Psychology: This corona trait exposes psychopaths

Pandemic makes it visible
You can recognize psychopaths by this corona characteristic

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How can you recognize a psychopath? As a current psychology study shows, the pandemic of all things should now make a characteristic of psychopathy openly visible.

When it comes to psychopaths, most people think of villains from crime shows who sneak through dark alleys. In fact, psychopathy is a dissocial personality disorder that does not always have to turn into criminal. For example, it is said that there are a noticeably large number of psychopaths in management positions – possibly because they are masters of manipulation and dominance.

What this means, however, is that there are probably a number of psychopaths in our society who are not immediately recognized as such. Because the most important characteristic of personality is its coldness of feeling and lack of empathy – but just because you don’t feel it doesn’t mean you can’t act it out. On the contrary: Psychopaths should be able to cast a charismatic spell on people, fake feelings and bonds and thus often even appear charming. In fact, they are highly manipulative.

So if they are so good at fooling us and wrapping us around our fingers – do we have a chance at all to expose a psychopath? Yes, because now, of all things, the pandemic is supposed to do this work for us. In a study by the Universidad São Francisco, the handling of the corona measures was examined taking into account psychopathy, empathy and gender. The results have now been published in the journal “Trends in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy” released.

Psychopaths wear less masks

And tada, it can be so simple: In fact, people with psychopathic traits should rather refuse to follow the corona measures than empaths. However, there is an interesting difference here: This does not mean the rules for personal protection, i.e. those of hygiene. These were flawlessly followed by all groups – psychopaths even more strictly. However, when it comes to protecting the general public, these have been far less followed by psychopaths.

Both the willingness to wear a mask and the willingness to isolate oneself socially were noticeably lower in the group with psychopathic traits than in the empathic comparison group.

So whoever doesn’t wear a mask is a psychopath? The results of the scientists may suggest that, but we should not, as hobby psychologists, diagnose all corona deniers as such. But: there could be a few among them. Because the results make sense. Many Corona measures are not just about protecting ourselves, but against everything else. However, those who cannot empathize with others and who do not care about the fate of other people will accordingly stick less to it.

So we learn from the study what we already follow for reasons of infection: it is better to keep your distance from mask refusers.

Sources used: Trends in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychology Today, Zeit Online

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