipulation worked as intended, with participants in the distressing memory group reporting higher state anxiety than the control group. Despite this increase in anxiety, the induced stress did not change the relationship between the dark traits and momentary sexual urges. “We expected emotional stress to strengthen the link between personality and sexual urges, but it did not,” Fino said.
“Our stress task increased anxiety, so the task worked, but it did not change the relationship between personality and urges,” Fino continued. “Longer-term or everyday stress may be more relevant for problematic sexual behavior than brief, experimentally induced distress.” Gender also did not alter this relationship in the second study, contrasting slightly with the findings of the first study.
When looking at basic correlations, all three dark traits were linked to higher momentary sexual urges in both men and women. Again, the associations were small, with the traits explaining about 3 to 6 percent of the variation in momentary urges. The researchers then analyzed all three traits together in a single statistical model to see which one was the strongest predictor. When grouped this way, no individual trait uniquely predicted the sexual urges.
To make sense of this, the researchers used a technique called structural equation modeling, which allows scientists to look at the mathematical overlap of traits. They found that a general antagonistic personality style, shared across all three traits, was linked to the sexual urges. Psychopathic traits were the strongest indicator of this shared antagonistic dimension. This suggests that a broad tendency toward emotional callousness and disinhibition might be driving the association, rather than the specific individual features of narcissism or Machiavellianism alone.
These findings do not indicate that certain personality types are destined to develop sexual compulsions. “Our findings do not mean that people with certain traits are destined to develop problematic sexual behavior, nor can these traits predict what any individual will do,” Fino cautioned. “These traits do not determine a specific person’s behavior and should not be used to judge or label individuals. They are only one part of a much larger picture.”
The data is also correlational, meaning it cannot determine whether dark personality traits directly cause problematic sexual behavior. The study relied exclusively on undergraduate university students, which introduces some limits to the research. “We studied university students, not people diagnosed with personality disorders or compulsive sexual behavior, so the findings should not automatically be generalized to clinical populations,” Fino stated.
Young adulthood is a period of active sexual exploration and identity development, which restricts how well the conclusions apply to older adults. Additionally, the stress experiment specifically used childhood memories to induce distress. This type of emotional recall might not mirror the everyday stressors that typically trigger sexual urges in the real world.
Future research would benefit from tracking participants over longer periods to see how personality and sexual behavior influence one another over time.
“We want to understand what connects personality to behavior,” Fino stated. “Factors such as impulsivity, emotion regulation, trauma as well as social and cultural contexts may help explain why some people experience these difficulties while others do not. Observing people over time will also help us understand how these patterns develop.”
“We tested our ideas in two separate groups using different approaches, which strengthens the overall evidence,” Fino concluded. “More broadly, we hope the study supports a balanced conversation. Overall, problematic sexual behavior is complex and cannot be explained by one personality trait alone or one brief stressful experience.”
The study, “Investigating the relationship between antagonistic personality traits and problematic sexual behaviour: The role of gender and emotional stress,” was authored by Simona A. Popușoi, Cara Finn, Eduard Ionut Apetrei, Cian Leppard, Andrei C. Holman, Nadja Heym, and Emanuele Fino.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DarkTriad #ProblematicSexualBehavior #Narcissism #Psychopathy #Machiavellianism #EmotionalStress #PsychologyResearch #SexualBehavior #PersonalityTraits #MentalHealthScience
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DATE: August 7, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Dark personality traits linked to problematic social media use via jealousy and cyberstalking
A recent study published in Current Psychology indicates that individuals with antagonistic personality traits tend to develop problematic social media habits driven by jealousy and a desire to monitor their romantic partners online. The research suggests that traits such as narcissism and psychopathy foster specific types of relationship insecurity. This insecurity can prompt individuals to engage in cyberstalking, which then escalates into broader patterns of social media addiction.
Problematic social media use involves a pattern of compulsive digital engagement that interferes with daily life and mental well-being. People struggling with this issue often use social platforms to regulate their mood and experience negative feelings when offline. They also tend to face interpersonal conflicts due to their excessive screen time. Past research points to personality as a major factor in how people interact with digital platforms.
The Dark Tetrad is a psychological framework that groups together four malevolent personality traits. Machiavellianism involves manipulativeness and the strategic exploitation of others. Psychopathy is characterized by impulsivity, a lack of empathy, and a constant search for stimulation. Narcissism centers on grandiosity, a sense of entitlement, and a desire for dominance. Sadism refers to the tendency to derive pleasure from inflicting suffering on others.
Marco Giancola, a researcher at the Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences at the University of L’Aquila, designed the present study along with his colleagues to explore the missing links between these traits and digital habits. “Previous research revealed that the Dark Tetrad, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, and sadism, is associated with problematic social media use and cyberstalking,” Giancola said. “However, we knew much less about the psychological processes that might link these traits to this pattern of problematic behavior.”
“We examined whether different forms of jealousy could help explain why individuals with higher levels of Dark Tetrad traits may engage in cyberstalking and, ultimately, develop more compulsive and unregulated patterns of social media use,” Giancola explained.
Jealousy is a complex emotion triggered by a perceived threat to a valued relationship. Psychologists divide jealousy into three distinct categories. Emotional jealousy involves reactive feelings like fear or sadness in response to a threat. Cognitive jealousy involves intrusive thoughts, suspicions, and anxiety about potential infidelity. Behavioral jealousy includes overt actions taken to monitor a partner and verify those suspicions.
To explore these psychological pathways, scientists surveyed 300 adults between the ages of 18 and 65. The sample had an average age of roughly 36 years and was predominantly female, making up 80 percent of the participants. All participants were currently in a romantic relationship and used at least one social media platform daily. The participants completed an online questionnaire between October 2024 and February 2025.
The survey included established psychological scales to measure the traits in question. A 12-item questionnaire assessed Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism, while a separate 10-item scale evaluated tendencies toward sadistic behavior. The researchers also assessed intimate partner cyberstalking using a 21-item scale, asking participants if they engaged in specific online surveillance tactics.
Another 15-item scale measured the three dimensions of jealousy regarding the participant’s current romantic partner. Finally, the researchers measured problematic social media use with a six-item assessment. This scale asked how often participants felt an urge to use social media, used it to forget personal problems, or tried to cut down their use without success. During their statistical analyses, the researchers controlled for the participants’ age, sex, and years of education.
The data indicated a sequential psychological chain of events linking dark personality traits to excessive social media use. Individuals scoring higher in Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, or sadism also reported higher levels of both cognitive and behavioral jealousy. These participants experienced more intrusive suspicions about their partners and engaged in more active monitoring behaviors.
These cognitive and behavioral forms of jealousy, in turn, predicted higher engagement in intimate partner cyberstalking. Cyberstalking then predicted higher overall scores for problematic social media use. The authors observed a sequential path where antagonistic personality traits foster specific jealousy-related thoughts and actions. These thoughts and actions encourage cyberstalking, which then fuels a compulsive pattern of social media engagement.
“The overall statistical models explained approximately 33% to 35% of the variance in problematic social media use, which suggests that the combination of personality, jealousy, cyberstalking, and the demographic variables included in the analysis was meaningfully related to the outcome,” Giancola told PsyPost. “However, these findings should not be interpreted as indicating that personality alone determines how someone uses social media.”
Interestingly, emotional jealousy did not act as a bridge between the Dark Tetrad and cyberstalking. “The most interesting finding was that cognitive and behavioral jealousy played a role in the pathway, whereas emotional jealousy did not,” Giancola said. “In other words, merely experiencing an emotional reaction to a potential relational threat did not appear to be the central mechanism.”
Instead, the proactive thoughts and controlling behaviors characteristic of cognitive and behavioral jealousy fueled the cyberstalking. “The relevant processes were persistent suspicions, intrusive thoughts about possible infidelity, and overt attempts to verify or monitor a partner’s behavior,” Giancola said. “This distinction suggests that what individuals think and do in response to jealousy may be more important for cyberstalking and problematic social media use than the emotional intensity of jealousy itself.”
Cyberstalking requires a massive investment of time and attention. Perpetrators spend hours scrutinizing shared posts, analyzing their partner’s online presence, and monitoring interactions. This obsessive engagement can easily shift from a goal-directed surveillance behavior to a generalized, compulsive pattern of social media use. The initial desire to reassert control over a romantic partner morphs into an inability to regulate one’s digital habits.
“One important takeaway is that problematic social media use may sometimes be driven by very specific interpersonal motives, rather than simply by entertainment, habit, or the desire to remain connected,” Giancola said. “For some individuals, repeated social media use may be reinforced by suspicions about a romantic partner and by attempts to monitor or control that partner’s online behavior.”
“Our findings suggest a possible sequence: darker personality tendencies are associated with more suspicious thoughts and jealousy-related monitoring behaviors, which are then associated with cyberstalking and higher levels of problematic social media use,” Giancola noted. “In practical terms, repeatedly checking a partner’s profiles, messages, followers, or interactions may provide temporary reassurance, but it can also reinforce insecurity, surveillance, and compulsive engagement with social media.”
Giancola pointed out that the same platform used for communication or entertainment can easily become a tool for reassurance-seeking and interpersonal control. “I believe the findings highlight the importance of considering the relational context of problematic social media use,” he said. “From a prevention perspective, interventions may benefit from addressing not only the amount of time people spend online, but also the motives underlying their use.”
“Psychoeducation concerning healthy relationship boundaries, uncertainty tolerance, emotional regulation, and respectful digital behavior may help reduce both intrusive monitoring and compulsive social media engagement,” Giancola added.
The cross-sectional design of the survey means the data only capture a single moment in time. The findings indicate an association between these variables but cannot establish a definitive cause-and-effect relationship.
“The most important caveat is that our study was cross-sectional,” Giancola said. “Although we tested a theoretically informed sequential mediation model, we cannot establish causality. The study examined associations between continuously distributed psychological characteristics in a non-clinical sample, not fixed categories of people or clinical diagnoses.”
Additionally, approximately 80 percent of the sample was female, which limits the ability to generalize the findings to men. “An important next step will be to replicate the findings using longitudinal designs in which personality, jealousy, cyberstalking, and problematic social media use are assessed at different points in time,” Giancola said. “This would allow us to examine whether suspicious thoughts and monitoring behaviors predict cyberstalking and subsequent difficulties in regulating social media use.”
Future research could also incorporate more diverse samples and investigate how specific platform features facilitate digital surveillance within romantic relationships. “It would also be useful to examine more balanced and culturally different samples and to investigate how specific features of social media platforms, such as activity indicators, location sharing, follower lists, and visible interactions, may facilitate digital surveillance within romantic relationships,” Giancola said.
