Callous Individuals Are Less Likely To Define Themselves Through Close Relationships, Study Finds

Psychopathy is often associated with manipulation, lack of empathy, and antisocial behavior. But new research suggests that people with psychopathic traits may also differ in a more fundamental way: how they define themselves and their place in the world.

A study published in Social and Personality Psychology Compass found that specific psychopathic traits are linked to distinct patterns of self-identity. While emotionally callous individuals appear less likely to define themselves through close relationships, those with higher levels of boldness tend to see themselves as more independent and self-directed.

How Researchers Define Psychopathy

Although psychopathy is widely recognized as a personality profile characterized by low empathy, shallow emotions, and a tendency to exploit others, researchers continue to debate how its traits should be categorized.

One commonly used framework is the four-factor model, which divides psychopathy into affective, interpersonal, lifestyle, and antisocial dimensions.

Affective traits include emotional coldness, lack of guilt, and limited empathy. Interpersonal traits involve grandiosity, superficial charm, and manipulative behavior. Lifestyle traits are associated with impulsivity and irresponsibility, while antisocial traits reflect aggression, rule-breaking, and criminal behavior.

Another influential framework, known as the triarchic model, describes psychopathy through three dimensions: meanness, disinhibition, and boldness.

Meanness reflects emotional detachment and a lack of close interpersonal bonds. Disinhibition refers to impulsive behavior and poor self-control. Boldness encompasses social confidence, fearlessness, emotional resilience, and a willingness to take risks.

What Is Self-Construal?

The researchers focused on a psychological concept known as self-construal, which refers to how people define themselves in relation to others.

Independent self-construal emphasizes individuality, autonomy, and personal uniqueness. People with this orientation tend to see themselves as self-reliant and distinct from those around them.

Interdependent self-construal, by contrast, emphasizes social connections and group membership.

Psychologists further divide interdependence into two categories. Relational self-construal is rooted in close personal relationships, such as identifying strongly as a parent, friend, spouse, or partner. Collective self-construal centers on belonging to larger groups, such as communities, teams, political organizations, or nations.

Lead author David A. Lishner of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and his colleagues wanted to determine whether specific psychopathic traits are associated with particular ways of defining oneself.

Inside The Study

The researchers conducted three separate studies involving a total of 446 undergraduate students in the United States.

Participants completed questionnaires measuring psychopathic traits using both the four-factor and triarchic models. This allowed the team to separately examine traits such as emotional callousness, manipulativeness, meanness, disinhibition, and boldness.

Participants also completed assessments designed to measure independent and interdependent self-construal.

In addition to traditional questionnaires, researchers used the well-known Twenty Statements Test. Participants were asked to complete twenty responses to the prompt: “I am.”

Independent judges later categorized these responses as personal, relational, or collective descriptions. Statistical analyses controlled for sex and overlapping personality traits to isolate the unique effects of individual psychopathic characteristics.

Callousness Was Linked To Weaker Relationship-Based Identity

The most consistent finding involved emotional callousness.

Individuals scoring higher on callousness and meanness reported significantly lower levels of interdependent self-construal. In particular, they were less likely to define themselves through close personal relationships.

These participants were less likely to view family ties, friendships, and intimate relationships as central parts of their identity.

The finding aligns with longstanding theories suggesting that psychopathy is associated with shallow emotional attachments and weaker interpersonal bonds.

Researchers suggest that if close relationships play a smaller role in someone's self-concept, it may help explain lower empathy levels and a greater willingness to exploit others for personal gain.

Boldness Strengthened Independent Self-Identity

A different pattern emerged for boldness.

Participants with higher levels of boldness were significantly more likely to view themselves as independent, autonomous, and distinct from social expectations.

This finding is consistent with previous research describing bold individuals as socially dominant, self-confident, emotionally resilient, and relatively unaffected by fear or criticism.

Interestingly, not all psychopathic traits showed the same pattern.

Manipulative interpersonal traits were negatively associated with independent self-construal, suggesting that people who rely heavily on charm and deception may define themselves less through autonomy and more through situation-specific social strategies.

Disinhibition, which reflects impulsivity and poor self-control, was linked to lower levels of both independent and relational self-construal. Researchers suggest this may indicate a less stable or coherent sense of identity overall.

Why The Results Changed Depending On The Method

One surprising finding emerged when researchers analyzed the Twenty Statements Test.

Unlike the questionnaire data, the free-response exercise showed no significant relationship between psychopathic traits and self-construal.

The authors believe this may be due to the nature of the sample. Most students overwhelmingly described themselves using independent characteristics, leaving little variation for researchers to detect meaningful differences.

They also note that questionnaires and free-response tasks may measure different aspects of identity. Survey responses may capture broader, long-term self-beliefs, while spontaneous responses may reflect whatever aspects of identity are most accessible at a given moment.

What The Findings Could Mean

The study suggests that psychopathy is not a single, uniform personality profile. Different traits may influence how people see themselves and their relationships in distinct ways.

The findings also highlight how emotional callousness appears to weaken relationship-based identity, while boldness strengthens a sense of personal independence.

Understanding these differences could eventually help researchers develop more targeted interventions. For example, strengthening relational identity and social connectedness may prove useful when addressing callous traits associated with reduced empathy and social responsibility.

Important Limitations

The researchers caution that the findings should be interpreted carefully.

All participants were American university students, a group that tends to be young, highly educated, and influenced by a culture that values independence. Psychopathy scores were generally low to moderate and may not reflect patterns seen in clinical or forensic populations.

Future research will need to examine more diverse populations, including individuals with severe antisocial behavior, as well as participants from cultures that place greater emphasis on collective identity and social interdependence.

Even so, the findings provide new insight into how specific psychopathic traits shape the way people understand themselves and their relationships with others.

Prepared by Victoria Caldwell.