Research Committee Report for 2024 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 2024, 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 2024.

• The association between gaslighting and psychopathic traits in romantic relationships. Click here to see the summary of the March et al. (2023) study.
• The relationship between psychopathy and intimate partner recidivism in male offenders in Portugal.  Click here to see the summary of the Cunha et al. (2022) study.

 

In 2024 the NARC also interviewed three experts in the field of psychopathy. We asked these experts about their research including how they got involved in psychopathy research and what survivors or victims would want to know about their research. These interviews are located under Ask the Expert under the “Resources” tab on the homepage of the website.

• Dr. Nathalie Fontaine (Professor in the School of Criminology at the Université de Montréal (Quebec, Canada) discussed her research addressing how positive relationships with parents can help reduce the negative effects of callous-unemotional traits in their children and whether youth with psychopathic traits are more or less likely to be victimized by their peers.
• Dr. Kasia Uzieblo (Associate Professor of Criminological and Forensic Psychology in the Department of Criminology at Vrije Universteit Brussel (Brussels, Belgium) described different measures of psychopathic traits and what types of harms are perpetrated by individuals with psychopathic traits in romantic relationships.
• Dr. Edelyn Verona (Professor and co-Director of the Center for Justice Research and Policy at the University of South Florida) addressed whether there are any differences in how women and men display psychopathic traits and how justice-involved women with more or fewer psychopathic traits differ.
  
  

In 2024, the NARC developed a new frequently asked question (FAQ). Theresia developed the following FAQ: “Are there really differences between psychopathic women and psychopathic men?”

Finally, in 2024 the NARC summarized two posters presented at the 2024 Society for Scientific Study of Psychopathy conference in held in Cyprus. These summaries can be found on the Members page.

• Wolf in sheep’s clothing: Psychopathic traits and social mimicry in a dating context by Book and colleagues.
• Psychopathy and the judgement of vulnerability: The role of trustingness by Visser and colleagues.