The study, “The sequential mediating role of jealousy and cyberstalking in the relationship between the dark tetrad and problematic social media use,” was authored by Marco Giancola, Elisa Galli, and Massimiliano Palmiero.
-------------------------------------------------
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DarkTetrad #JealousyCyberstalking #ProblematicSocialMediaUse #Narcissism #Psychopathy #Machiavellianism #RelationshipJealousy #CyberstalkingAwareness #DigitalWellbeing #SocialMediaAddiction
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DATE: August 7, 2026 at 10:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Dark personality traits linked to problematic social media use via jealousy and cyberstalking
A recent study published in Current Psychology indicates that individuals with antagonistic personality traits tend to develop problematic social media habits driven by jealousy and a desire to monitor their romantic partners online. The research suggests that traits such as narcissism and psychopathy foster specific types of relationship insecurity. This insecurity can prompt individuals to engage in cyberstalking, which then escalates into broader patterns of social media addiction.
Problematic social media use involves a pattern of compulsive digital engagement that interferes with daily life and mental well-being. People struggling with this issue often use social platforms to regulate their mood and experience negative feelings when offline. They also tend to face interpersonal conflicts due to their excessive screen time. Past research points to personality as a major factor in how people interact with digital platforms.
The Dark Tetrad is a psychological framework that groups together four malevolent personality traits. Machiavellianism involves manipulativeness and the strategic exploitation of others. Psychopathy is characterized by impulsivity, a lack of empathy, and a constant search for stimulation. Narcissism centers on grandiosity, a sense of entitlement, and a desire for dominance. Sadism refers to the tendency to derive pleasure from inflicting suffering on others.
Marco Giancola, a researcher at the Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences at the University of L’Aquila, designed the present study along with his colleagues to explore the missing links between these traits and digital habits. “Previous research revealed that the Dark Tetrad, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, and sadism, is associated with problematic social media use and cyberstalking,” Giancola said. “However, we knew much less about the psychological processes that might link these traits to this pattern of problematic behavior.”
“We examined whether different forms of jealousy could help explain why individuals with higher levels of Dark Tetrad traits may engage in cyberstalking and, ultimately, develop more compulsive and unregulated patterns of social media use,” Giancola explained.
Jealousy is a complex emotion triggered by a perceived threat to a valued relationship. Psychologists divide jealousy into three distinct categories. Emotional jealousy involves reactive feelings like fear or sadness in response to a threat. Cognitive jealousy involves intrusive thoughts, suspicions, and anxiety about potential infidelity. Behavioral jealousy includes overt actions taken to monitor a partner and verify those suspicions.
To explore these psychological pathways, scientists surveyed 300 adults between the ages of 18 and 65. The sample had an average age of roughly 36 years and was predominantly female, making up 80 percent of the participants. All participants were currently in a romantic relationship and used at least one social media platform daily. The participants completed an online questionnaire between October 2024 and February 2025.
The survey included established psychological scales to measure the traits in question. A 12-item questionnaire assessed Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism, while a separate 10-item scale evaluated tendencies toward sadistic behavior. The researchers also assessed intimate partner cyberstalking using a 21-item scale, asking participants if they engaged in specific online surveillance tactics.
Another 15-item scale measured the three dimensions of jealousy regarding the participant’s current romantic partner. Finally, the researchers measured problematic social media use with a six-item assessment. This scale asked how often participants felt an urge to use social media, used it to forget personal problems, or tried to cut down their use without success. During their statistical analyses, the researchers controlled for the participants’ age, sex, and years of education.
The data indicated a sequential psychological chain of events linking dark personality traits to excessive social media use. Individuals scoring higher in Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, or sadism also reported higher levels of both cognitive and behavioral jealousy. These participants experienced more intrusive suspicions about their partners and engaged in more active monitoring behaviors.
These cognitive and behavioral forms of jealousy, in turn, predicted higher engagement in intimate partner cyberstalking. Cyberstalking then predicted higher overall scores for problematic social media use. The authors observed a sequential path where antagonistic personality traits foster specific jealousy-related thoughts and actions. These thoughts and actions encourage cyberstalking, which then fuels a compulsive pattern of social media engagement.
“The overall statistical models explained approximately 33% to 35% of the variance in problematic social media use, which suggests that the combination of personality, jealousy, cyberstalking, and the demographic variables included in the analysis was meaningfully related to the outcome,” Giancola told PsyPost. “However, these findings should not be interpreted as indicating that personality alone determines how someone uses social media.”
Interestingly, emotional jealousy did not act as a bridge between the Dark Tetrad and cyberstalking. “The most interesting finding was that cognitive and behavioral jealousy played a role in the pathway, whereas emotional jealousy did not,” Giancola said. “In other words, merely experiencing an emotional reaction to a potential relational threat did not appear to be the central mechanism.”
Instead, the proactive thoughts and controlling behaviors characteristic of cognitive and behavioral jealousy fueled the cyberstalking. “The relevant processes were persistent suspicions, intrusive thoughts about possible infidelity, and overt attempts to verify or monitor a partner’s behavior,” Giancola said. “This distinction suggests that what individuals think and do in response to jealousy may be more important for cyberstalking and problematic social media use than the emotional intensity of jealousy itself.”
Cyberstalking requires a massive investment of time and attention. Perpetrators spend hours scrutinizing shared posts, analyzing their partner’s online presence, and monitoring interactions. This obsessive engagement can easily shift from a goal-directed surveillance behavior to a generalized, compulsive pattern of social media use. The initial desire to reassert control over a romantic partner morphs into an inability to regulate one’s digital habits.
“One important takeaway is that problematic social media use may sometimes be driven by very specific interpersonal motives, rather than simply by entertainment, habit, or the desire to remain connected,” Giancola said. “For some individuals, repeated social media use may be reinforced by suspicions about a romantic partner and by attempts to monitor or control that partner’s online behavior.”
“Our findings suggest a possible sequence: darker personality tendencies are associated with more suspicious thoughts and jealousy-related monitoring behaviors, which are then associated with cyberstalking and higher levels of problematic social media use,” Giancola noted. “In practical terms, repeatedly checking a partner’s profiles, messages, followers, or interactions may provide temporary reassurance, but it can also reinforce insecurity, surveillance, and compulsive engagement with social media.”
Giancola pointed out that the same platform used for communication or entertainment can easily become a tool for reassurance-seeking and interpersonal control. “I believe the findings highlight the importance of considering the relational context of problematic social media use,” he said. “From a prevention perspective, interventions may benefit from addressing not only the amount of time people spend online, but also the motives underlying their use.”
“Psychoeducation concerning healthy relationship boundaries, uncertainty tolerance, emotional regulation, and respectful digital behavior may help reduce both intrusive monitoring and compulsive social media engagement,” Giancola added.
The cross-sectional design of the survey means the data only capture a single moment in time. The findings indicate an association between these variables but cannot establish a definitive cause-and-effect relationship.
“The most important caveat is that our study was cross-sectional,” Giancola said. “Although we tested a theoretically informed sequential mediation model, we cannot establish causality. The study examined associations between continuously distributed psychological characteristics in a non-clinical sample, not fixed categories of people or clinical diagnoses.”
Additionally, approximately 80 percent of the sample was female, which limits the ability to generalize the findings to men. “An important next step will be to replicate the findings using longitudinal designs in which personality, jealousy, cyberstalking, and problematic social media use are assessed at different points in time,” Giancola said. “This would allow us to examine whether suspicious thoughts and monitoring behaviors predict cyberstalking and subsequent difficulties in regulating social media use.”
Future research could also incorporate more diverse samples and investigate how specific platform features facilitate digital surveillance within romantic relationships. “It would also be useful to examine more balanced and culturally different samples and to investigate how specific features of social media platforms, such as activity indicators, location sharing, follower lists, and visible interactions, may facilitate digital surveillance within romantic relationships,” Giancola said.
The study, “The sequential mediating role of jealousy and cyberstalking in the relationship between the dark tetrad and problematic social media use,” was authored by Marco Giancola, Elisa Galli, and Massimiliano Palmiero.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DarkTetrad #JealousyCyberstalking #ProblematicSocialMediaUse #Narcissism #Psychopathy #Machiavellianism #RelationshipJealousy #CyberstalkingAwareness #DigitalWellbeing #SocialMediaAddiction
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Embracing the Mediterranean life
Without the fires and the trough of course!
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Embracing the Mediterranean life
Without the fires and the trough of course!
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I saw another article today of some random famous person accusing another random famous person of being a #Psychopath and I feel compelled to point out two very important facts about #Psychopathy:
1. Psychopathy is only one thing, extreme (ie., as good as complete) empathy deficiency. The rest of what happens in the mind of a Psychopath is just what human beings are without empathy.
2. Intentionally using emotionally-charged words for their effect rather than their meaning, often in order to manipulate people, such as occurs as an aspect of attention-seeking behaviour patterns, is consistent with psychopathic personality traits as a whole, although typically favoured by the #NarcissistNow, more than ever before, ignore what people say and look hard at what they do
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I saw another article today of some random famous person accusing another random famous person of being a #Psychopath and I feel compelled to point out two very important facts about #Psychopathy:
1. Psychopathy is only one thing, extreme (ie., as good as complete) empathy deficiency. The rest of what happens in the mind of a Psychopath is just what human beings are without empathy.
2. Intentionally using emotionally-charged words for their effect rather than their meaning, often in order to manipulate people, such as occurs as an aspect of attention-seeking behaviour patterns, is consistent with psychopathic personality traits as a whole, although typically favoured by the #NarcissistNow, more than ever before, ignore what people say and look hard at what they do
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DATE: August 1, 2026 at 12:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: New research uncovers distinct personality traits among family murder subtypes
URL: https://www.psypost.org/emotional-detachment-drives-specific-types-of-within-family-homicide/
New research reveals that specific psychological traits vary across different types of within-family murders. Emotional deficits play a pronounced role in distinguishing those who kill their parents or children from those who kill their siblings. The findings were recently published in the journal Deviant Behavior.
Homicide within a family happens frequently, accounting for a distinct portion of global crime. Despite the severity of these acts, researchers have rarely compared the psychological profiles of people who commit different variants of family murder. Understanding these psychological boundaries can help forensic professionals comprehend the roots of extreme domestic violence.
Researchers Jiseun Sohn of Southern University and A& M College, Adrian Raine of the University of Pennsylvania, and Young-Oh Hong of the Korean Institute of Criminology and Justice set out to fill this gap. They focused on psychopathy, a psychological condition characterized by specific personality and behavioral traits. These traits often predict general violence.
Psychopathy is commonly measured using an evaluation tool known as the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. This test breaks the psychological condition down into four distinct categories, or facets. Trained evaluators use these categories to score offenders based on their personal histories and observed behaviors.
