An online quiz that questions how you approach life goals and interactions with others can reveal if you have psychopathic tendencies.
Professor Michael Levenson, an expert in psychology at Oregon State University, curated the “Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale” in 1995 to analyze how many people secretly identify as psychopaths. The term is used to describe someone as callous, unemotional, and morally depraved,” clarifies VeryWellMind.
Levenson explained that users who complete the 26-question “Psychopathy Spectrum Test” will receive a percentage score that ranks their psychopathy scale. The results are categorized into two scales: primary psychopathy (psychopathic emotional affect) and secondary psychopathy (psychopathic lifestyle).
“You must rate each on how much you agree with it on a scale of (1) strongly disagree, (2) disagree, (3) neither agree nor disagree, (4) agree, (5) strongly agree. Most people will complete the test in five minutes or so.
The list of questions asked varies from: “Success is based on survival of the fittest; I am not concerned about the losers,” “Looking out for myself is my top priority,” and “I tell other people what they want to hear so that they will do what I want them to do.”
Once completing the 5-minute test, participants can learn whether they have more psychopathic or sociopathic tendencies.
Sociopathic personalities are characterized by asocial or antisocial behavior or exhibiting antisocial personality disorder, as described by Merriam-Webster.
The test can also determine how impulsive you are compared to other respondents.
According to studies, participants with high percentage scores are six times more likely to commit violent crimes.
However, Levenson gives a disclaimer on the site that his test of sociopathy “is not a diagnostic tool or psychological advice of any kind.”
Many people who exhibit psychopathic behavior possess callousness, detachment and a lack of empathy, which enables psychopaths to be highly manipulative, explained Psychology Today. The disorder can be diagnosed by using the 20-item Hare Psychopathy Checklist.
Although the checklist can be used on men and women, the two have different indicators. Women tend to demonstrate sexual seduction and manipulative behavior, adds the National Library of Medicine,” unlike men.
Dr. Clive Boddy, a British researcher at Anglia Ruskin University, agrees that female psychopaths tend to use seduction to get what they want, but she also mentioned to the Daily Mail that the ratio of male to female psychopathy is about 1.2 to one.
Psychopaths can be treated for their chronic mental disorder through family-focused therapies, residential or individual treatment or medication.
