They walk among us—psychopaths.

These individuals possess a unique

constellation of traits: callousness to others' suffering, a grandiose sense
of self-worth, and a manipulative approach to dealing with others. Typically,
such antisocial tendencies result in incarceration and other forms of
exclusion from society. Yet some psychopathic individuals are able to
suppress their psychopathic impulses enough to remain members of
society. Many even rise to the upper ranks of business, law, and
government. 

Yet, what allows some psychopathic individuals to wind up as 'successful'

versus those who find themselves incarcerated for their harmful and
impulsive behavior?

In a recently-published article in the journal Personality Disorders, Emily

Lasko, M.S., and I tested whether a very specific psychological process,
impulse control, contributed to the development of 'successful'
psychopathy. We analyzed data from the Pathways to Desistance study,
which followed over 1,000 adolescents (who were convicted of serious
criminal offenses) over multiple years to examine what factors predicted
who would get convicted for re-offenses and who would not. 

As adolescent participants in this study aged into young adults, their

impulse control improved, a well-established trend in psychological
development. But we went on to find that the more psychopathic traits these
individuals had, the more quickly they developed impulse control. We even
replicated this finding when we looked specifically at how they suppressed
their aggressive urges, finding that more psychopathic individuals learned
to inhibit their aggression at a faster rate.

We then compared participants who were relatively successful (they didn't

commit future criminal offenses) versus those who were relatively
unsuccessful (they re-offended), we saw striking differences. Specifically,
the successful individuals showed a link between psychopathy and impulse
control development that was over twice as strong as those who continued
to re-offend.

The data were clear, successful psychopaths are those who learn to
restrain their antisocial impulses. This critical role of impulse control
supports the results of a survey of psychopathy experts who
rated conscientiousness (a cluster of personality traits characterized by self-
discipline and self-control) as the key differentiating factor between
successful and unsuccessful psychopaths.
There are a few important implications of these findings. One of which is
that interventions that teach teens how to better control their impulses may
help reduce the amount of adolescent criminal offending, but it may do so
by helping psychopathic individuals learn to make their aggression more
covert and insidious. For example, learning impulse control may help steer
a psychopathic person away from grand theft auto and towards a Ponzi
scheme. Therapies and treatments that reduce antisocial impulses in the
first place (for example, teaching compassion for the self and others) may
be a more effective approach to reduce the presence and harm-doing of the
psychopaths in our midst.