The first facet measures interpersonal problems, such as a tendency to manipulate others, engage in relentless deception, or exhibit pathological narcissism. People scoring high in this area often charm their relatives while secretly pursuing self-serving agendas. They generally view relationships as social games to win rather than partnerships to build.
The second facet evaluates affective deficits, which include a lack of empathy, an absence of guilt, and generally shallow emotions. Individuals with these traits struggle to form genuine emotional bonds. They may view their family members as obstacles or objects rather than loved ones.
The third category addresses an unstable or impulsive lifestyle. It captures traits like irresponsibility, parasitic living conditions, and a constant need for stimulation. A parent with high scores in this category might neglect their children in favor of impulsive thrills.
The final category looks at antisocial behaviors extending from childhood into adulthood. This includes poor behavioral controls, early delinquency, and a history of violating the rules of society. Within a household, these traits often present as domestic abuse or physical aggressiveness.
Prior studies have well documented the general link between psychopathy and homicide. Less is known about how these four psychological categories apply to family-specific murders. Some past reviews suggest that family violence may stem from prolonged emotional disputes, while others point to cold, calculated actions entirely devoid of empathy.
Sohn and colleagues recognized that lumping all family homicides together might obscure the distinct motivations behind them. Killing a spouse, for instance, might involve different psychological drivers than killing a parent or a sibling.
To investigate these differences, the researchers analyzed data from a sample of 213 offenders convicted of family homicide in South Korea between 2016 and 2018. The sample included individuals who committed four distinct types of murder. The largest group consisted of 143 individuals who committed intimate partner homicide, which involves killing a current or former spouse or romantic partner.
The other groups relied on small samples of offenders. These included 35 cases of parricide, or the killing of a parent, grandparent, or parent-in-law. Another small sample of 22 individuals committed filicide, which is defined as killing a child, grandchild, or child-in-law.
The final and smallest group consisted of 13 offenders convicted of siblicide, meaning they killed a sibling or step-sibling. Trained evaluators had previously assessed all of these individuals using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised during standard prison intake interviews. The researchers analyzed this pre-existing data to see which of the four psychopathy categories best predicted the type of family murder committed.
The analysis revealed that the second category, which measures affective deficits, was the strongest indicator of differences among the groups. People who killed their parents exhibited the highest scores for affective deficits. They demonstrated a more pronounced lack of remorse and more shallow emotional responses than the other groups.
Offenders who committed parricide, filicide, and intimate partner homicide all scored higher on affective deficits than those who killed their siblings. The individuals convicted of siblicide had the lowest overall psychopathy scores across all four categories.
This suggests that the murder of a sibling might stem from alternative causes. Intense rivalries over money, inheritance disputes, or basic power struggles could act as the primary catalysts for this specific type of violence. Situational anger or extreme selfishness could spark the fatal incident rather than severe, lifelong personality disorders.
Offenders who committed filicide also demonstrated high levels of affective deficits. Parents who kill their children are sometimes found to suffer from severe psychiatric illnesses like depression or schizophrenia in the broader medical literature.
In the context of psychopathy, an extreme absence of emotional warmth and an inability to accept responsibility frequently accompany the neglect or abuse that ends in tragic outcomes. When empathy is fundamentally broken, a child becomes exceptionally vulnerable to violence.
The researchers also noticed distinctions between those who killed partners and those who killed parents. Intimate partner homicide offenders scored higher on interpersonal problems and antisocial behaviors than parricide offenders. The tendency to seek strict control over a partner or engage in superficial relationships aligned with these elevated scores.
Perpetrators in this group often view romantic partnerships as a social mechanism for achieving personal goals. When that control is threatened, their antisocial tendencies may manifest as lethal violence.
When comparing parricide to filicide, or intimate partner homicide to filicide, the differences in psychopathy scores were not statistically significant. The affective deficits category still stood out as the foremost psychological boundary separating the broader types of family murder from one another. By isolating these specific personality traits, the study offers a more precise look at how emotional detachment functions in extreme violence.
Evaluating these specific personality limitations proved more predictive of domestic violence subtypes than basic demographic factors. Details like age, gender, education, and income were included in the researchers’ initial analyses. These demographic details did little to differentiate the four types of family murderers.
Identifying a perpetrator’s specific psychological shortcomings could eventually aid forensic professionals in threat assessment. If behavioral specialists know that extreme emotional detachment strongly associates with violence against parents, they might better evaluate the risks within deeply troubled households. Interventions could be tailored to address specific relational dynamics based on personality traits rather than broad generalities.
The authors acknowledged several limitations in their approach to the data collection. The data gathering process was entirely retrospective, meaning the psychological evaluations took place after the offenders had already committed murder and entered the prison system.
Conducting an assessment after a traumatic violence event might influence how an individual responds to interview questions. It is impossible to know with complete certainty how their psychopathy traits manifested in the daily years leading up to the crime.
The research sample exclusively included homicide offenders. There was no comparison group of violent offenders who did not commit murder, making it hard to isolate traits that specifically trigger lethal outcomes versus general domestic abuse. Additionally, some of the specific homicide subsets represented very small samples.
The psychological patterns observed in a limited group of offenders might look different when assessed in broader, more diverse populations. Because the research took an exploratory approach, the findings provide a starting point rather than final conclusions. The investigators propose that future projects should adopt a hypothesis-driven structure to test these psychological profiles across different cultures.
The study, “The Role of Psychopathic Traits in Subtypes of Family Homicide,” was authored by Jiseun Sohn, Adrian Raine, and Young-Oh Hong.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/emotional-detachment-drives-specific-types-of-within-family-homicide/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #FamilyHomicide #Psychopathy #Parricide #Filicide #IntimatePartnerHomicide #Siblicide #AffectiveDeficits #PsychopathyChecklistRevised #ForensicPsychology #DomesticViolenceResearch
-
DATE: August 1, 2026 at 12:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: New research uncovers distinct personality traits among family murder subtypes
URL: https://www.psypost.org/emotional-detachment-drives-specific-types-of-within-family-homicide/
New research reveals that specific psychological traits vary across different types of within-family murders. Emotional deficits play a pronounced role in distinguishing those who kill their parents or children from those who kill their siblings. The findings were recently published in the journal Deviant Behavior.
Homicide within a family happens frequently, accounting for a distinct portion of global crime. Despite the severity of these acts, researchers have rarely compared the psychological profiles of people who commit different variants of family murder. Understanding these psychological boundaries can help forensic professionals comprehend the roots of extreme domestic violence.
Researchers Jiseun Sohn of Southern University and A& M College, Adrian Raine of the University of Pennsylvania, and Young-Oh Hong of the Korean Institute of Criminology and Justice set out to fill this gap. They focused on psychopathy, a psychological condition characterized by specific personality and behavioral traits. These traits often predict general violence.
Psychopathy is commonly measured using an evaluation tool known as the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. This test breaks the psychological condition down into four distinct categories, or facets. Trained evaluators use these categories to score offenders based on their personal histories and observed behaviors.
The first facet measures interpersonal problems, such as a tendency to manipulate others, engage in relentless deception, or exhibit pathological narcissism. People scoring high in this area often charm their relatives while secretly pursuing self-serving agendas. They generally view relationships as social games to win rather than partnerships to build.
The second facet evaluates affective deficits, which include a lack of empathy, an absence of guilt, and generally shallow emotions. Individuals with these traits struggle to form genuine emotional bonds. They may view their family members as obstacles or objects rather than loved ones.
The third category addresses an unstable or impulsive lifestyle. It captures traits like irresponsibility, parasitic living conditions, and a constant need for stimulation. A parent with high scores in this category might neglect their children in favor of impulsive thrills.
The final category looks at antisocial behaviors extending from childhood into adulthood. This includes poor behavioral controls, early delinquency, and a history of violating the rules of society. Within a household, these traits often present as domestic abuse or physical aggressiveness.
Prior studies have well documented the general link between psychopathy and homicide. Less is known about how these four psychological categories apply to family-specific murders. Some past reviews suggest that family violence may stem from prolonged emotional disputes, while others point to cold, calculated actions entirely devoid of empathy.
Sohn and colleagues recognized that lumping all family homicides together might obscure the distinct motivations behind them. Killing a spouse, for instance, might involve different psychological drivers than killing a parent or a sibling.
To investigate these differences, the researchers analyzed data from a sample of 213 offenders convicted of family homicide in South Korea between 2016 and 2018. The sample included individuals who committed four distinct types of murder. The largest group consisted of 143 individuals who committed intimate partner homicide, which involves killing a current or former spouse or romantic partner.
The other groups relied on small samples of offenders. These included 35 cases of parricide, or the killing of a parent, grandparent, or parent-in-law. Another small sample of 22 individuals committed filicide, which is defined as killing a child, grandchild, or child-in-law.
The final and smallest group consisted of 13 offenders convicted of siblicide, meaning they killed a sibling or step-sibling. Trained evaluators had previously assessed all of these individuals using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised during standard prison intake interviews. The researchers analyzed this pre-existing data to see which of the four psychopathy categories best predicted the type of family murder committed.
The analysis revealed that the second category, which measures affective deficits, was the strongest indicator of differences among the groups. People who killed their parents exhibited the highest scores for affective deficits. They demonstrated a more pronounced lack of remorse and more shallow emotional responses than the other groups.
Offenders who committed parricide, filicide, and intimate partner homicide all scored higher on affective deficits than those who killed their siblings. The individuals convicted of siblicide had the lowest overall psychopathy scores across all four categories.
This suggests that the murder of a sibling might stem from alternative causes. Intense rivalries over money, inheritance disputes, or basic power struggles could act as the primary catalysts for this specific type of violence. Situational anger or extreme selfishness could spark the fatal incident rather than severe, lifelong personality disorders.
Offenders who committed filicide also demonstrated high levels of affective deficits. Parents who kill their children are sometimes found to suffer from severe psychiatric illnesses like depression or schizophrenia in the broader medical literature.
In the context of psychopathy, an extreme absence of emotional warmth and an inability to accept responsibility frequently accompany the neglect or abuse that ends in tragic outcomes. When empathy is fundamentally broken, a child becomes exceptionally vulnerable to violence.
The researchers also noticed distinctions between those who killed partners and those who killed parents. Intimate partner homicide offenders scored higher on interpersonal problems and antisocial behaviors than parricide offenders. The tendency to seek strict control over a partner or engage in superficial relationships aligned with these elevated scores.
Perpetrators in this group often view romantic partnerships as a social mechanism for achieving personal goals. When that control is threatened, their antisocial tendencies may manifest as lethal violence.
When comparing parricide to filicide, or intimate partner homicide to filicide, the differences in psychopathy scores were not statistically significant. The affective deficits category still stood out as the foremost psychological boundary separating the broader types of family murder from one another. By isolating these specific personality traits, the study offers a more precise look at how emotional detachment functions in extreme violence.
