Psychopathy Versus Antisocial Personality Disorder

Psychopathy is often considered a severe personality disorder, and perhaps more accurately, a constellation of several maladaptive personality traits. More specifically, those who traditionally are viewed as psychopaths tend to be regarded as superficially charming, manipulative, pathological liars, egocentric, overly self-assured, callous, exploitative, insensitive, having shallow or no emotions, lacking in guilt and remorse for their actions, as well as being impulsive, irresponsible, and aggressive. Psychopathy expert Robert Hare has referred to them as intraspecies predators who, via the use of charm, manipulation, and intimidation, callously take what they want, and abuse or exploit whoever stands in their way to achieve their goals, without the slightest sense of regret or remorse.

While such psychopathic individuals are relatively rare, when one does encounter such a person, the ...