Scott Lilienfeld
Scott Lilienfeld was an American clinical psychologist at Emory University who died in 2020 and who is best known on this site as an insider critic of weak constructs. For the dark triad article he is the first author of a 2015 review in Current Directions in Psychological Science on successful psychopathy, which found that people high in psychopathic traits who had professional success tended to score higher on assertiveness, excitement-seeking and conscientiousness than unsuccessful ones.
Who they are
The vault's note describes Lilienfeld as a Professor of Psychology at Emory University until his death in 2020 and as one of the discipline's most persistent internal critics of weak constructs and pseudoscientific practice. His work covered psychopathy, the evidence base for clinical assessment and treatment, and what he called the field's tolerance for ideas that sound established and are not.
That description comes from the vault note and was not re-checked against a university page for this site. The facts on which this page leans are the two papers named below.
Key papers
Successful psychopathy: A scientific status report (Lilienfeld, Watts and Smith, 2015), Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(4), 298-303. doi:10.1177/0963721415580297.
The review concerns people with psychopathic traits who have professional success, a group most psychopathy research has not studied because it has concentrated on prison populations. The account here comes from a summary on the Association for Psychological Science site and the Crossref record, not the full text.
A 2017 paper on microaggression research (Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(1), 138-169), in which he set out five assumptions the programme makes, is the paper through which Adrian Furnham reproduces his argument in The New Psychology.
Key ideas
Success and the dark triad are not the same question. The 2015 review compares successful with unsuccessful people high in the same traits, so it speaks to which traits travel with success, not to whether the dark triad pays. The dark triad article on this site uses it that way and no further.
Name the construct, say how it is measured, say what counts against it. That demand runs through his work as the vault records it, and it is the standard this publication applies to the dark triad's expansion into a Tetrad and Pentad. It is a usable house standard and not only a critique.
Keep both sides. His objection in the microaggression paper was about measurement, not about whether the experiences people report are real, and the vault notes that he said so explicitly.
Sources
- Lilienfeld, S. O., Watts, A. L., & Smith, S. F. (2015). Successful psychopathy: A scientific status report. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(4), 298-303. doi:10.1177/0963721415580297. Citation confirmed on Crossref; findings read from the Association for Psychological Science summary.
- Lilienfeld, S. O. (2017). Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(1), 138-169, as reproduced in Furnham, A., The New Psychology.