Evaluating these specific personality limitations proved more predictive of domestic violence subtypes than basic demographic factors. Details like age, gender, education, and income were included in the researchers’ initial analyses. These demographic details did little to differentiate the four types of family murderers.
Identifying a perpetrator’s specific psychological shortcomings could eventually aid forensic professionals in threat assessment. If behavioral specialists know that extreme emotional detachment strongly associates with violence against parents, they might better evaluate the risks within deeply troubled households. Interventions could be tailored to address specific relational dynamics based on personality traits rather than broad generalities.
The authors acknowledged several limitations in their approach to the data collection. The data gathering process was entirely retrospective, meaning the psychological evaluations took place after the offenders had already committed murder and entered the prison system.
Conducting an assessment after a traumatic violence event might influence how an individual responds to interview questions. It is impossible to know with complete certainty how their psychopathy traits manifested in the daily years leading up to the crime.
The research sample exclusively included homicide offenders. There was no comparison group of violent offenders who did not commit murder, making it hard to isolate traits that specifically trigger lethal outcomes versus general domestic abuse. Additionally, some of the specific homicide subsets represented very small samples.
The psychological patterns observed in a limited group of offenders might look different when assessed in broader, more diverse populations. Because the research took an exploratory approach, the findings provide a starting point rather than final conclusions. The investigators propose that future projects should adopt a hypothesis-driven structure to test these psychological profiles across different cultures.
The study, “The Role of Psychopathic Traits in Subtypes of Family Homicide,” was authored by Jiseun Sohn, Adrian Raine, and Young-Oh Hong.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/emotional-detachment-drives-specific-types-of-within-family-homicide/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #FamilyHomicide #Psychopathy #Parricide #Filicide #IntimatePartnerHomicide #Siblicide #AffectiveDeficits #PsychopathyChecklistRevised #ForensicPsychology #DomesticViolenceResearch
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DATE: July 29, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: What if psychopathic behavior stems from a surprisingly basic physical glitch?
A recent review article suggests that psychopathy is related to dysfunction in the brain systems responsible for sensing and regulating the internal physical state of the body. The findings provide evidence that impaired bodily regulation may contribute to the hallmark emotional and behavioral traits of the disorder. This research was published in the journal Aggression and Violent Behavior.
Philip Deming, a postdoctoral fellow at Northeastern University, and Clare Shaffer, a graduate student at Northeastern University who will soon transition to a postdoctoral role at Massachusetts General Hospital, wanted to approach the study of psychopathy from an evolutionary, body-centered perspective. The financial and emotional toll of the disorder motivated their research.
“We want to understand the brain mechanisms of psychopathy because the disorder has a terrible impact on society,” said Deming. “Psychopathic people often steal, cheat, exploit, and victimize other people, costing the US hundreds of billions of dollars each year and causing real suffering.”
Because current science lacks proper treatments for these behaviors, the researchers turned to the brain for answers. However, they noticed that past attempts to map psychopathy often started by looking at a specific behavioral symptom, like a lack of empathy, and then tried to find a matching brain signature.
“The trick is that we approached this question from a somewhat unusual starting point,” Deming explained. “In the past, scientists have started by looking at human behavior and studying how the brain enacts those behaviors. We see people experiencing emotions or empathizing with other people, so scientists would study how the brain ‘does’ emotion or empathy.”
Instead, Deming and Shaffer took a deductive route, starting with the brain’s fundamental evolutionary purpose.
“We started from the question: ‘What is a brain for?’” Deming said. “If you look at our evolutionary history, then the answer seems to be this: the brain is for regulating the internal organs of the body (the heart, lungs, gut, and so on).”
Evolutionary biology suggests that brains developed to anticipate and meet the metabolic needs of the body before those needs actually arise. This preventative, highly efficient regulatory process is known as allostasis. To coordinate the organs, the brain must constantly monitor the internal physical conditions of the organs, such as heart rate, digestion, and breathing. The brain’s ability to sense these internal physical states is called interoception.
“To coordinate the organs, the brain has to sense them. These processes are called allostasis and interoception, so we call this an ‘allostatic-interoceptive view’ of the brain,” Deming noted. “Once we take this view, new questions and new answers emerge about what might be happening in the brains of psychopathic people.”
These complementary functions rely on the allostatic-interoceptive system, which spans multiple brainstem regions, subcortical structures, and large-scale neural networks. Signals from the body travel up to the brain through two primary pathways. One pathway is the vagus nerve, which runs from the abdomen up the front of the neck. The other pathway is the spinal cord, which carries sensory information from various internal organs up into the brainstem.
Once these signals reach the brainstem, they are distributed to various subcortical and cortical regions. The brain continuously uses this incoming information to fine-tune ongoing cognitive processes and adjust bodily functions. This dynamic indicates that a person’s heartbeat or breathing pattern can directly influence how they perceive the world around them.
To explore this concept, the researchers synthesized existing evidence from a wide array of published neuroimaging studies on psychopathy. They examined data from structural imaging, which looks at the physical wiring of the brain, as well as functional imaging, which tracks blood flow and brain activity over time. The synthesis included meta-analyses, which are large mathematical reviews that combine data from dozens of previous brain scans.
“Psychopathy might be a disorder of sensing and regulating the body’s organ systems,” Deming said. “When we looked across 20-plus years’ worth of MRI studies, brain differences kept popping up within the ‘allostatic-interoceptive system.’ This is a widespread brain system that plays a central role in sensing and regulating the body.”
The authors reviewed studies involving community members as well as forensic populations, such as people in prisons. They specifically looked at fractional anisotropy, a metric used to measure the structural health of white matter tracts. White matter serves as the physical cabling that connects different brain regions, allowing them to communicate rapidly.
“In psychopathy, this system appears to have degraded white matter pathways,” Deming explained. “It also interacts with other brain networks differently. And it shows different patterns of activity when psychopathic people are focusing on a task like empathizing with another person.”
Specifically, the uncinate fasciculus and the cingulum show signs of degradation. These neural pathways link the emotional centers of the brain to the areas responsible for high-level decision-making and bodily regulation.
“The root problem might not be one of empathy or emotion but of something more fundamental,” Deming said. “The root problem might be in how the brain manages the heart, lungs, and other organs and prepares them to meet the demands of the current context.”
In addition to physical wiring differences, the scientists found evidence of altered functional connectivity. Functional connectivity refers to how well different areas of the brain activate together and share information during rest or active tasks. The data indicates that people with psychopathy show reduced communication between the cortex and deeper brain structures like the amygdala.
When the brain cannot properly share information between these areas, the resulting regulatory signals lack rich contextual details. The authors propose that this impairment leads to a highly context-insensitive way of regulating the body. During cognitively demanding tasks, people with psychopathy also display unusual patterns of brain activation.
Because of these altered patterns, people with psychopathy often show lower skin conductance and heart rate responses when anticipating a stressful event, such as a mild electric shock. They also tend to display abnormal hormonal regulation in response to social stressors. People with psychopathy frequently exhibit unusually high baseline levels of testosterone and oxytocin, alongside blunted cortisol responses during stressful situations.
The researchers suggest that these impoverished regulatory signals may hinder a person’s ability to allocate attention to important environmental cues. If the brain fails to properly integrate internal bodily signals with external sensory information, it struggles to identify what is actually important for survival. This failure might explain why people with psychopathy selectively focus on certain cues while entirely disregarding threats.
Taking this body-centered view also helps clarify decades of fragmented research. Historically, different scientists have proposed different core deficits for psychopathy, ranging from poor attention to a lack of fear.
“It was surprising to see how this theory might weave together previous theories about psychopathy,” Deming told PsyPost. “Scientists tend to think of these previous theories as being distant and disconnected from one another; they don’t predict or explain the same phenomena.”
Rather than seeing these older ideas as entirely separate, the researchers believe a focus on bodily regulation connects them.
“But I think most of those theories can be easily folded into our view, which says that the problem is in how the brain is sensing and regulating the body,” Deming continued. “This process is central to emotional experience, drives attention, and heavily involves the autonomic nervous system, all of which have been pointed to by prior theories as the central problem in psychopathy.”
It is important to recognize the potential misinterpretations and limitations of this theoretical framework. The model relies heavily on indirect spatial associations between past brain imaging results and known regulatory networks.
“The big caveat is that MRI findings in relation to psychopathy are all over the map,” Deming said. “Although we found some recurring findings in brain regions that are important for sensing and regulating the body, studies usually fail to replicate one another.”
Because of natural biological flexibility, a single behavioral trait might look completely different in the brain scans of two different individuals.
“One study will find lower activity in region A, while another study will find the opposite, higher activity in region A, along with lower activity in region B,” Deming explained. “Our field needs to grapple with these inconsistencies.”
To explain why previous brain imaging studies of psychopathy have been so inconsistent, Deming and Shaffer introduced two concepts.
“And while some scientists in the field point to methodological differences between studies, we proposed two new ideas in the field,” Deming said. “First, inconsistent findings could result from core dysfunction in the allostatic-interoceptive system.”
The regions managing bodily regulation sit at the very top of a neural processing hierarchy. A disruption at this high level can alter activity in many downstream sensory regions, creating the illusion of scattered, inconsistent brain abnormalities across different studies.
“This is a possibility, supported in part by a recent study from Dugré and De Brito, since this system can change activity throughout the brain depending on the current context of the body in the world,” Deming noted.
The scientists also introduced a concept called degeneracy, which is an organizing principle in biology meaning that different brain structures can achieve the exact same functional outcome.
“Second, and relatedly, brain function differs across contexts (this is called degeneracy),” he continued. “Basically, we probably shouldn’t expect findings to replicate when we’re averaging across people and across instances, and instead we should be studying individual brains regulating individual bodies in context.”
Moving forward, the scientists recommend shifting away from group-average studies and moving toward precision psychiatry. This approach involves deeply tracking individual patients across many different contexts to see how their specific brain and body interact.
“The next step is to more deeply probe how the brains of psychopathic people are sensing and regulating their bodies,” Deming said. “This is a process few studies have studied in a targeted way, and those studies mostly focused on how people perceive their heartbeat consciously.”
Researchers might test these regulatory mechanisms directly by safely manipulating a person’s internal physical signals. This could involve stimulating the vagus nerve or using ingestible vibrating capsules to alter sensations in the gut.
“But there are somewhat more hidden processes we should also be studying,” Deming explained. “For example, how do their brains integrate bodily signals with signals arriving to the eyes and ears? If we slightly alter what is happening in their heart and lungs, can we change how they process social information?”
