The construct of psychopathy is typically viewed as a psychopathology, and more specifically, a severe personality disorder with manifest psychobiological deficiencies. There is an alternative perspective that certain aspects of psychopathy are evolutionarily adaptive, and confer an advantage at both the individual and group level. In this article, we explore the research on psychopathy as it relates to social, sexual, and violent predation to demonstrate that psychopathy provides an adaptive psychobiological template for success. Utilizing Meloy's (1988, 2006) ten normative criteria for predatory violence, it appears psychopathy research findings over the past 30 years facilitate four domains of predatory behavior in humans: calmness, rationality, attention, and fantasy.

Our work tested associations among psychopathy, risk perception, and risk-taking in multiple contexts using the four-factor model of psychopathy and the Risk-Return Framework of Risky Choice. Study 1 examined direct associations between the four psychopathy factors (i.e., callous affect, interpersonal manipulation, erratic lifestyle, and antisocial behavior) and ethical, financial, health/safety, recreational, and social risk-taking in a sample of undergraduate students. Results showed that erratic lifestyle psychopathy traits (i.e., impulsivity, irresponsibility, and sensation seeking) were linked with risk-taking behavior in all domains. Psychopathic traits were most consistently associated with risk-taking within the ethical domain. Study 2 replicated and extended Study 1 by addressing the role of risk perception in the link between psychopathy and risk-taking. Results concerning direct associations between psychopathy and risk-taking generally mirrored those found in Study 1. Callous affect and interpersonal manipulation were indirectly associated with greater ethical risk-taking via lower risk perception. Erratic lifestyle was indirectly associated with greater health/safety and recreational risk-taking via lower risk perception. Overall, risk perception appears to be one explanatory pathway linking psychopathic traits to engagement in risk-related behavior. Results are discussed in relation to the Dual Pathway and Triarchic models of psychopathy.

The present study was a direct test of the cheater-hawk hypothesis which argues that psychopathy is related to two potentially adaptive interpersonal strategies: cheating and aggression. As expected, the measures of cheater and hawk behaviors comprised a single factor, according to a maximum-likelihood factor analysis. As hypothesized, psychopathic traits exhibited large positive correlations with measures of both cheater (entitlement, exploitiveness, and short-term mating orientation) and hawk (vengeance and aggression) behaviors. Furthermore, psychopathic traits were associated with the tendency of using individualistic and competitive tactics in an altruism game and being less likely to act in a prosocial manner. Finally, scores on the combined-cheater hawk variable were significantly correlated with psychopathic traits. As hypothesized, individuals scoring high on Factor 1 of psychopathy were more likely to utilize behaviors and strategies associated with the cheater-hawk designation, whether or not they scored high on Factor 2 of psychopathy. In general, the findings support the conceptualization that psychopathy represents a fast life-history strategy characterized by seeking personal gain over others, including exploitiveness (cheater), aggression (hawk), and risk taking. Results also indicate that cheater and hawk behaviors are part of a single strategy more often employed by those higher on psychopathic traits. Implications for treatment success are discussed.

Psychopathy is characterized by emotional and interpersonal dysfunction, an erratic lifestyle and antisocial behaviour. Research suggests that psychopaths lack fear (Fowles & Dindo, 2009; Lykken, 1995). Accordingly research demonstrates that psychopathy is associated with impaired fear acquisition/conditioning (Lopez et al., 2013), diminished fear-potentiated startle, (Patrick et al., 1993) and atypical physiological responses to fear-provoking stimuli (Benning et al., 2005). While one possible explanation is a lack of fear, another would be that psychopaths simply have a different interpretation of fear. The current study examined whether psychopathic traits are associated with positive experience and appraisal of fear-inducing situations. A sample of 114 students completed the SRP-III (Paulhus et al., 2015), described their own experience of fear (affective and physiological symptoms), and rated the extent to which they experienced positive and negative emotions in response to an excitement-inducing and a fear-inducing video stimulus. After viewing the “fear” video, people scoring higher on psychopathy gave higher ratings to positive affect items, and lower ratings to negative affect items. Further, when asked to define fear, individuals with psychopathic traits listed more positive descriptors of emotional and physiological experiences of fear. Findings provide preliminary support for the Fear Enjoyment Hypothesis.

Several models have been proposed to explain the overlap in the Dark Triad traits. Research indicates that the HEXACO model best accounted for the core of these constructs. “Sadism”, has recently been added to the Triad resulting in a Dark Tetrad. The purpose of the current study was to determine whether the HEXACO model best accounts for the core of dark-personality traits with the addition of sadism. Four-hundred-and-ninety undergraduate students completed the study online. Although all models were significant, the HEXACO accounted for significantly more variability. Loadings suggest that the core is represented by low Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness, with Honesty-Humility having the largest impact. Individual regressions highlight potential conceptual differences between the dark personalities, though all were predicted by honesty-humility and agreeableness.

Three studies examined Jones' (Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9, 445-451, 2014) suggestion that psychopathic individuals use mimicry to avoid detection. In study 1, student, community, and offender participants posed fearful facial expressions while looking at a prototypical fear face. Expressions were coded for facial movements associated with fear and were rated on genuineness by a separate sample of undergraduates. Across samples, psychopathic traits were associated with increased use of typical action units for fearful facial expressions and with genuineness ratings. In study 2, undergraduates completed the Psychopathic Personality Inventory and told a story about a time when they did something that they should have felt remorseful for but did not. Factor 1 traits were found to positively relate to genuineness scores given by a separate sample of undergraduates. Finally, in study 3, four videos of false remorse stories told by violent offenders were rated by a sample of undergraduates. The two high factor 1 videos received significantly higher genuineness ratings, supporting the relationship between factor 1 and affective mimicry. Overall, findings suggest that the psychopathic traits (specifically, factor 1) may be associated with the ability to accurately mimic emotional expression (fear and remorse) leading others to perceive emotional genuineness.