Psychopath test

I hope you didn't ask too many people Faye

Congrats newist. This could be a new career move!

Thank you Agus at 69 its never to late to start a new career

I felt uneasy with the results. I got 15% and thought that was too low. As the explanation said I do have a strong conscious that guides my actions, but if push comes to shove I can and will make hard decisions and stick with them, but I will do it in as kinder a manner as possible. The profile for 15% rather suggested I would have a problem doing that. It is unlikely, though obviously not impossible, that anyone psychopathic could take advantage of me but I have met and dealt with them quite effectively in the past.

Yesterday, when parked at a shopping centre my car door just gently touched the door of the car next to me. It was accidental and a very gentle knock and, at a glance, had done no damage. I didn't notice that there was someone in the car. I got to Halfords and this man charged in after me shouting that I had rammed my door into his car and scratched it. I decided not to dispute with an angry man, but neither would I grovel. I just stood straight looked him in the eye and said quite genuinely that I was sorry and it had been accidental. I repeated this three times while he blustered.

If he had insisted I would have gone out and inspected the damage, photographed it and exchanged details, but until he suggested it I wasn't offering and I doubted whether he would. He didn't, in the end he turned on his heel and walked away. My apologies were purely tactical. I doubted the damage and thought he was over reacting but I wasn't prepared to take part in a dispute where I was at a disadvantage, nor grovel when I was pretty sure he was making a fuss over nothing.

I am not sure that fits with the 15% profile.

I'm not sure that a low score on the test means one cannot be assertive (different to psychopathic surely).

I scored 3 initially but the other day as I was driving into the local car park a woman mouthed something at me and I stopped, wound down the window and confronted her and we had a dialogue. I don't usually have a problem with things like that.

I also gave the finger to someone a few months ago and mouthed 'you horrible old f*c*er' to him through my windscreen.

My score was 9%.

I was 9% as well.

Flickety being assertive or knowing when to avoid confrontation doesn't feature on the scale. It's about lacking empathy, being callous, grandiose etc in sufficient amounts to make up a cluster of psychopathic traits. We can all have a few, but that doesn't make you a psychopath - there's a level where the traits are numerous and become a lifestyle governed by these characteristics, whether for serious offending or manipulating and using colleagues and position in organisations.

If you followed the man out of the shop and followed him to run him over to teach him a lesson, you still wouldn't be classed as a psychopath - you'd need to score on several different criteria.

It was just that the profile they gave with the score: very people orientated, risk averse, likely to trust someone who is psychopathic was just so at odds with what I am. I am not suggesting my score should be right up the psychopathic end of the score, but I know that I am much more calculated in my decisions about how I respond to other people than my score suggested.

I was very aware when I answered the questionnaire that while answering the questions truthfully, many of my answers were guided by learned responses to situations, either nurture or self taught, rather than natural instinct.

Flickety Re 'learned responses', that was why I redid the test, up from 33% to 67%!

Professionals working with psychopaths find it challenging to see past the superficial charm, lies and faked empathy, hence they have supervision with forensic psychologists and the like to check out what can be evidenced and what could be fabricated, so the average person can't be criticised for being taken in by their elaborate masks of normality.

You have to know them pretty well to start spotting the inconsistencies and feelings of discomfort that tell you something isn't quite right. A hefty file of reports and a full history gives the professionals a bit of an advantage!

They certainly wouldn't rely on a facile questionnaire like this - if I could choose to score 100% then I am sure any self-respecting psychopath could choose to score 0%