The North American Research Committee (NARC) and European Research Committee (ERC) consist of volunteers who have various backgrounds but all with an interest in psychopathy and supporting those impacted by psychopathy by promoting an improved understanding of psychopathy, including reducing its negative impact on others. In 2021 the NARC focused on interviewing experts in the field of psychopathy. Our goal was to ask a range of experts about their research and to find out how they got involved in psychopathy research. These interviews are located on the “Ask the Expert” area of the website. We interviewed the following experts in 2021.

• Dr. Paul Frick (Professor, Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University-Baton Rouge) is an expert on the causes, assessment, and treatment of disruptive disorders in youth with a focus on callous-unemotional traits. Read what Dr. Frick said about the importance and impact of measuring callous-unemotional traits in children and youth.
• Dr. Joseph Newman (Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin- Madison) is an expert on the role of attention in explaining psychopathic behaviour. Read what Dr. Newman said about the cognitive impairments in psychopathy.
• Dr. Paul Babiak (Industrial and Organizational Psychologist) is an expert on the manifestation and impact of psychopathic traits in the workplace. Read what Dr. Babiak said about the misconceptions about corporate psychopathy.
• Dr. Martin Sellbom (Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Otago in New Zealand) is an expert on the diagnosis and assessment of personality disorders including psychopathy. Read what Dr. Sellbom said about the strengths and limitations of using self-report questionnaires to assess psychopathic traits and about gender differences in the expression of psychopathy.
• Dr. Carlo Garofalo (Assistant Professor, Department of Developmental Psychology, Tilburg University, The Netherlands) is an expert on the association between emotion, aggression and psychopathic traits. Read what Dr. Garofalo said about psychopathy and emotional functioning and emotion regulation.
• Dr. Donald Lynam (Professor, Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University) is an expert in the assessment of psychopathic traits in youth and adults. Read what Dr. Lynam said about the value of general models of personality in understanding psychopathy.

 

In 2021, the North American and European RCs continued to summarize published research in the field of psychopathy. Our goal was to provide a brief overview of the diverse research being conducted across the world. We summarized the following studies in 2021.

• What is the relationship between psychopathic traits and types of abuse experienced in romantic relationships? See Experiences of Survivors of Psychopathic Abusers, a summary of the study by Humeny et al. (2021).
• How do psychopathic traits impact the way people behave online? See Constructing the Cyber-troll: and empathy, a summary of the study by Sest and March (2017).
• How do individuals with psychopathic traits interact with others in a video game? See Using the Sims Video Game to Investigate Psychopathic Social Interactions, a summary of the study by Visser et al. (2020)
  

In 2022 we will continue to summarize published research and speak with experts. We are hoping to add videos of some experts answering the questions we pose. We have also started to ask experts the following: What would you want victims/survivors to know about your research?