If you want to understand what psychopathy is, you begin with Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. The PCL-R is the “gold standard” for assessing psychopathy worldwide, used in courtrooms, prisons, parole boards, and forensic hospitals across dozens of countries. A high score on this twenty-item checklist can add years to a sentence, revoke parole, and consign…

Why one of the most stigmatized neurological conditions may also be one of the most misunderstood The word “psychopath” conjures images of serial killers and corporate predators, Hannibal Lecter behind glass or Patrick Bateman with an axe. But the neurological profile we call primary psychopathy, characterized by constitutional differences in emotional processing rather than antisocial…

Summary Critique The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), developed by Robert Hare in the 1980s, has achieved something remarkable in psychology: near-total dominance over how we conceptualize an entire condition. Originally designed to answer a narrow forensic question, which incarcerated individuals are most likely to reoffend, the PCL-R became the definitional standard for psychopathy itself. This represents…

1. Summary of Neurological Findings Research over the past two decades, particularly neuroimaging work by Kent Kiehl and others, has identified a relatively consistent pattern of structural and functional brain differences in individuals scoring high on measures of psychopathy. The most replicated finding involves reduced amygdala volume and reactivity, particularly to distress cues and fearful…