Anyone in the US who’d rather not bump into a psychopath should steer clear of Washington DC. This isn’t a comment on the state of US politics but a warning based on a study that provides a map of America’s psychopathy hot spots.
The results consistently showed that people in urban areas were more psychopathic, and those in rural areas less so. Regionally, psychopathy was clustered in the highly urbanised Northeast, with Maine as the most psychopathic state.
And the US capital? That appears to be more psychopathic than any individual state in the country. According to Ryan Murphy from the Southern Methodist University in Dallas – who led the team conducting the research – it “can be explained either by its very high population density or by the type of person who may be drawn to a key seat of power.”
But if you are hoping to seek safety in isolated settings, low population density is not always a guarantee of a mentally well population. The researchers note that Wyoming “ranks high in psychopathy given its place in the country and its lack of population”.
So, should you be worried about just how psychopathic your state is?
The researchers used the Big Five model of personality, which includes the traits conscientiousness, openness, neuroticism, extraversion and agreeableness, taking data from all 48 contiguous US states, plus DC.
While formal clinical assessments are needed to formally measure psychopathy, this did allow them to track the traits usually associated with psychopathy, such as extremely low agreeableness.
They note, however, that although their estimates are “conceptually meaningful, the question remains of whether the size of the differences across regions is practically significant.”
One particular thing they note is there doesn’t seem to be a relationship between how psychopathic a region is and the rates of homicide, violent crime or property crime rates. For the most part, it seems, the manifestations of the personality traits that define psychopathy are far more subtle and varied than a tendency to commit multiple murders.
“This is definitely true,” says Seena Fazel, Professor of Forensic Psychiatry at Oxford University. “The manifestations can actually help some people – some professionals, politicians or businessmen or other professions – in the right way.”
A dark personality
Measuring psychopathic or morally abnormal traits – call them what you will – and gauging their geographic spread is a complex matter. This was particularly underlined by a more recent study that produced a rather different ranking of US states.
A group of Danish scientists widened their research to include a wider range of behaviours, including sadism, narcissism and Machiavellianism. Their results don't entirely tally with those of Murphy’s research.
The study of more than 144,000 Americans, led by Ingo Zettler, at the Copenhagen Center for Social Data Science, measured how many people have what they call dark factors of personality. In the process the team of psychologists created their own ranking of the dark factors of personality—the ‘D score’, which combined measures of psychopathy, sadism, narcissism and Machiavellianism. The more a person displays these traits, the higher their D score will be.
For the study they quizzed participants with a special questionnaire – try it yourself, if you dare… to gauge their personalities.
The results were somewhat different to those of Murphy’s research. The US state with the highest average D score in the nation was Nevada, with a score of 2.26 out of 5. This is followed by New York, with a 2.24 score and Texas and South Dakota in joint second with 2.22.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, Vermont had the lowest average D score in the nation at 1.96, the only state to have an average D score under 2. This was followed by Utah with a 2.03 and Maine – which Murphy’s research described as the most psychopathic state – had a score of just 2.04.
By combining this data with statistics on living conditions and social adversity, Zettler and his colleagues showed that social factors – corruption, inequality, poverty, and violence – influence the presence of what they call the “dark” personality traits.
“The figures don’t really relate to an individual level, you wouldn’t really notice a big difference,” says Fazel. “But in a large population it is important, because it shifts the curve a bit.” This pushes more people to the extreme end, which, Fazel states, “is what you’re interested in, at least in terms of public health and public policy.”
Of course, there’s more to psychopathy than location and there has been a lot of other studies drilling down into the specific social factors that can elicit antisocial behaviour.
For instance, the Zettler paper also looked into the vexed question of the extent to which genes play a role in psychopathy, Fazel points out.
“We also know quite a bit about the genetics of these conditions and we know something about the genetics of people who commit violent crimes. There’s converging evidence that [this] is actually one of the more heritable traits. It’s a very uncomfortable fact, but I think, to some extent, it is the case.”
He points to other studies which show there are very specific and important risk factors for sociopathic violence.
“We tested this in using statistics from 169 countries. We compared not just inequality and violence, but we adjusted for other things, like how many men there were in the population of the country. The age structure is key, urbanicity is key, drug abuse, drug use is key, availability of alcohol is key.”
While these studies are, undoubtedly, interesting, they all suggest theories into how locale might be related to psychopathy, rather than giving any proof.
“I would want to look at lots of things that are important, which they haven't actually measured, for instance, the availability of drugs in these 50 states,” says Fazel. “There’s a way of triangulating all that information, would be quite important for me.”
Here’s how Murphy's study ranks the 48 states (with Washington DC ranking above all of them):
1. Maine
2. Connecticut
3. New York
4. Maryland
5. Massachusetts
6. Delaware
7. Wyoming
8. New Jersey
9. California
10. Nevada
11. Virginia
12. Rhode Island
13. Illinois
14. Ohio
15. Wisconsin
16. Arkansas
17. Pennsylvania
18. Arizona
19. Louisiana
20. Idaho
21. Colorado
22. South Dakota
23. Texas
24. Kansas
25. Iowa
26. New Hampshire
27. North Dakota
28. Florida
29. Washington
30. Kentucky
31. Michigan
32. Alabama
33. Oregon
34. Minnesota
35. Utah
36. Indiana
37. Missouri
38. Vermont
39. Montana
40. New Mexico
41. West Virginia
42. Oklahoma
43. Georgia
44. South Carolina
45. Nebraska
46. Mississippi
47. Tennessee
48. North Carolina
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