Intriguingly, primary psychopathy was connected to a morning chronotype, suggesting that individuals who are high in 'successful' psychopathy are early risers. This makes sense, as in order to achieve career success, the niche for exploiting others is earlier in the day during business hours.
The authors suggest that disturbed sleep in psychopathic individuals may be explained by the experience of emotion dysregulation which accentuate factors that maintain insomnia (i.e. negatively toned cognitive activity: Harvey, 2002).
That is, evening people were consistently higher in narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy than their morning counterparts.
Although psychopaths tend to be nocturnal, everyone needs sleep at some point. As Dr. Sal Raichbach PsyD, LCSW of Ambrosia Treatment Center tells Bustle, “There is some research to show that people who demonstrate psychopathic traits tend to sleep for few hours very restfully, without much tossing and turning at night.
Late nights
Obviously, not every night owl is a psychopath, but psychopaths are more likely to stay up late, according to science. So if you're already suspicious of someone in particular, knowing they're up until all hours could be another bit of evidence that you might just be right. PsyBlog quotes Peter K.
Karin Roelofs, at the Donders Institute at Radboud University in the Netherlands, confirmed that the brains of psychopaths showed poor connectivity between the amygdala — the brain region key for processing emotions, especially fear — and the more “judging,” wiser prefrontal cortex.
Results showed that persons high in psychopathy were more likely to perceive fantasizing about sexual relations with other people and expressing emotions towards a person other than the partner as infidelity. But a different pattern emerged among those high in Machiavellianism.
They also included a range of measures of intelligence. Overall, the team found no evidence that psychopaths were more intelligent than people who don't have psychopathic traits. In fact, the relationship went the other way. The psychopaths, on average, scored significantly lower on intelligence tests.
Psychopaths do have feelings … well, some feelings.
While psychopaths show a specific lack in emotions, such as anxiety, fear and sadness, they can feel other emotions, such as happiness, joy, surprise and disgust, in a similar way as most of us would.
The volunteers who were lower in psychopathic traits were nearly twice as likely to yawn as those who were high in those traits. Still, there were individuals who were low in psychopathic traits who didn't yawn at all.
A 2016 study conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan suggests early signs of psychopathy can be seen in children as young as 2 years old. 4 Even at this age, they show differences in empathy and conscience.
Psychopaths struggle to understand how someone else might feel afraid, sad, or anxious. It just doesn't make sense to them as they're not able to read people. A psychopath is completely indifferent to people who are suffering—even when it's a close friend or family member.
While everyone tells lies occasionally, pathological lying is distinct in severity and frequency. Individuals with psychopathy often engage in pathological lying as a means of manipulation, deception, and control. However, not all people who lie pathologically do so with psychopathic motivations.
There are some areas where psychopaths may experience normal emotions and grief is one such area. In response to death of a person with whom there is a bond, some psychopaths can experience sadness and this may even bring about feelings of guilt which are otherwise impossible to feel. Crying may be a part of this.
Like healthy people, many psychopaths love their parents, spouse, children, and pets in their own way, but they have difficulty in loving and trusting the rest of the world.
Psychopaths have been found to be capable of feeling love, but their abilities can vary from person to person. In some cases, a psychopath's feelings may grow over time and develop into something that allows them the capacity for empathy towards others.
High-functioning psychopaths may be fully aware of their condition and perceive exactly how they differ from the general populace. Some psychopaths may realize that their emotions are “blunted” or “turned down” and they cannot feel joys or sorrows as much as others.
Psychopathy is a maladaptive personality style that is marked by hypersexual activity that may put the individual or others at risk for unintended consequences such as pregnancy, STDs, pain, and emotional distress.
According to a 2017 study led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, psychopaths have reduced connections in the areas of the brain that control fear, anxiety, empathy and sentimentality.
According to a study published in the Journal of Personality in April, it was found that psychopaths tend to be attracted to others who have psychopathic tendencies. The study titled “Do Psychopathic Birds of a Feather Flock Together?” used 696 men and women of many different backgrounds and ethnicities.
Like other types of personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder is on a spectrum, which means it can range in severity from occasional bad behaviour to repeatedly breaking the law and committing serious crimes. Psychopaths are considered to have a severe form of antisocial personality disorder.
Individuals higher in psychopathy are more likely to aspire to power (but not achievement), financial success, and acquiring material possessions (Glenn et al. 2017) , demonstrating how motivations of psychopathic individuals may match, albeit deceptively and superficially, these preferences.
Psychopaths, by definition, have problems understanding the emotions of other people, which partly explains why they are so selfish, why they so callously disregard the welfare of others, and why they commit violent crimes at up to three times the rate of other people.