Advancements in ultra-high field magnetic resonance imaging will likely aid these future studies by allowing scientists to see incredibly small structures in the brainstem.
“We can also start using more powerful MRI scanners to better image the small brain structures that make up the allostatic-interoceptive system,” Deming added.
Currently, there is a severe lack of evidence-based treatments that target the biological roots of psychopathy. However, interventions that directly address internal sensing, such as specific biofeedback therapies, have shown some early promise. In biofeedback training, patients observe real-time monitors of their own heart rate or brain waves and practice volitionally controlling them.
Some past biofeedback studies have successfully trained individuals with psychopathy to regulate specific brain regions connected to the allostatic network. These early interventions appeared to reduce aggressive and impulsive behaviors. By combining detailed imaging with targeted biofeedback therapies, clinicians might eventually develop personalized treatments that train patients to better monitor and regulate their internal states.
The study, “Brain evidence of allostatic and interoceptive dysfunction in psychopathy,” was authored by Philip Deming and Clare Shaffer.
-------------------------------------------------
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Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #psychopathy #allostaticinteroceptive #interoception #allostasis #brainregulation #neuroscience #biofeedback #MRI #forensicpsychology #emotiondysfunction
-
DATE: July 29, 2026 at 06:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: What if psychopathic behavior stems from a surprisingly basic physical glitch?
A recent review article suggests that psychopathy is related to dysfunction in the brain systems responsible for sensing and regulating the internal physical state of the body. The findings provide evidence that impaired bodily regulation may contribute to the hallmark emotional and behavioral traits of the disorder. This research was published in the journal Aggression and Violent Behavior.
Philip Deming, a postdoctoral fellow at Northeastern University, and Clare Shaffer, a graduate student at Northeastern University who will soon transition to a postdoctoral role at Massachusetts General Hospital, wanted to approach the study of psychopathy from an evolutionary, body-centered perspective. The financial and emotional toll of the disorder motivated their research.
“We want to understand the brain mechanisms of psychopathy because the disorder has a terrible impact on society,” said Deming. “Psychopathic people often steal, cheat, exploit, and victimize other people, costing the US hundreds of billions of dollars each year and causing real suffering.”
Because current science lacks proper treatments for these behaviors, the researchers turned to the brain for answers. However, they noticed that past attempts to map psychopathy often started by looking at a specific behavioral symptom, like a lack of empathy, and then tried to find a matching brain signature.
“The trick is that we approached this question from a somewhat unusual starting point,” Deming explained. “In the past, scientists have started by looking at human behavior and studying how the brain enacts those behaviors. We see people experiencing emotions or empathizing with other people, so scientists would study how the brain ‘does’ emotion or empathy.”
Instead, Deming and Shaffer took a deductive route, starting with the brain’s fundamental evolutionary purpose.
“We started from the question: ‘What is a brain for?’” Deming said. “If you look at our evolutionary history, then the answer seems to be this: the brain is for regulating the internal organs of the body (the heart, lungs, gut, and so on).”
Evolutionary biology suggests that brains developed to anticipate and meet the metabolic needs of the body before those needs actually arise. This preventative, highly efficient regulatory process is known as allostasis. To coordinate the organs, the brain must constantly monitor the internal physical conditions of the organs, such as heart rate, digestion, and breathing. The brain’s ability to sense these internal physical states is called interoception.
“To coordinate the organs, the brain has to sense them. These processes are called allostasis and interoception, so we call this an ‘allostatic-interoceptive view’ of the brain,” Deming noted. “Once we take this view, new questions and new answers emerge about what might be happening in the brains of psychopathic people.”
These complementary functions rely on the allostatic-interoceptive system, which spans multiple brainstem regions, subcortical structures, and large-scale neural networks. Signals from the body travel up to the brain through two primary pathways. One pathway is the vagus nerve, which runs from the abdomen up the front of the neck. The other pathway is the spinal cord, which carries sensory information from various internal organs up into the brainstem.
Once these signals reach the brainstem, they are distributed to various subcortical and cortical regions. The brain continuously uses this incoming information to fine-tune ongoing cognitive processes and adjust bodily functions. This dynamic indicates that a person’s heartbeat or breathing pattern can directly influence how they perceive the world around them.
To explore this concept, the researchers synthesized existing evidence from a wide array of published neuroimaging studies on psychopathy. They examined data from structural imaging, which looks at the physical wiring of the brain, as well as functional imaging, which tracks blood flow and brain activity over time. The synthesis included meta-analyses, which are large mathematical reviews that combine data from dozens of previous brain scans.
“Psychopathy might be a disorder of sensing and regulating the body’s organ systems,” Deming said. “When we looked across 20-plus years’ worth of MRI studies, brain differences kept popping up within the ‘allostatic-interoceptive system.’ This is a widespread brain system that plays a central role in sensing and regulating the body.”
The authors reviewed studies involving community members as well as forensic populations, such as people in prisons. They specifically looked at fractional anisotropy, a metric used to measure the structural health of white matter tracts. White matter serves as the physical cabling that connects different brain regions, allowing them to communicate rapidly.
“In psychopathy, this system appears to have degraded white matter pathways,” Deming explained. “It also interacts with other brain networks differently. And it shows different patterns of activity when psychopathic people are focusing on a task like empathizing with another person.”
Specifically, the uncinate fasciculus and the cingulum show signs of degradation. These neural pathways link the emotional centers of the brain to the areas responsible for high-level decision-making and bodily regulation.
“The root problem might not be one of empathy or emotion but of something more fundamental,” Deming said. “The root problem might be in how the brain manages the heart, lungs, and other organs and prepares them to meet the demands of the current context.”
In addition to physical wiring differences, the scientists found evidence of altered functional connectivity. Functional connectivity refers to how well different areas of the brain activate together and share information during rest or active tasks. The data indicates that people with psychopathy show reduced communication between the cortex and deeper brain structures like the amygdala.
When the brain cannot properly share information between these areas, the resulting regulatory signals lack rich contextual details. The authors propose that this impairment leads to a highly context-insensitive way of regulating the body. During cognitively demanding tasks, people with psychopathy also display unusual patterns of brain activation.
Because of these altered patterns, people with psychopathy often show lower skin conductance and heart rate responses when anticipating a stressful event, such as a mild electric shock. They also tend to display abnormal hormonal regulation in response to social stressors. People with psychopathy frequently exhibit unusually high baseline levels of testosterone and oxytocin, alongside blunted cortisol responses during stressful situations.
The researchers suggest that these impoverished regulatory signals may hinder a person’s ability to allocate attention to important environmental cues. If the brain fails to properly integrate internal bodily signals with external sensory information, it struggles to identify what is actually important for survival. This failure might explain why people with psychopathy selectively focus on certain cues while entirely disregarding threats.
Taking this body-centered view also helps clarify decades of fragmented research. Historically, different scientists have proposed different core deficits for psychopathy, ranging from poor attention to a lack of fear.
“It was surprising to see how this theory might weave together previous theories about psychopathy,” Deming told PsyPost. “Scientists tend to think of these previous theories as being distant and disconnected from one another; they don’t predict or explain the same phenomena.”
Rather than seeing these older ideas as entirely separate, the researchers believe a focus on bodily regulation connects them.
“But I think most of those theories can be easily folded into our view, which says that the problem is in how the brain is sensing and regulating the body,” Deming continued. “This process is central to emotional experience, drives attention, and heavily involves the autonomic nervous system, all of which have been pointed to by prior theories as the central problem in psychopathy.”
It is important to recognize the potential misinterpretations and limitations of this theoretical framework. The model relies heavily on indirect spatial associations between past brain imaging results and known regulatory networks.
“The big caveat is that MRI findings in relation to psychopathy are all over the map,” Deming said. “Although we found some recurring findings in brain regions that are important for sensing and regulating the body, studies usually fail to replicate one another.”
Because of natural biological flexibility, a single behavioral trait might look completely different in the brain scans of two different individuals.
“One study will find lower activity in region A, while another study will find the opposite, higher activity in region A, along with lower activity in region B,” Deming explained. “Our field needs to grapple with these inconsistencies.”
To explain why previous brain imaging studies of psychopathy have been so inconsistent, Deming and Shaffer introduced two concepts.
“And while some scientists in the field point to methodological differences between studies, we proposed two new ideas in the field,” Deming said. “First, inconsistent findings could result from core dysfunction in the allostatic-interoceptive system.”
The regions managing bodily regulation sit at the very top of a neural processing hierarchy. A disruption at this high level can alter activity in many downstream sensory regions, creating the illusion of scattered, inconsistent brain abnormalities across different studies.
“This is a possibility, supported in part by a recent study from Dugré and De Brito, since this system can change activity throughout the brain depending on the current context of the body in the world,” Deming noted.
The scientists also introduced a concept called degeneracy, which is an organizing principle in biology meaning that different brain structures can achieve the exact same functional outcome.
“Second, and relatedly, brain function differs across contexts (this is called degeneracy),” he continued. “Basically, we probably shouldn’t expect findings to replicate when we’re averaging across people and across instances, and instead we should be studying individual brains regulating individual bodies in context.”
Moving forward, the scientists recommend shifting away from group-average studies and moving toward precision psychiatry. This approach involves deeply tracking individual patients across many different contexts to see how their specific brain and body interact.
“The next step is to more deeply probe how the brains of psychopathic people are sensing and regulating their bodies,” Deming said. “This is a process few studies have studied in a targeted way, and those studies mostly focused on how people perceive their heartbeat consciously.”
Researchers might test these regulatory mechanisms directly by safely manipulating a person’s internal physical signals. This could involve stimulating the vagus nerve or using ingestible vibrating capsules to alter sensations in the gut.
“But there are somewhat more hidden processes we should also be studying,” Deming explained. “For example, how do their brains integrate bodily signals with signals arriving to the eyes and ears? If we slightly alter what is happening in their heart and lungs, can we change how they process social information?”
Advancements in ultra-high field magnetic resonance imaging will likely aid these future studies by allowing scientists to see incredibly small structures in the brainstem.
“We can also start using more powerful MRI scanners to better image the small brain structures that make up the allostatic-interoceptive system,” Deming added.
Currently, there is a severe lack of evidence-based treatments that target the biological roots of psychopathy. However, interventions that directly address internal sensing, such as specific biofeedback therapies, have shown some early promise. In biofeedback training, patients observe real-time monitors of their own heart rate or brain waves and practice volitionally controlling them.
Some past biofeedback studies have successfully trained individuals with psychopathy to regulate specific brain regions connected to the allostatic network. These early interventions appeared to reduce aggressive and impulsive behaviors. By combining detailed imaging with targeted biofeedback therapies, clinicians might eventually develop personalized treatments that train patients to better monitor and regulate their internal states.
