December 3, 2024, 1:51 pm | Read time: 7 minutes

How can you recognize a psychopath? This question has occupied many researchers. In some cases, the search for one simple sign has revealed bizarre characteristics – just think of the index finger/ring finger comparison. More serious is a recent study from Australia, for which volunteers were tested for three important psychopathic personality traits. They were then tested to see how their attention shifted when they looked at a particular picture. Psychopaths don’t seem to have a thing for details.

Even if some studies or surveys want to tell us otherwise when it comes to psychopathy, serious scientific studies refer to personality traits (and not to snack preferences or finger lengths). These include a lack of empathy – psychopaths are not touched by the suffering of others -, manipulative behavior – psychopaths deliberately take advantage of people -, impulsivity – they are constantly looking for stimuli and danger and do not take responsibility for their actions – or superficiality – psychopaths rarely maintain long-term, stable relationships. Australian researchers have now added a clue to the list of characteristics by which people with a psychopathic personality disorder can be recognized. Although it does not, of course, replace a diagnosis by an expert, it is said to be a particularly significant sign.

Australian study with 236 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 40

Stephanie Goodhew and Mark Edwards from the Australian National University in Canberra were interested in the three psychopathy traits for their work: antisociality, egocentricity, and callousness. Why these three? Psychopaths are thought to have a severe form of antisocial personality, which can manifest itself in all sorts of ways, from occasional misbehavior to repeated lawbreaking and serious crimes. The other two characteristics are similar. Psychopaths are intensely and exclusively concerned with their own interests (egocentrism) and have no emotions for others or do not show them (callousness).

The first experiment aimed to determine whether psychopathic traits are associated with a preference for a narrow or broad attention span. Attention span is a term from cognitive psychology and refers to the amount of information or stimuli that a person can consciously perceive and process simultaneously. Does someone look at the details or see the big picture first?

118 volunteers aged between 18 and 40 living in the UK were initially asked to agree (or disagree) with 26 statements on the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (E-LSRP). For example, “I was often involved in loud arguments with other people.” In simple terms, the E-LSRP, which was developed in 1995, can be used to measure psychopathy. Does a person have psychopathic traits? And if so, which ones?

This is how the researchers proceeded – and this is what they found out

The test subjects were then asked to look at a special picture over and over again. This consisted of a large letter, which in turn was made up of several smaller letters. The technical term for such images is Navon figures. Each time they looked, the people were asked to say which letter they noticed first: large or small. “Large letter” means a large focus of attention. “Small letter,” on the other hand, means that the person tends to concentrate on small details – a small focus of attention.

Result: In their paper published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, Goodhew and Edwards found no correlation between the breadth of attention and the three psychopathy traits mentioned^.1 However, they did find one correlation, namely that people with strong antisociality – a psychopathic trait – had a preference for seeing the large letter, i.e., a broad focus of attention.

In the second experiment, the researchers investigated how quickly people with different psychopathic traits were able to adjust their attention span. In other words, the ability to concentrate on fine details at one moment and to perceive a larger scene at the next. For this purpose, a further 118 test subjects were recruited, who initially underwent the E-LSRP psychopathy assessment like group 1. In the first test, they were again asked to look at a Navon picture, but it was distorted in such a way that they had to focus their attention from wide to narrow in order to recognize anything at all. In the second test, the picture was so distorted that they had to focus from narrow to wide.

Psychopaths do not focus their attention on details

The results now showed that only people with strongly pronounced antisocial personality traits switched from a narrow to a broad focus of attention more quickly than everyone else. In other words, people who repeatedly disregard social norms, have a low frustration tolerance, and are very bad at building relationships and bonds with other people tend to quickly shift their attention away from the details in favor of seeing the big picture. They are not so good at telling their brain: look closely. To put it more simply, you could say that unscrupulous people are not interested in details. They prefer to overlook them.

Result matches the goal-oriented behavior of psychopaths

The other two psychopathic characteristics examined (egocentricity and callousness), on the other hand, did not influence whether the person saw the large letter or the details that formed it. The researchers conclude that high antisociality (which is a psychopathic trait) could be associated with limited attentional focus. This, in turn, would fit with the fact that such people often behave in an intensely goal-oriented manner.

Now you may be asking yourself: whether you see the small or capital letter – so what? You have to take a broader view of perception in this context. As we know, perception can also refer to people or a thought. Do I see the pimple on a person’s chin or their appearance as a whole? Do I remember the details of a plan – or just that it worked or not? How narrowly or broadly does a person focus their attention at a given moment? Well, now you know: if you are very antisocial and don’t remember details, you are probably more of a psychopath. Those who indulge in detailed memories are probably not.

Why the study cannot be generalized

As mentioned above, we are only talking about the possibility here. The findings obtained by Goodhew and Edwards are not a blueprint for the diagnosis of “psychopathic personality disorder.” Their research merely shows – as Goodhew and Edwards are quoted by PsyPost – that a higher level of egocentricity and callousness is associated with a reduced processing bandwidth. This result is also exciting because previous studies have tended to conclude that emotionless egocentrics filter out distracting information (details) because it is strategically useful to them. The current study, on the other hand, provides evidence that they do this because their brain does not have the capacity to do so. But before you ask suspicious people to look at detailed pictures and describe them, please leave the diagnosis to the professionals.

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Signs of psychopathy

The most widely used measure of psychopathy is the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, which assesses factors such as interpersonal relationships, affective reactivity, and impulsive and antisocial behavior^.2

Signs of psychopathy^psychopath3

Pathological lying
Lack of empathy
Superficial charm
Impulsiveness and risk-taking
Manipulative behavior
Exaggerated sense of own importance
Lack of long-term goals