Inside the Mind of a Predator

From the reading: Inside the Mind of a Predator

In 1980, Professor Robert Hare published a checklist of 20 traits that defined psychopathy — ranging from pathological lying to a complete absence of empathy. His research, which became the global standard in forensic psychology, was built almost entirely on prison populations. This gave him large samples and clear data, but it also created a significant blind spot. Hare himself admitted, as early as 1976, that he had no idea how far his findings applied to psychopaths who never went to prison. Even in the early 2000s, when he wanted to study psychopaths in political life, he was still travelling to Chilean jails to find them. The high-functioning psychopath — the one who thrives in a boardroom rather than a prison cell — remained largely unstudied.