Psychopathic personality traits and life-success

Psychopathy is an important personality construct, particularly within forensic settings. However, the first comprehensive description of psychopathic personalities was based on non-criminal, civil psychiatric patient samples. Case reports included highly maladaptive individuals but also suggested that milder traits can be found in persons with considerable success in life. More recent studies suggested that the interpersonal traits of psychopathy might be of advantage to achieve professional success but less successful in other important domains of life. This study aimed to investigate the hypothesis that some features of psychopathy are related to life-success in a community sample of 304 men at age 48. This hypothesis was not confirmed. Despite strong similarities with narcissistic personality disorder traits which have been demonstrated to have beneficial effects on life-success, the interpersonal domain was not related to “status and wealth” or “successful intimate relationships”. Impulsiveness and antisocial behavior negatively predicted “status and wealth”, and affective deficiency was negatively associated with both aspects of a successful life. It is concluded that psychopathic traits do not contribute to a successful life and that the findings cast doubt on the existence of the successful psychopath.