Research Committee Report for 2023 Annual Report

The North American Research Committee (NARC) and the European Research Committee (ERC) consist of volunteers with diverse backgrounds but a common interest in understanding psychopathy and supporting those impacted by psychopathy. In 2023, 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 2023.

  • What are the experiences and impact of psychopathy for intimate partners? See summary of this study by Forth et al. (2022)
  • What are the experiences and impact of psychopathy in the workplace? See summary of this study by Stewart et al. (2022)
  • What is the mimicry-deception theory and how does it help to explain the behaviour of individuals with psychopathy? See summary of this study by Jones (2014).
  • Do individuals with psychopathic traits continue to engage in antisocial acts after the age of 50? See summary of this study by Anderson et al. (2022)
  • Predicting Dangerous Dating: Personality Traits that Predict Cyber Dating. See summary of this study by Branson & March (2021)

 

In 2023 the NARC interviewed an expert in the field of psychopathy. We asked this expert about her research including how they got involved in psychopathy research. This interview is located on our “Ask the Expert” page under the “Resources” tab on the homepage of the website and can also be accessed here. Dr. Cynthia Mathieu video-taped her responses to our questions. Our plan for 2024 is to expand the number of experts we interview.

  • Dr. Cynthia Mathieu (Professor of Organizational Behavior at University of Québec in Trois-Rivières) discussed her research on the effects of psychopathy in the workplace.

In 2023, the NARC also began to update the FAQs on the website. One of our volunteers updated the following FAQ: “Psychopathy versus Sociopathy versus Narcissism: What’s the difference?”

Finally, in 2023 the NARC Summarized symposium talks and posters presented at the conferences held by the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy (SSSP) in 2022 and 2023. These summaries can be found in Aftermath’s Mar-Apr and May-Jun 2023 newsletters.

  • Symposium on “The impact of psychopathic traits on others: At work and beyond”, at the SSSP conference held May 2022
    • Talk 1: Psychopathic traits, release decisions, and recidivism: A cautionary tale by Kristic and colleagues
    • Talk 2: The impact of psychopathy on relationship satisfaction and professional success in couples by Hissey and colleagues
    • Talk 3: Working with a psychopath: Impact and posttraumatic growth by Stewart and colleagues
    • Talk 4: Trait activation of the Triarchic Model of Psychopathy in Leadership roles: The relevance of enterprising contexts by Kranefeld and Blickle

  • Posters presented at SSSP conference held May 2023
    • Characteristics of adult romantic relationships associated with adolescent callous-unemotional traits poster by Vaughan and colleagues.
    • The role of psychopathic traits and empathy types in victim vulnerability identification by Chestolowski and colleagues.

 

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