Are psychopaths smarter than most people?

Is it true that psychopathy goes hand in hand with a higher than normal level of intelligence?

Most ordinary people agree that the typical profile of a psychopath is someone with a great capacity to manipulate others, dishonest, lacking in empathy and with above-average intelligence.

However... Are psychopaths really smarter? This has been a question that has been experimentally addressed in recent decades. Let's see if this is true or just another myth promoted by the media.

Psychopathy and its characteristics

Before going into more detail about why popular culture has the idea that psychopaths are more intelligent, it is necessary to explain, very briefly, the main diagnostic features of this personality disorder.

Most psychological disorders are characterized by a series of more or less varied symptoms depending on the person who suffers from the disorder. However, psychopathy stands out for being fairly stable in terms of its behavioral and personality characteristics..

Psychopaths tend to share a set of fairly stable personality traits, observable in the vast majority of them. The classic image of psychopaths is of insensitive, remorseless, empathetic, highly manipulative, highly impulsive and grandiose individuals. They also possess great superficial charm, as well as being pathological liars and having a very promiscuous sex life.

However, it is possible to differentiate between two main types of psychopathy: primary psychopathy and secondary psychopathy. Primary psychopaths, who would be the most closely related to the stereotypical image of psychopathy, are characterized by low empathy and a very cold demeanor, but do not usually engage in violent or aggressive acts. On the other hand, secondary psychopaths, also called hostile or reactive psychopaths, are those who carry out antisocial behaviors, in the form of aggression and physical and verbal violence..

Over the last decades, attempts have been made to establish the percentage of psychopaths in the population, with statistics varying between 0.2 and 1%, depending on the country. Thus, judging by these percentages, it can be deduced that throughout your life you will have the opportunity to meet someone who, to a greater or lesser extent, could be classified as a psychopath.

However, as we were saying, not all psychopaths are aggressive, not all psychopaths are aggressive and, therefore, do not necessarily carry out criminal acts, it is true that a significant percentage of the prison population meets diagnostic criteria. Depending on gender, culture and the country in which the prison is evaluated, the percentages of inmates with psychopathy range from 11% to 25%.

Are psychopaths smarter? The myth of Hannibal Lecter

As with the vast majority of psychological disorders, psychopathy is not without its myths. Among the most prominent is the myth that psychopaths are smarter than most people. This has been experimentally addressed, and it has been shown that not only is it not true, but also that, in addition, the population of psychopaths has, on average, a lower intelligence, the population of psychopaths has, on average, a lower intelligence than that expected in the general population. than is to be expected in the general population.

However, we should not fall into the error of thinking that psychopaths are actually less intelligent than most people. To say that psychopathy has any relationship to intelligence or that it influences intelligence is false. In fact, this is how research conducted by O'Boyle's group in 2013 found that the correlation between psychopathy and intelligence was close to zero, which would come to say that both psychological constructs are independent of each other.

One of the reasons why psychopathy is associated with high intelligence is related to one of the characteristics of psychopaths: being adept in social situations, at least at a superficial level.. While this is not always the case, there are many psychopaths who possess quite striking social skills, enabling them to manipulate others through their superficial charm. Manipulating others is associated with possessing superior intelligence in popular culture.

Another explanation that might be behind why the general population sees psychopaths as more intelligent than they really are, especially primary psychopaths, has to do with the relationship that has been culturally given to intelligence when it is related to agreeableness, a dimension of personality.a dimension of personality.

Traditionally, people who consider themselves more logical also see themselves as colder and less cordial. On the other hand, people who see themselves as kinder and nicer also tend to underestimate their intelligence. In other words, culturally, a very clear distinction has been made between reason and heart.The two aspects are seen as totally opposite, and if you have too much of one, you should have too little of the other.

This can be extrapolated to the view of primary psychopathy. Being people with a lack of empathy, it is assumed that they are very logical and, therefore, more intelligent than the majority of the population. This phenomenon, fueled by the media, has been called the myth of Hannibal Lecter, the famous psychopath protagonist of the film The Silence of the Lambs by Jonathan Demme (1991). Despite this, science has not found a relationship between the cordiality dimension and intelligence.

Bibliographical references:

• Decuyper, M., De Pauw, S., De Fruyt, F., De Bolle, M., & De Clercq, B. J. (2009). A meta-analysis of psychopathy-, antisocial PD- and FFM associations. European Journal of Personality, 23(7), 531-565. doi:10.1002/per.729
• DeYoung, C. G. (2011). Intelligence and Personality. In R. J. Sternberg, & Kaufman, S. B. (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of intelligence (pp. 711-737). New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Edens, J. F., Clark, J., Smith, S. T., Cox, J., & Kelley, S. E. (2013). Bold, smart, dangerous and evil: Perceived correlates of core psychopathic traits among jury panel members. Personality and Mental Health, 7(2), 143-153. doi:10.1002/pmh.1221
• Fetterman, A. K., & Robinson, M. D. (2013). Do you use your head or follow your heart? Self-location predicts personality, emotion, decision making, and performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(2), 316-334. doi:10.1037/a0033374
• Furnham, A., Daoud, Y., & Swami, V. (2009). “How to spot a psychopath”: Lay theories of psychopathy. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 44(6), 464-472. doi:10.1007/s00127-008-0459-1
• O’Boyle, E. H., Forsyth, D., Banks, G. C., & Story, P. A. (2013). A meta-analytic review of the Dark Triad–intelligence connection. Journal of Research in Personality, 47(6), 789-794. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2013.08.001