Study Identifies Psychopathic Traits That May Be Reflected in a Person’s Writing
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Psychopathy is often associated with a cold, unfeeling person who struggles to show emotion. However, recent research suggests that psychopathic personality traits may be reflected in the language people use in their writing, although not always in line with familiar stereotypes.
According to Science Alert, psychopathy is not listed as an official diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the guide used to classify mental disorders. The term is nevertheless widely used, particularly in criminology, to describe a set of specific personality traits.
Under the triarchic model, psychopathy comprises three main dimensions: boldness, disinhibition and meanness.
Research by Ky Bray and Laura Drislane, clinical psychology researchers at the University of Mississippi in the United States, found that these dimensions may be associated with language patterns in a person’s writing. The findings were published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.
“People tend to think of psychopathy as one single thing, when in fact it is multidimensional,” Bray said.
The researchers said everyone may have some degree of all three traits. However, when several traits occur together at high levels, the effects can be more serious.
Drislane explained that researchers increasingly prefer to understand psychopathy through personality dimensions rather than simply labelling people. These characteristics may be associated with a range of consequences, including criminal offending, reoffending and intimate partner violence.
Study involved students and former prisoners
Bray and Drislane recruited 307 university students and 144 former prisoners from the general community. Participants completed the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (TriPM), a questionnaire designed to assess levels of boldness, disinhibition and meanness.
They were also asked to write about three life experiences: their happiest or most memorable moment, the lowest point in their life, and a turning point that brought about significant change.
Bray emphasised that the study was not intended to use writing as a way to diagnose psychopathy. Rather, it sought to understand how certain personality traits may be reflected in everyday behaviour, including word choice.
Three psychopathic traits and their links to language
The study found associations between the dimensions of psychopathic personality and the use of certain words in writing.
- Boldness
People with higher boldness scores tended to use words associated with anxiety less often, such as “worried”, “afraid”, “anxious” and “nervous”.
- Meanness
Those with higher meanness scores tended to use words associated with negative emotions less often, such as “bad”, “hate”, “painful” and “tired”, when writing about an important turning point in their lives.
- Disinhibition
Of the three dimensions, disinhibition showed the strongest association with language use. People with higher scores on this dimension tended to mention positive outcomes less often in all three types of writing requested by the researchers.
They also used more negatively toned language when writing about their best moments and turning points. This pattern was not found in accounts of their lowest points.
This group also tended to use more words associated with substance consumption, such as “beer”, “wine”, “drunk” and “cigar”, when writing about their lowest points and life turning points. The same tendency was not seen in accounts of their best moments.
Writing cannot be used to diagnose psychopathy
The findings indicate that the language used by people with psychopathic traits is not necessarily devoid of emotion or personal meaning. They also challenge the assumption that people with these traits are invariably cold and unfeeling.
Even so, the way someone describes their life experiences may not always conform to social expectations or norms in a given situation.
Bray added that a multidimensional approach allows researchers to study psychopathic traits in non-forensic populations, including people who have never committed a crime.
The research may therefore help explain how these characteristics relate to the lives of students and professionals, as well as to relationships between people. Drislane stressed that understanding the mechanisms underlying each dimension of psychopathy is an important step towards addressing—and even preventing—the development of traits that could have negative consequences.
However, language patterns in writing cannot be taken as evidence that someone has psychopathy. The study identifies associations between personality traits and word use; it does not offer a diagnostic method that can be applied directly to an individual.
For that reason, psychopathy should be understood by considering a person’s range of personality characteristics, rather than relying solely on their word choices or the way they write about their life experiences.