Woman looking out window

(Photo by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash)

CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom — While the word psychopath usually conjures up images of knife-wielding attackers and masked assailants for most people, not all psychopaths are serial killers. The vast majority simply blend in with the rest of society, all the while masking their cold and calculating true nature. Now, new research set for presentation at Cambridge may just disprove yet another psychopath falsity. Most depictions and popular examples of psychopaths in the media are male, but the study argues female psychopaths are up to five times more common than currently believed.

Dr. Clive Boddy, an expert in corporate psychopathy from Anglia Ruskin University, is set to present his findings at the Cambridge Festival. While current estimates tell us male psychopaths outnumber females by roughly six to one, Dr. Boddy believes prior studies have failed to properly identify female psychopaths. This is in large part due to solely basing profiles around criminal and male psychopaths.

Dr. Boddy posits the characteristics of female psychopaths are quite different from males. He also notes gender bias likely plays a role in the under-reporting, as society tends to ignore perceived male traits when they're displayed by women.

According to his latest research, the real ratio of male-female psychopathy may be roughly 1.2:1, or up to five times higher than previously estimated. He reached this conclusion by using measures of primary psychopathy, or excluding psychopathy’s antisocial behavioral characteristics and instead concentrating on its core elements.

Paranoid wpman with psychosis
Women who are psychopaths are less likely to be labeled as such even if they display key characteristics. (© New Africa - stock.adobe.com)

Referencing research pertaining to corporate psychopaths and how they operate in high-achieving roles in workplaces, Dr. Boddy explains female psychopaths tend to be more manipulative than males, use different techniques to create good impressions, and use deceit and sexually seductive behavior to gain social and financial advantages more often than male psychopaths.

“People generally attribute psychopathic characteristics to males rather than to females. So even when females display some of the key traits associated with psychopathy – such as being insincere, deceitful, antagonistic, unempathetic and lacking in emotional depth – because these are seen as male characteristics they may not be labeled as such, even when they should be,” Boddy says in a media release.

“Also, female psychopaths tend to use words, rather than violence, to achieve their aims, differing from how male psychopaths tend to operate. If female psychopathy expresses differently, then measures designed to capture and identify male, criminal, psychopaths may be inadequate at identifying female non-criminal, psychopaths,” he continues. “Female psychopaths, while not as severely psychopathic or as psychopathic as often as males are, have nevertheless been underestimated in their incidence levels and are therefore more of a potential threat to business and society than anyone previously suspected.”

“This has implications for the criminal justice system because current risk management decisions involving partners and children may be faulty. It also has implications for organizational leadership selection decisions because female leaders cannot automatically be assumed to be more honest, caring and concerned with issues such as corporate social responsibility.”

Dr. Boddy’s talk is scheduled for Saturday, March 16th at ARU’s campus in East Road, Cambridge, and will also be available to attend virtually.

About John Anderer

Born blue in the face, John has been writing professionally for over a decade and covering the latest scientific research for EdNews since 2019. His work has been featured by Business Insider, Eat This Not That!, MSN, Ladders, and Yahoo!

Studies and abstracts can be confusing and awkwardly worded. He prides himself on making such content easy to read, understand, and apply to one’s everyday life.

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43 Comments

  1. FE says:

    Really, need a whole study for this one...

  2. sstressed says:

    surprised? adults were surprised? too funny!

  3. Really Now says:

    In other news, water is wet.

  4. Robert says:

    Haven't the researchers ever been married?

  5. jack says:

    The good news is, they're all in Florida.

    1. Truth says:

      Did your psycho-feminist balls-removing wife order you to write that sissy boy comment?

    2. Joe Durzano says:

      For you the good news is they are all in Florida. The bad news is I live in Florida! The article his the mail on the head. They may not be axe murderers, but their damage is just as bad. They actually harm far more people!

  6. Barak Theobozo says:

    No surprise here.

  7. Skeptic says:

    It’s called ‘women are wonderful’

    There’s a reason women were never allowed to vote, own property or leadership until a century ago anywhere in the world.

