Today, media depicting what they consider to be a “psychopath” bombards society. Characters like Dexter, Patrick Bateman, or Hannibal just to name a few. But could you spot a psychopath from a story? Past research has shown that the general public’s understanding and beliefs of mental illness are lacking when asked to identify and describe major mental illnesses. A study looked at just this phenomenon in relation to the public’s perception of psychopathy. The study used a community sample of 232 participants who completed a questionnaire consisting of a vignette-identification task, a ratings task of 45 attitudinal items about psychopathy, and demographics. The results showed that generally the participants believed psychopaths to have high intelligence, social skills, and exhibit criminal tendencies, and that psychopathy was likely caused by early trauma and stress over biological causes. Only 39.1% of participants were able to correctly identify true psychopathy from the vignette. Additionally, in terms of treatment, the participants did not differentiate between types of treatments for psychopathy, but did believe the disorder was treatable. Finally, the results showed that individuals with a formal mental health background were better able to correctly identify psychopathy. The study shows that additional educational programs are needed in order to improve mental health literacy amongst the general public.
Furnham, A., Daoud, Y. & Swami, V. (2009). “How to spot a psychopath”: Lay theories of psychopathy. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. 44 (6), 464 – 472
Can