The study, “Brain evidence of allostatic and interoceptive dysfunction in psychopathy,” was authored by Philip Deming and Clare Shaffer.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #psychopathy #allostaticinteroceptive #interoception #allostasis #brainregulation #neuroscience #biofeedback #MRI #forensicpsychology #emotiondysfunction
-
DATE: July 14, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Can learning to form healthy bonds reduce psychopathic behaviors?
Early childhood abuse and neglect are consistently linked to the manifestation of psychopathic traits in adulthood. The psychological pathways bridging early trauma and later antisocial personality features have remained somewhat ambiguous. A recent evaluation of incarcerated men suggests that an avoidant attachment style acts as a central dynamic in this relationship, separating those who develop cold, calculated traits from those who do not. The research was recently published in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology.
Psychopathy is a clinical construct characterized by two primary dimensions. The first dimension involves interpersonal and affective traits, such as a lack of empathy, grandiosity, and shallow emotions. The second dimension encompasses antisocial and impulsive behaviors, such as a failure to take responsibility, poor behavioral controls, and persistent rule-breaking. Incarcerated populations generally exhibit higher rates of these traits compared to the general public.
Some individuals exhibit high levels of psychopathic traits without ever engaging in criminal behavior. These people often display boldness, extreme self-confidence, and risk-taking tendencies that can even translate into professional success. Psychologists continually debate what variables dictate whether a psychopathic personality structure manifests in a socially adaptive manner or a destructive one.
Traumatic experiences before the age of fifteen are a known risk factor for the later manifestation of these psychopathic characteristics. People who endure physical abuse, sexual violence, or deep emotional neglect often struggle to form healthy bonds with others. Over time, these early breaches of trust shape what psychologists call attachment styles.
Attachment theory proposes that early relationships with caregivers provide a blueprint for how individuals navigate intimacy and emotional dependency in adulthood. When caregiving is consistent and supportive, children develop a secure attachment style. When caregiving is erratic, abusive, or absent, children often develop insecure attachment styles to cope with the unpredictability.
Insecure attachment generally falls into two distinct categories, anxious and avoidant. Attachment anxiety involves a heightened fear of abandonment, a high need for reassurance, and distress over unreciprocated affection. Attachment avoidance features a strong desire for strict autonomy, emotional distancing, and a fundamental discomfort with intimacy.
Maria Stella Mirarchi, a psychology researcher presently affiliated with the Technische Hochschule Mannheim in Germany, led the new investigation. Mirarchi and her colleagues hypothesized that specific insecure attachment styles might serve as a mediating variable. A mediating variable is a middle step that helps explain how an initial experience translates into a specific outcome.
The research team wanted to observe whether childhood trauma fosters an avoidant or anxious attachment style, which in turn feeds the development of psychopathic traits. They suspected that people who score high on psychopathy measures might shun emotional closeness as a defense mechanism rooted in early trauma. The diagnostic criteria for psychopathy already address severe intimacy deficits, including items assessing a history of short-term relationships and promiscuous behavior.
To test this model, the team evaluated 355 men serving sentences at a social-therapeutic correctional facility in Hamburg, Germany. The inmates were primarily incarcerated for varied violent and sexual offenses. Intake assessments occurred within the first few weeks of their arrival at the facility.
Trained clinical staff conducted exploratory interviews that spanned up to three hours. The staff also administered psychological tests and reviewed official case files. Using a standardized protocol, the clinicians documented reported instances of childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, and emotional neglect.
The men completed a widely utilized self-report questionnaire assessing adult attachment styles in the context of close relationships. This survey captures a person’s tendencies toward both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. To measure psychopathy, the clinical staff used the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised.
This checklist is the standard diagnostic tool for the condition in forensic settings. Clinicians rate an individual on twenty distinct items based on interview responses and historical records. The resulting scores capture the person’s overall psychopathy level, as well as their specific scores on the interpersonal and antisocial dimensions.
Baseline comparisons replicated established patterns in the psychological literature. Higher reported rates of childhood trauma correlated with higher overall psychopathy scores. Trauma was particularly linked to the antisocial and impulsive dimension of the clinical construct.
When the researchers ran their mediation analysis, they found that the overarching indirect effect through attachment styles was not statistically significant. Breaking the results down by the specific type of attachment style revealed a distinct contrast. The two styles operated in opposing ways.
Attachment avoidance exhibited a positive direct association with the overall psychopathy score. Men who coped with relationship stress by withdrawing emotionally and demanding independence tended to exhibit higher levels of total psychopathic traits. This pattern remained steady even when accounting for their personal trauma history.
Attachment anxiety produced a different outcome, particularly concerning the interpersonal and affective dimension of psychopathy. For this specific factor, which covers the callous, unemotional, and manipulative traits of the condition, attachment anxiety actually predicted lower scores.
This observation indicates that a fear of abandonment and a high need for emotional reassurance might buffer against the development of a truly callous personality. Men possessing high attachment anxiety still exhibited antisocial behaviors, but they lacked the cold emotional detachment that defines the core of primary psychopathy.
The research team noted that this divergence aligns with established theory. By definition, people exhibiting primary psychopathy rarely worry about rejection or unreciprocated affection. They are far more likely to avoid emotional attachments entirely, dismissing social bonds as an unnecessary vulnerability.
These distinct pathways offer new ideas for rehabilitation programs within the justice system. Traditional models sometimes view psychopathy as a permanent condition. Recent behavioral perspectives suggest that many personality traits associated with the condition are dynamic and capable of shifting in response to sustained treatment.
If attachment avoidance serves as a core mechanism sustaining these traits, therapy focusing on interpersonal skills could provide a new avenue for intervention. Helping individuals build secure relationships and dismantle their avoidant defense mechanisms might result in a gradual reduction of psychopathic behaviors.
The authors acknowledged several limitations in their analysis. The study utilized a cross-sectional design, meaning the assessments of trauma, attachment, and psychopathy all occurred at a single point in time. This type of observational data cannot establish a sequence of cause and effect.
Additionally, the research took place in a specialized social-therapeutic facility. In the German penal system, these facilities often house offenders who are court-referred for treatment or who demonstrate a high motivation to change. Consequently, the average psychopathy scores in this group were lower than those typically found in standard, maximum-security environments.
The reliance on a male-exclusive sample also restricts the broad application of the results. Men and women frequently experience qualitatively different forms of trauma during childhood. Basic socialization differences also heavily influence how men and women express emotional distress and attachment behaviors as adults.
Ongoing investigations will require longitudinal designs that track individuals from childhood into adulthood. Tracking psychological variables across varying stages of life would help clarify how early abuse gradually warps relational habits. A deeper understanding of these developmental cascades might eventually guide more ethical, targeted therapies for violent offenders.
The study, “The Role of Insecure Attachment Styles in the Relationship Between Childhood Trauma and Psychopathy in Adulthood,” was authored by Maria Stella Mirarchi, Theresa Kuban, Sonja Etzler, Peer Briken, and Martin Rettenberger.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #psychopathy #attachmenttheory #childhoodtrauma #earlytrauma #securevsinsecureattachment #avoidantattachment #anxiousattachment #rehabilitation #forensicpsychology #mentalhealthawareness
-
DATE: July 14, 2026 at 08:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Can learning to form healthy bonds reduce psychopathic behaviors?
Early childhood abuse and neglect are consistently linked to the manifestation of psychopathic traits in adulthood. The psychological pathways bridging early trauma and later antisocial personality features have remained somewhat ambiguous. A recent evaluation of incarcerated men suggests that an avoidant attachment style acts as a central dynamic in this relationship, separating those who develop cold, calculated traits from those who do not. The research was recently published in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology.
Psychopathy is a clinical construct characterized by two primary dimensions. The first dimension involves interpersonal and affective traits, such as a lack of empathy, grandiosity, and shallow emotions. The second dimension encompasses antisocial and impulsive behaviors, such as a failure to take responsibility, poor behavioral controls, and persistent rule-breaking. Incarcerated populations generally exhibit higher rates of these traits compared to the general public.
Some individuals exhibit high levels of psychopathic traits without ever engaging in criminal behavior. These people often display boldness, extreme self-confidence, and risk-taking tendencies that can even translate into professional success. Psychologists continually debate what variables dictate whether a psychopathic personality structure manifests in a socially adaptive manner or a destructive one.
Traumatic experiences before the age of fifteen are a known risk factor for the later manifestation of these psychopathic characteristics. People who endure physical abuse, sexual violence, or deep emotional neglect often struggle to form healthy bonds with others. Over time, these early breaches of trust shape what psychologists call attachment styles.
Attachment theory proposes that early relationships with caregivers provide a blueprint for how individuals navigate intimacy and emotional dependency in adulthood. When caregiving is consistent and supportive, children develop a secure attachment style. When caregiving is erratic, abusive, or absent, children often develop insecure attachment styles to cope with the unpredictability.
Insecure attachment generally falls into two distinct categories, anxious and avoidant. Attachment anxiety involves a heightened fear of abandonment, a high need for reassurance, and distress over unreciprocated affection. Attachment avoidance features a strong desire for strict autonomy, emotional distancing, and a fundamental discomfort with intimacy.
Maria Stella Mirarchi, a psychology researcher presently affiliated with the Technische Hochschule Mannheim in Germany, led the new investigation. Mirarchi and her colleagues hypothesized that specific insecure attachment styles might serve as a mediating variable. A mediating variable is a middle step that helps explain how an initial experience translates into a specific outcome.
The research team wanted to observe whether childhood trauma fosters an avoidant or anxious attachment style, which in turn feeds the development of psychopathic traits. They suspected that people who score high on psychopathy measures might shun emotional closeness as a defense mechanism rooted in early trauma. The diagnostic criteria for psychopathy already address severe intimacy deficits, including items assessing a history of short-term relationships and promiscuous behavior.
To test this model, the team evaluated 355 men serving sentences at a social-therapeutic correctional facility in Hamburg, Germany. The inmates were primarily incarcerated for varied violent and sexual offenses. Intake assessments occurred within the first few weeks of their arrival at the facility.
Trained clinical staff conducted exploratory interviews that spanned up to three hours. The staff also administered psychological tests and reviewed official case files. Using a standardized protocol, the clinicians documented reported instances of childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, and emotional neglect.
The men completed a widely utilized self-report questionnaire assessing adult attachment styles in the context of close relationships. This survey captures a person’s tendencies toward both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. To measure psychopathy, the clinical staff used the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised.
This checklist is the standard diagnostic tool for the condition in forensic settings. Clinicians rate an individual on twenty distinct items based on interview responses and historical records. The resulting scores capture the person’s overall psychopathy level, as well as their specific scores on the interpersonal and antisocial dimensions.
