Abigail Marsh, a professor of psychology at Georgetown University, discusses psychopathy in an interview with Yascha Mounk. The interview explores what to do if someone you know might be psychopathic, whether psychopathy is linked to charisma and success, and how to protect yourself. According to Marsh, the term "psychopathy" is preferred by clinicians and researchers over "sociopath", which is more commonly used in media and literature. Psychopathy is characterized by three main traits: a bold and dominant personality, meanness or callousness, and disinhibition.
Written by the local model on 2026-08-31,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
We’re on vacation this week, so are rerunning a fun “beach read” episode exploring if your nearest and dearest could be psychopaths.
Miss us already?
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nearest → ’re → us
In an event exclusively for readers of American Purpose and Persuasion, Yascha Mounk will be interviewing Francis Fukuyama about his life and thought at 5pm on Sunday, September 6 at The Abbey Centre, London.
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Mounk → interview → Centre
Paying subscribers of Persuasion and American Purpose can access a code for a free ticket here.
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subscribers → pay → ticket
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Abigail Marsh explore what to do if a child you know might be psychopathic, whether psychopathy is linked to charisma and success, and how to protect yourself.
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psychopathy → explore → yourself
Wondering if you or a loved one might be a psychopath? Take the quiz!
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you → wonder → quiz
This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Yascha Mounk:
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How should we think about what a psychopath—or do you prefer sociopath—actually is?
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you → think → sociopath
There is this weird dichotomy in how people talk about the disorder.
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people → be → disorder
The term sociopath is vastly preferred in the media and literature.
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sociopath → prefer → media
There are a couple of very famous memoirs that came out about people who were self-described sociopaths.
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who → be → people
It is not a term that is used anymore by clinicians or researchers.
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that → use → clinicians
We primarily use the term psychopathy.
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We → use → term
I do not even use the term psychopath anymore, mainly because it occurred to me that we do not refer to any other people by their disorder anymore.
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we → use → disorder
We do not refer to somebody as “a schizophrenic” or “an anorexic” anymore.
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We → refer → schizophrenic
We have switched to a kind of person-first language, and I have thought that people with psychopathy probably deserve the same.
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people → switch → same
All that said, psychopathy is a personality disorder.
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psychopathy → say → ?
It is not in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the DSM, that is used to define and diagnose other personality disorders, for complicated reasons.
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that → use → reasons
It is a clinical disorder, and it is characterized by three main types of traits.
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it → characterize → traits
Meanness or callousness is probably the trait people most closely associate with it: lack of remorse, lack of guilt, lack of compassion, etc.
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people → associate → compassion
Finally, disinhibition, difficulty sticking to a plan, difficulty keeping promises, irresponsible behavior, sometimes very spontaneous, clearly poorly planned antisocial behavior that lands people in trouble.
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that → stick → trouble
I once had somebody explain to me the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath as being that a psychopath is somebody who has, I guess in your language, all three of those sets of traits, who is disinhibited, who wants to dominate the world, and who ends up doing really bad acts.
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who → have → acts
A sociopath may be somebody who does not have fellow feeling, who does not feel remorse if they have hurt somebody, who does not feel bad about things they have done in the world, but who may be relatively well adjusted, who may think that it is in their interest not to hurt others because they might go to jail or other bad things might happen, but is still lacking that dimension of fellow feeling.
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things → have → feeling
You are saying that there is not this principled distinction between the term sociopath and the term psychopath.
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Would you say that there are some people who have this one set of traits quite strongly but not the other sets of traits, or are they really correlated with each other?
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they → say → other
That is a really interesting description that you were given about the difference between the two.
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you → give → two
I have heard probably 20 different descriptions, including clinicians and researchers describing the two terms and what distinguishes them.
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what → hear → them
You will get many different explanations.
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First, it is totally possible for people to be persistently antisocial but not because they lack the capacity for empathy or remorse.
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they → lack → empathy
I would say that for most people with psychopathy, it is not that they totally lack the capacity for empathy or remorse, but it is very suppressed.
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it → say → empathy
They feel these emotions very mildly or very rarely, maybe only with reference to one or two people.
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That is interesting because I think we do also tend to think about it like it is a switch.
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it → think → it
Most people have it, and then some people do not have it at all, whereas you are talking about it nearly as a normal distribution.
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you → have → distribution
Most people have it to a relatively typical degree, and then a bunch of people have it less than others, but they might still feel it for their mom or for their best friend or for the person they love, but not for anybody else.
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they → have → anybody
They might feel it more dimly than others.
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They → feel → others
What do you think is the distribution?
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you → think → What
Is it something like a normal distribution, or how should we think about this?
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I think it is certainly a distribution.
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it → think → ?
It has that classic bell-curve shape.
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It → have → shape
It is probably shifted so that most people are on the plenty-of-empathy side of the distribution.
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people → shift → distribution
The tail of people who experience very little empathy and compassion is a long tail, but a very small number of people are down there.
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number → experience → people
…and 492 more, not listed.
