From soap opera to science: towards gaining access to the psychopaths who live amongst us

This idiographic and essentially exploratory study examined the unique experiences of 20 women who had been victimized within the context of heterosexual relationships with a male partner who was rated as having the characteristics associated with psychopathy. An integrated approach, using questionnaires, and biographical and narrative data, was utilized. The experimental group consisted of 20 women who had partnered males rated by the women on the Hare P-SCAN (Hare & Herve, 1999) as having many or most of the features of psychopathy. As this was the first reported use of the Hare P-SCAN to provide partner ratings, norms for scorings on this assessment tool were obtained from ratings provided by a control group of a random sample of 100 women who had completed the Hare P-SCAN and provided ratings for their last male partner. Four two-tailed independent samples t tests were conducted to test for significant differences in scorings between the two groups. Following screening, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the experimental group, that is, 20 women who had partnered males with psychopathic traits. The four independent samples t test showed that significant differences occurred between the ratings of male partners by women in the experimental group and ratings provided by the control group. Narrative data, generated from written accounts and interviews with women in the experimental group, was successful in clarifying the manner in which males with the personality traits which define psychopathy managed the heterosexual relationship and the nature and patterns of the abusive behaviours which occurred in this context.