Baseline comparisons replicated established patterns in the psychological literature. Higher reported rates of childhood trauma correlated with higher overall psychopathy scores. Trauma was particularly linked to the antisocial and impulsive dimension of the clinical construct.
When the researchers ran their mediation analysis, they found that the overarching indirect effect through attachment styles was not statistically significant. Breaking the results down by the specific type of attachment style revealed a distinct contrast. The two styles operated in opposing ways.
Attachment avoidance exhibited a positive direct association with the overall psychopathy score. Men who coped with relationship stress by withdrawing emotionally and demanding independence tended to exhibit higher levels of total psychopathic traits. This pattern remained steady even when accounting for their personal trauma history.
Attachment anxiety produced a different outcome, particularly concerning the interpersonal and affective dimension of psychopathy. For this specific factor, which covers the callous, unemotional, and manipulative traits of the condition, attachment anxiety actually predicted lower scores.
This observation indicates that a fear of abandonment and a high need for emotional reassurance might buffer against the development of a truly callous personality. Men possessing high attachment anxiety still exhibited antisocial behaviors, but they lacked the cold emotional detachment that defines the core of primary psychopathy.
The research team noted that this divergence aligns with established theory. By definition, people exhibiting primary psychopathy rarely worry about rejection or unreciprocated affection. They are far more likely to avoid emotional attachments entirely, dismissing social bonds as an unnecessary vulnerability.
These distinct pathways offer new ideas for rehabilitation programs within the justice system. Traditional models sometimes view psychopathy as a permanent condition. Recent behavioral perspectives suggest that many personality traits associated with the condition are dynamic and capable of shifting in response to sustained treatment.
If attachment avoidance serves as a core mechanism sustaining these traits, therapy focusing on interpersonal skills could provide a new avenue for intervention. Helping individuals build secure relationships and dismantle their avoidant defense mechanisms might result in a gradual reduction of psychopathic behaviors.
The authors acknowledged several limitations in their analysis. The study utilized a cross-sectional design, meaning the assessments of trauma, attachment, and psychopathy all occurred at a single point in time. This type of observational data cannot establish a sequence of cause and effect.
Additionally, the research took place in a specialized social-therapeutic facility. In the German penal system, these facilities often house offenders who are court-referred for treatment or who demonstrate a high motivation to change. Consequently, the average psychopathy scores in this group were lower than those typically found in standard, maximum-security environments.
The reliance on a male-exclusive sample also restricts the broad application of the results. Men and women frequently experience qualitatively different forms of trauma during childhood. Basic socialization differences also heavily influence how men and women express emotional distress and attachment behaviors as adults.
Ongoing investigations will require longitudinal designs that track individuals from childhood into adulthood. Tracking psychological variables across varying stages of life would help clarify how early abuse gradually warps relational habits. A deeper understanding of these developmental cascades might eventually guide more ethical, targeted therapies for violent offenders.
The study, “The Role of Insecure Attachment Styles in the Relationship Between Childhood Trauma and Psychopathy in Adulthood,” was authored by Maria Stella Mirarchi, Theresa Kuban, Sonja Etzler, Peer Briken, and Martin Rettenberger.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #psychopathy #attachmenttheory #childhoodtrauma #earlytrauma #securevsinsecureattachment #avoidantattachment #anxiousattachment #rehabilitation #forensicpsychology #mentalhealthawareness
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Noite Animal, released in 1995
Released for: PC (Microsoft Windows)
Point-and-click; Shooter; Puzzle; Quiz/Trivia; Adventure
Comedy, Erotic
adult, psychopathy, cockroach
From the Internet Games Database
https://www.igdb.com/games/noite-animal
#games #adventures #pointnclick #adventuregames #old #history #retrocomputing #retrogaming #retro #image #screenshots #1990s #90s #adult #psychopathy #cockroach #win #comedy #erotic -
Noite Animal, released in 1995
Released for: PC (Microsoft Windows)
Point-and-click; Shooter; Puzzle; Quiz/Trivia; Adventure
Comedy, Erotic
adult, psychopathy, cockroach
From the Internet Games Database
https://www.igdb.com/games/noite-animal
#games #adventures #pointnclick #adventuregames #old #history #retrocomputing #retrogaming #retro #image #screenshots #1990s #90s #adult #psychopathy #cockroach #win #comedy #erotic -
@apenkop @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @iran
Me too! They are all, literally, evil psychopaths!
#Israel #Zionism #Netanyahu #Trump #Psychopathy #Evil #SettlerColonists #US
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@apenkop @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @iran
Me too! They are all, literally, evil psychopaths!
#Israel #Zionism #Netanyahu #Trump #Psychopathy #Evil #SettlerColonists #US
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Great article! Well worth a read & please boost!
“Hannah Arendt Warned Us — How Israel Normalises Sadism in the Service of Its Settler Colonial Machine”
by Avigail Abarbanel in Avigail Abarbanel’s Fully Human Essays on Substack
@[email protected]
@[email protected]
@[email protected]“When I was at school and later during my university studies my Zionist teachers taught that the Nazis were not content merely to kill Jews. Humiliation and the deliberate destruction of human dignity were a big part of the project itself — shaving heads, tattooing numbers, rape, medical experiments, degradation in every conceivable form, and all manner of deprivation before death. The cruelty was not incidental to the killing. It was the point. [..].
Israel is now doing precisely this to the Palestinians and the audacity of it is staggering”
https://open.substack.com/pub/avigail/p/hannah-arendt-warned-us-how-israel
#Press #SocialMedia #Gaza #Lebanon #PalestinianGenocide #Zionism #SettlerColonialism #Israel #Psychopathy #Sadism #Rape #Dehumanisation #Evil
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Great article! Well worth a read & please boost!
“Hannah Arendt Warned Us — How Israel Normalises Sadism in the Service of Its Settler Colonial Machine”
by Avigail Abarbanel in Avigail Abarbanel’s Fully Human Essays on Substack
@[email protected]
@[email protected]
@[email protected]“When I was at school and later during my university studies my Zionist teachers taught that the Nazis were not content merely to kill Jews. Humiliation and the deliberate destruction of human dignity were a big part of the project itself — shaving heads, tattooing numbers, rape, medical experiments, degradation in every conceivable form, and all manner of deprivation before death. The cruelty was not incidental to the killing. It was the point. [..].
Israel is now doing precisely this to the Palestinians and the audacity of it is staggering”
https://open.substack.com/pub/avigail/p/hannah-arendt-warned-us-how-israel
#Press #SocialMedia #Gaza #Lebanon #PalestinianGenocide #Zionism #SettlerColonialism #Israel #Psychopathy #Sadism #Rape #Dehumanisation #Evil
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Here is the French translation.
Go on as you want with it
I'm not looking for fame => my name on the translation is optionnal.----- FRENCH / FRANÇAIS
Aucun spoiler ne se cache ici sur ce coup-ci mes amours. J'ai besoin que LE MONDE ENTIER puisse voir ça. Balancez ce connard jusqu'à la LUNE. Faites une copie d'écran, incluez mon nom et diffusez-ça PARTOUT.Désolé pour la triste nouvelle mais je pense que c'est important et je veux que chacun d'entre vous, dans vos pays respectifs, réfléchisse s'il serait prêt à contacter son représentant pour lui dire de faire pression sur le Canada pour qu'il ouvre les portes aux réfugiés trans.
Voilà. Aucun changement n’est nécessaire dans vos pays – juste des gens prêts à se lever et à dire "Plus jamais". On est rendus au pire. Il s’agit de la promulgation des lois raciales de Nuremberg. Ça va supprimer fondamentalement toute capacité à toute entité financée par le gouvernement fédéral – N'IMPOERTE LAQUELLE – de permettre aux personnes trans d’exister.
Là, mes amis, je suis désolé mais il s'agit de laisser ou non génocider toute la population trans des États-Unis, gentille et calme, sinon nous sombrons tous dans l’obscurité pour ne plus jamais être revus. Ils veulent tellement nous désespérer, jusqu'à ce que nous nous chargions de la solution finale à leur place.
S'il vous plaît. Si vous vous souciez un minimum de l'humanité et du droit des gens à vivre comme ils sont ... dignité humaine élémentaire. Soins de santé. Ne pas subir de détransition forcée dans les prisons où on nous enferme après être traités de terroristes par le régime nazi de Trump.
Contactez simplement votre représentant, quel qu'il soit, où qu'il se trouve, et lancez cette conversation pour moi. D'accord ? Demandez-leur simplement de commencer à poser des questions. Du Canada. Nous avons une chance de sauver littéralement des centaines de milliers de personnes trans américaines innocentes.
Je peux gérer le travail dans ce but, au Canada. J'ai des gens que je peux mobiliser, avec qui je peux travailler mais une pression internationale serait d’une aide ÉNORME.
Si vous souhaitez traduire mon message dans votre langue, faites-le. Si vous m'envoyez le texte en DM, je le republierai moi-même et j'utiliserai les flèches pour diffuser cet appel.
J'ai - nous - avons besoin de votre aide.
-----(the Moon is too close, Mars would be a bit better, and Pluto preffered.)
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Here is the French translation.
Go on as you want with it
I'm not looking for fame => my name on the translation is optionnal.----- FRENCH / FRANÇAIS
Aucun spoiler ne se cache ici sur ce coup-ci mes amours. J'ai besoin que LE MONDE ENTIER puisse voir ça. Balancez ce connard jusqu'à la LUNE. Faites une copie d'écran, incluez mon nom et diffusez-ça PARTOUT.Désolé pour la triste nouvelle mais je pense que c'est important et je veux que chacun d'entre vous, dans vos pays respectifs, réfléchisse s'il serait prêt à contacter son représentant pour lui dire de faire pression sur le Canada pour qu'il ouvre les portes aux réfugiés trans.
Voilà. Aucun changement n’est nécessaire dans vos pays – juste des gens prêts à se lever et à dire "Plus jamais". On est rendus au pire. Il s’agit de la promulgation des lois raciales de Nuremberg. Ça va supprimer fondamentalement toute capacité à toute entité financée par le gouvernement fédéral – N'IMPOERTE LAQUELLE – de permettre aux personnes trans d’exister.
Là, mes amis, je suis désolé mais il s'agit de laisser ou non génocider toute la population trans des États-Unis, gentille et calme, sinon nous sombrons tous dans l’obscurité pour ne plus jamais être revus. Ils veulent tellement nous désespérer, jusqu'à ce que nous nous chargions de la solution finale à leur place.
S'il vous plaît. Si vous vous souciez un minimum de l'humanité et du droit des gens à vivre comme ils sont ... dignité humaine élémentaire. Soins de santé. Ne pas subir de détransition forcée dans les prisons où on nous enferme après être traités de terroristes par le régime nazi de Trump.
