Psychopathic individuals recognize unfairness but are less likely to punish it

Individuals who score higher on psychopathic personality traits are less likely to punish others for unfair or norm-violating behavior—especially when doing so comes at a personal cost—according to new research published in the Journal of Research in Personality. The findings suggest that a lack of social punishment among these individuals is driven more by self-interest than by a failure to recognize injustice.

Psychopathic traits are personality characteristics that include a lack of empathy, callousness, manipulativeness, impulsivity, and disregard for rules or others’ rights. While commonly associated with criminal behavior, these traits exist on a spectrum in the general population. People who score high on psychopathic traits may not break laws, but they often show less concern for social norms and the well-being of others. This study was designed to explore how these traits influence a person’s willingness to punish norm violations—both as a direct victim and as an uninvolved observer.

Previous research has shown that people often go out of their way to punish those who violate social norms, even when they were not personally affected and even when doing so costs them something. This type of behavior, known as social punishment, helps uphold cooperation in society. But the link between psychopathic traits and this kind of punishment behavior has been unclear, with some studies finding that people with higher psychopathic traits are more punitive and others showing the opposite.

To better understand this relationship, a team of researchers led by Zhuo Yang and colleagues conducted two complementary studies. The first was a large-scale online survey using hypothetical scenarios. The second was a lab-based experiment using real economic games where participants had to choose whether or not to punish norm violators with their own money.

In the first study, over 13,800 adults in China completed a survey as part of a project measuring legal knowledge and moral attitudes. Participants read short descriptions of unfair or unethical scenarios—some where punishing the violator could carry personal risk, and others where punishment came at no personal cost. Participants then rated how likely they would be to take action to punish the wrongdoer, either as the person directly affected or as a third-party observer.

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Participants also completed a widely used self-report scale that measures psychopathic traits. The results showed a clear pattern: people with higher psychopathic traits were consistently less likely to say they would punish the wrongdoer, whether they were the victim or a bystander. This held true both when there was a potential cost to punishment and when there wasn’t. The effect was stronger when participants were observers, suggesting that those with high psychopathic traits were particularly unwilling to intervene on behalf of others.

In the second study, the researchers tested whether these patterns would hold up in a more controlled environment using real stakes. Ninety-three university students participated in economic games in which they could spend money to punish a player who had behaved unfairly in a resource-sharing task. In some rounds, punishing the wrongdoer came at a cost to the participant, while in others it did not.

The researchers found that psychopathic traits predicted punishment behavior only when punishment was costly. In these situations, participants with higher psychopathic traits were less likely to punish the wrongdoer and, when they did, they imposed smaller penalties. However, when punishment was free, people high in psychopathic traits punished as often and as harshly as others.

This pattern suggests that individuals high in psychopathic traits are not incapable of recognizing unfairness or unwilling to enforce norms—but they are much less likely to do so when it involves a personal sacrifice. Their lower rates of punishment appear to stem from egoistic motives rather than a lack of moral reasoning.

To explore why this might be the case, the researchers also measured participants’ sensitivity to justice. This included how much they cared about being treated fairly themselves (self-oriented justice sensitivity) and how much they cared about fairness for others (other-oriented sensitivity). The analysis showed that people with higher psychopathic traits were more sensitive to unfairness directed at themselves, but this did not make them more likely to punish norm violators. In fact, self-oriented justice sensitivity helped explain why they were less likely to punish when doing so came at a personal cost. It appears their concern for fairness is self-focused and does not extend to broader moral enforcement.

Importantly, the researchers did not find that individuals with higher psychopathic traits had weaker beliefs in fairness or were less able to recognize unfairness. This supports the idea that these individuals can understand moral rules, but are less motivated to act on them when it doesn’t benefit them directly.

These findings provide new insight into how psychopathic traits shape behavior in everyday moral decision-making. While these traits are associated with lower cooperation and less concern for others, they don’t appear to impair basic moral understanding. Instead, they seem to shift the motivational balance away from prosocial actions and toward self-preservation.

As with all research, the study has some limitations. The lab experiment involved a relatively small and mostly female university sample, which may not be representative of the broader population. In contrast, the online survey had a large and diverse sample, but relied on hypothetical scenarios that may not reflect real-world behavior. The difference in methods may explain some inconsistencies between the two studies—for example, the finding that psychopathic traits predicted punishment under both cost and no-cost conditions in the survey, but only under cost conditions in the lab.

Future research could build on these findings by including more balanced samples, using real-life scenarios, and incorporating neuroscience methods to better understand the brain mechanisms involved. It may also be valuable to examine how these dynamics play out in groups with higher levels of psychopathy, such as incarcerated individuals.

The study, “Psychopathic traits predict reduced social punishment: Evidence from a large-sample survey and an experimental study,” was authored by Zhuo Yang, Ruiming Guo, Wei Li, Wenchao Meng, Yijing Shi, An Li, Morris Hoffman, and Qun Yang.