    1. Bozo Sr. says:

      Yes sir. Giving women the vote was the second fatal mistake which will doom the entire West

  8. Dan Roberts says:

    You're just now discovering this? Men have know this for centuries! Huge implications for the Sexual Harassment “game” women play.

    1. Chris says:

      Yeah, this is a long overdue paradigm shift.

  9. Jeremy says:

    “According to his latest research, the real ratio of male-female psychopathy may be roughly 1.2:1”

    Say what?

    Anyway, this is no surprise to most men.

  10. Patricia says:

    Yes, I have a sister that very much fits this description. I figured this out years ago when I started to evaluate her behavior more acutely. She is the youngest of six and no other sibling has shown signs. My curiosity has always been how she became this way. Was it a genetic makeup, mental trauma or possibly a physical injury to her brain.

  11. John Galt says:

    Men’s anti-social behavior centers around violence (hence, jail population is mostly male). Women’s anti-social behavior centers around reputation destruction. Both are very (arguably equally) harmful to society and society hasn’t yet figured out how to deal with the female anti-social issue.

  12. REDACTED says:

    Really? They needed to assemble a team of top tier scientists to make this discovery?

  13. rebecca says:

    This makes sense, just as women are dismissed in illnesses like long Covid. I recently read best minds, about how society treats schizophrenia, and it's very similar to how it treated Long Covid. https://bit.ly/49QzFM7

  14. Justa Guynamedjoe says:

    Haven’t married Men been trying to make this point since…forever?

  15. Jordan Peterson says:

    This isn't a new finding. The disconnect is only with the general public's knowledge of this.

  16. edearl says:

    Women and men use their given strenghts in conflict situation. so men go violent, but women go psycological, with words and game playing that drives men into physical responses.Women can be very instagative of violence in men, then pleade for mercy.

  17. Grokit says:

    Female equality in the workplace means, among other things, that these antisocial (not prosocial) people now also get to make use of THEIR mental disease just as men do … roughly doubling the total number of those bringing harm to society.

    For example, in Europe, much of the increase in social ills can be attributed to this doubling phenomenon because these female psychopaths are running around rampant in various important political institutions.

    Then there is also the WEF and its graduates, which includes an impressive list of women psychopaths who where gleeful henchmen responsible for various covid excesses and (now progressively recognised by courts as) illegalities that governments engaged in.

    The next study that needs to be done regards the percentage of psychopaths found among certain minority groups. With their increased presence in positions of importance, it is not just a doubling of psychopaths we must contend with due to so many women in the workforce.

    The fact is that minorities having been historically discriminated against and oppressed has led to certain unseemly psychological compensations and adaptations. From what I can see, a noticeable number of these psychopathic minority representatives have been hired by unscrupulous people in order to mete out harm (serve certain unconscionable, despicable agendas), while conveniently being unassailable due to their skin color.

    We might call this toxic brownness, and the strategic use by some of this phenomena. It is found among (Harvard) administrators, CEOs, prosecutors, policemen, politicians, and the like … all the professions where the other psychopaths have also traditionally found a place to do their thing. As mentioned, the difference is that many of these minorities are being instrumentalised by others because they are viewed as hard to dislodge given that they are relatively unassailable due to their skin color

    Psychopathic toxicity of this kind is not limited to whites, nor to men, nor to white men. News alert: It is unacceptably high among ALL peoples, ALL genders and ALL colors, but who has the intelligence, objectivity and intellectual integrity to recognize and admit this? Less and less people these days, which only adds to the worsening of psychopathic damage done to society because it largely flies under the radar, instead of being recognized and dealt with as it should be.

  18. Rick says:

    Women crazy as loons-all men everywhere are shocked, shocked I say!

  19. Masahiro Sakamoto says:

    That explains my HR Manager's behavior!

  20. Mel says:

    I think the majority of men and women already knew the numbers were too low. Women pyso's exist in large numbers.