Contactez simplement votre représentant, quel qu'il soit, où qu'il se trouve, et lancez cette conversation pour moi. D'accord ? Demandez-leur simplement de commencer à poser des questions. Du Canada. Nous avons une chance de sauver littéralement des centaines de milliers de personnes trans américaines innocentes.
Je peux gérer le travail dans ce but, au Canada. J'ai des gens que je peux mobiliser, avec qui je peux travailler mais une pression internationale serait d’une aide ÉNORME.
Si vous souhaitez traduire mon message dans votre langue, faites-le. Si vous m'envoyez le texte en DM, je le republierai moi-même et j'utiliserai les flèches pour diffuser cet appel.
J'ai - nous - avons besoin de votre aide.
-----(the Moon is too close, Mars would be a bit better, and Pluto preffered.)
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Yes. Enough of the fawning, adoring CEOs etc.
It will stain you all in history as complicit to massive corruption and enabling of inappropriate wars and genocides.Wise up about the personality disorders in play, and how they shift across themselves rather than being only one.
Anyone intact after dealing with them up close will tell you that the minimal time placating seems to buy is undermined by it being seen as weakness easier to attack, and that the delay is used to get to know you more to attack harder, sooner. You NEVER give these types what they want unless briefly to escape/survive a life threatening situation. Setting traps and backstabbing is the name of the corruption game, so it is nonsense to walk into it collectively. Instead CEOs and leaders should collectively dig heels in to stop the wheels of toxicity turning. Put sticks in the spokes of the psychopathy, using false trails and aloofness to be hard to read as the wheels come off incrementally.
Corruption and narcissistically driven sociopathy/psychopathy are a Venus fly trap scenario. EVERY leader and voter should be aware enough to know this, wherever they are in the world. Break the links and keep nipping the buds, because corruption is already doing that to you. It erodes life for all, poor or wealthy. Thinking otherwise because of hoarded wealth or perceived 'success' in a current exploitative economic paradigm is madness.
Inside the world of Gianni Infantino: ‘The ass-kissing of Trump got us nowhere’ | The Independent
#politics #usa #corruption #narcissm #sociopathy #psychopathy #war
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Open #Psychopathy and #MashedPotatos Dept. It's one of the more harrowing observations one might make these days . Slipped Cogs and destructiveness towards self and others. People going off like corks and erasing themselves.The contagion part is the anger it induces when you see it up close. Self discipline is the answer. Occasionally also beer
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Psychopathy: some experts now say it doesn’t exist – here’s why we may be looking at it all wrong
#Psychology #Psychopathy #MentalHealth #Personality #PersonalityDisorders #Science #Research #Behaviour #Neuroscience #Criminology #Empathy #HumanBehavior
https://the-14.com/psychopathy-some-experts-now-say-it-doesnt-exist-heres-why-we-may-be-looking-at-it-all-wrong/ -
Psychopathy: some experts now say it doesn’t exist – here’s why we may be looking at it all wrong
#Psychology #Psychopathy #MentalHealth #Personality #PersonalityDisorders #Science #Research #Behaviour #Neuroscience #Criminology #Empathy #HumanBehavior
https://the-14.com/psychopathy-some-experts-now-say-it-doesnt-exist-heres-why-we-may-be-looking-at-it-all-wrong/ -
#ChildAbuse, #misogyny, #xenophobia are all symptoms of profoundly sick #society
#sociopathy #psychopathy
‘Massive’ child #abuse scandal in France
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/25/massive-child-abuse-scandal-in-france-as-school-staff-investigated-for-violence-and-sexual-assault -
#ChildAbuse, #misogyny, #xenophobia are all symptoms of profoundly sick #society
#sociopathy #psychopathy
‘Massive’ child #abuse scandal in France
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/25/massive-child-abuse-scandal-in-france-as-school-staff-investigated-for-violence-and-sexual-assault -
What I really haven’t grasped about #Musk before, is that for him the valuable parts of human behaviour to preserve in a technological AI future are the ruthlessness, malevolence and greed.
He doesn’t fear AI, but that a machine might learn to do good from evidence, and god forbid appeal to humans to do so!
Hence his anti-woke #AI Grok that turns into MechaHitler on occasion. He’s absolutely hell-bent on inducing his particular kind of #psychopathy into a machine! 🤯
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What I really haven’t grasped about #Musk before, is that for him the valuable parts of human behaviour to preserve in a technological AI future are the ruthlessness, malevolence and greed.
He doesn’t fear AI, but that a machine might learn to do good from evidence, and god forbid appeal to humans to do so!
Hence his anti-woke #AI Grok that turns into MechaHitler on occasion. He’s absolutely hell-bent on inducing his particular kind of #psychopathy into a machine! 🤯
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@DerLogiker @georgetakei Trump is worse, actually.
Letter to congressional leaders from psychiatrists: 'President Trump exhibits what forensic mental health experts have, across dozens of independent assessments, identified as the “Dark Triad” of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.'
They describe the evidence that he's dangerously unstable, that his "judgment is, by every visible measure, severely compromised" and that "he is a constitutional emergency."
"Top psychiatrists issue urgent letter to Congress about Trump's mental instability" https://www.alternet.org/psychiatrists-trump/
#Trump #DarkTriad #narcissism #narcissist #Machiavellian #Machiavellianism #psychopath #psychopathy #unstable #25thAmendment #2547th #25th
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@DerLogiker @georgetakei Trump is worse, actually.
Letter to congressional leaders from psychiatrists: 'President Trump exhibits what forensic mental health experts have, across dozens of independent assessments, identified as the “Dark Triad” of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.'
They describe the evidence that he's dangerously unstable, that his "judgment is, by every visible measure, severely compromised" and that "he is a constitutional emergency."
"Top psychiatrists issue urgent letter to Congress about Trump's mental instability" https://www.alternet.org/psychiatrists-trump/
#Trump #DarkTriad #narcissism #narcissist #Machiavellian #Machiavellianism #psychopath #psychopathy #unstable #25thAmendment #2547th #25th
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@mattblaze the only way to stop this is when the people collectively rise up & fight back by any means necessary. stop working, stop buying & stop going to their propaganda factories they call schools. occupy parliament, congress, council & state buildings. #educate #organise #resist
nobody in power is going to save us, it's up to you, me & all of us to save each other. they're all protecting the system of capitalism & hierarchy because they don't want to lose their positions of power & wealth.
impeachment, elections, congress, the constitution & (international) law are all instruments of control over us, a carrot on a stick we'll never reach & which always works out in the billionaire class' favour.
most of them are seriously mentally ill with #clusterBPDs & #psychopathy in the megalomania phase. they should be sectioned & do forced labour for minimal food & shelter for the rest of their lives, and all their assets, resources & property taken off them. that should be redistributed across the globe to who needs it most.
and then we have to figure out a completely different way of organising life on earth. the first nation way. the natural way. in respect & humility to our mother earth & all who live here.
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@mattblaze the only way to stop this is when the people collectively rise up & fight back by any means necessary. stop working, stop buying & stop going to their propaganda factories they call schools. occupy parliament, congress, council & state buildings. #educate #organise #resist
nobody in power is going to save us, it's up to you, me & all of us to save each other. they're all protecting the system of capitalism & hierarchy because they don't want to lose their positions of power & wealth.
impeachment, elections, congress, the constitution & (international) law are all instruments of control over us, a carrot on a stick we'll never reach & which always works out in the billionaire class' favour.
most of them are seriously mentally ill with #clusterBPDs & #psychopathy in the megalomania phase. they should be sectioned & do forced labour for minimal food & shelter for the rest of their lives, and all their assets, resources & property taken off them. that should be redistributed across the globe to who needs it most.
and then we have to figure out a completely different way of organising life on earth. the first nation way. the natural way. in respect & humility to our mother earth & all who live here.
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RE: https://mas.to/@therightarticle/116339430241532920
i have been warning about an epidemic of #narcissism in society. frump & co are narcissistic psychopaths. they coercively control, manipulate, brainwash &
gaslight millions of ppl from their narcissistic roundabout. it's contagious. they're committing mass genocide just like the nazis did in germany, only this time it's global.if nobody intervenes & sections the billionaire class, they'll manipulate & groom large groups of ppl into their ideology & drive mass #NPD & #psychopathy in the population. that ends in extinction of our species bc we'll kill each other & our selves.
if you think i am talking bs, go learn about history & psychology of these conditions. has nobody done psychological research on the collective state of mind of perpetrators of genocide?
maybe we are all part of this collective narcissistic roundabout driven by capitalism, caught in this malignant vicious circle.
#ChangeTheWorldStartWithYourSelf
#press #IndependentMedia #psychology #criminology #SocialSciences
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RE: https://mas.to/@therightarticle/116339430241532920
i have been warning about an epidemic of #narcissism in society. frump & co are narcissistic psychopaths. they coercively control, manipulate, brainwash &
gaslight millions of ppl from their narcissistic roundabout. it's contagious. they're committing mass genocide just like the nazis did in germany, only this time it's global.if nobody intervenes & sections the billionaire class, they'll manipulate & groom large groups of ppl into their ideology & drive mass #NPD & #psychopathy in the population. that ends in extinction of our species bc we'll kill each other & our selves.
if you think i am talking bs, go learn about history & psychology of these conditions. has nobody done psychological research on the collective state of mind of perpetrators of genocide?
maybe we are all part of this collective narcissistic roundabout driven by capitalism, caught in this malignant vicious circle.
#ChangeTheWorldStartWithYourSelf
#press #IndependentMedia #psychology #criminology #SocialSciences
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Man routinely insults and denigrates his country's onetime allies, threatens to attack them economically and sometimes militarily, sets out to destroy their economies, starts a war without consulting them or listening to advice other than from a fascist genocidal state, then demands their support under threat of abandoning an already moribund alliance thanks to his incessant verbal and economic attacks against them ...
Their enthusiasm for his personal war seems muted.
I wonder if matters could have been handled better ...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-may-delay-china-trip-9.7130033
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What do you want to know about #psychopaths, what it's like to be a #psychopath, or general questions about #psychopathy?
I promise I will answer you truthfully, and I won't hunt you down to split you open and haul out your innards.
Then again, I'm a psychopath, so I lie a lot.
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Way ahead of you #Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/mar/10/how-to-recognise-handle-psychopath My take on #psychopaths, #Trump and #evolution here https://nikolaskozloff.substack.com/p/reflections-on-trump-sociopaths-and #psychology #politics #psychopathy #sociopaths #narcissism #narcissist #fascism
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‘Charismatic and extremely confident’: how to recognise – and handle – a psychopath https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/mar/10/how-to-recognise-handle-psychopath?CMP=share_btn_url
#psychopathy #psychology
