Psychopathy / Antisocial, Narcissistic & Histrionic Personality Disorders

For fiction writers, crime fiction in particular, knowing the personality traits behind the characters you create is vital, as well as adding  one or more 'notable' inconsistencies that are necessary to keep the character(s) unpredictability alive and vibrant.

The following may help you with some foundational information... at least the questions can be used to develop the trait(s) necessary to portray the character the way you wish.

Even among professionals, there is confusion about the meanings and differences between psychopathy, sociopathy, antisocial and histrionic personality disorder, and much more so amongst persons who sense problems in their relation to others but need orientation on where these problems might derive from. This test tries to assist in checking for traits of each of these disorders separately and then giving separate results for each of them.

A test checking for traits of the following personality disorders can be found online:

     Psychopathy / Antisocial Personality Disorder
     Narcissistic Personality Disorder
     Histrionic Personality Disorder

Take the test yourself HERE

More info HERE - and HERE

Note for those with professional backgrounds (legal system, corrections, criminology, police, etc.),
I've coined a two-sided lucky Sixpence concept to help differentiate between the 'normal' and the 'professional' applications resulting from this test:

   1. Selective Psychopathy
   2. Situational Psychopathy

The two are inclusive and reflect a dependency upon one another (a two-sided coin).

If... your profession requires contact with individuals and circumstances 'forcing' a Situational Psychopathic approach, then your professionalism requires a Selective Psychopathic applicatory response to each of those situations.

So, in short (for writers), you can use many of the Psychopathy test's attributes to portray your 'good' characters performing their duties as police, lawyers, judges, politicians, etc.