The North American Research Committee (NARC) and the European Research Committee (ERC) consist of volunteers who have various backgrounds but all with an interest in psychopathy and supporting those impacted by psychopathy. In 2022, a focus of both committees was 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 2022.

• How are the Dark Personalities (Psychopathy, Narcissism, and Machiavellianism) related to both creative activities and achievements? See this summary of a study by Lebuda et al. (2021).
•  Are individuals with psychopathic traits able to use personality traits to identify those more vulnerable to victimization? See this summary of a study by Book et al. (2021).
• Find out what factors predict cyber dating abuse? See this summary of a study by Branson and March (2021)

 

In 2022 the NARC also focused on interviewing experts in the field of psychopathy. We asked a range of experts about their research including how they got involved in psychopathy research. These interviews are located on the “Ask the Expert” area of the website. This year we offered the experts the option of video-taping their responses, and Dr. Woodworth was our first expert to do this. Hopefully more experts will choose this format in the future.

• Dr. Donald Lynam (Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University) summarized his research on models of personality disorders and on the assessment of psychopathic traits.
• Dr. Angela Book (Professor of Psychology at Brock University in St. Catherine’s, Ontario) discussed her research on psychopathy and judgements of vulnerability.
• Dr. Michael Woodworth (Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia – Okanagan, Kelowna, British Columbia) describes what impact interacting online might have on deception.
• Dr. Arielle Baskin-Sommers (Associate Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Yale University) summarized her research on cognitive and emotional mechanisms that contribute to psychopathy.

 

In 2022, the ERC also reviewed the Netflix’s documentary, The Tinder Swindler. Click here for a discussion of the show.