Successful psychopathy: A scientific status report
Scott Lilienfeld, Ashley Watts and Sarah Smith review research on successful psychopathy, meaning people with psychopathic traits who have professional success, a group most psychopathy research has not studied because it drew its samples from institutional settings. Compared with unsuccessful people high in the same traits, the successful ones tended to score higher on assertiveness, excitement-seeking and conscientiousness. This page cites the review for that comparison.
Scott Lilienfeld, Ashley Watts and Sarah Smith review research on successful psychopathy, meaning people with psychopathic traits who have professional success, a group most psychopathy research has not studied because it drew its samples from institutional settings. Compared with unsuccessful people high in the same traits, the successful ones tended to score higher on assertiveness, excitement-seeking and conscientiousness. This page cites the review for that comparison.
Written from the summary on the Association for Psychological Science site, read 2026-10-24.
What our sources record
Recorded when this source was checked, figures included, with page references and quotation marks removed.
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