six percent psychopaths
Har du nogensidne fornemmet noget skummelt bad bag den knasende muesli, yogaelskende, avokadospisende facade af dine califorske naboer? Nu er der et videnskabeligt studie som bakker dig op.

Californien er bladt to amerikanske stater med den højeste koncentration af psykopater, ifølge et arbejde studie fra Southern Methodist University udgivet i denne uge på Social Science Research netværket. Studiet ser på tendenser i personlighedstræk på tværs af områder (studiet er endnu ikke gået igennem hele evalueringsprocessen så tag resultaterne med lidt forbehold).

Det eneste sted hvor der er flere psykopater? Connecticut (tak, hedge funds!) og, overraskelse, the District of Columbia [dvs. hovedstaden Washington D.C]. Andre højtplacerede psykopatiske stater omfatter New Jersey, New York og Wyoming, mens West Virginia, Vermont og Tennessee er blandt de mindst psykopatiske stater.

'Tilstedeværelsen af psykoter i District of Columbia er i overensstemmelse med den formodning som man havde i (2016) at psykopater er sikkert er mest effektive i den politiske sfære," skriver forfatteren.


Kommentar: Denne artikel er delvis oversat til dansk af Sott.net fra: California is full of psychopaths, but not as bad as D.C., study finds

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The author, Ryan Murphy, combined the findings of two past papers, one that mapped distribution of the "big five" personality traits (neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion and openness to experience) across states and one that tracked which of those five personality traits most closely corresponded with psychopathy, to get the results.

The former paper found that there are three distinct clusters of personality traits in the United States - people are "friendly and conventional" in the Midwest and the South, "temperamental and uninhibited" in the Northeast and Texas, and "relaxed and creative" in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest.

Murphy's paper operates with the assumption that psychopathy exists on a spectrum - not as a binary category - and that it correlates with a combination of low neuroticism, high extraversion, low agreeableness and low conscientiousness.

Murphy found that the greater the share of a state's population that lives in dense urban areas, the higher the rate of psychopathy.

Other findings were more intuitive. Two things that correlate with a state with lots of psychopaths? High concentrations of journalists and lawyers.