Study discovers the ordinary psycho

New Zealand Herald:

There’s more to psychopaths than being murderous. They aren’t all as smart as Hannibal Lecter, or evil, and they can change, say researchers.

Victoria University Associate Professor Devon Polaschek, one of four authors of research about to be published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, says psychopaths of the popular imagination give the personality disorder a bad name.

Patrick Bateman in the film American Psycho inserts a chainsaw into a prostitute. Alex in A Clockwork Orange fantasises about torture and slaughter while listening to music.

But psychopaths can wreak havoc in workplaces without stabbing, or eating, their colleagues.

“It’s a much more ordinary condition than those movies portray. They aren’t more intelligent than the rest of us,” Dr Polaschek said.

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