Unlike many criminally insane people, psychopaths are more likely to hurt strangers than their own kin, according to a new study in the Frontiers of Psychology.
Canadian researchers looked at 289 violent psychopaths – people who are antisocial and selfish – and analyzed whether they were related to their victims.
While people who have non-psychotic mental illnesses often lash out at their family members, the study found psychopaths more frequently attack non-relatives.
The evidence "suggests that psychopaths are executing a well-functioning, if unscrupulous strategy that historically increased reproductive success at the expense of others," the study found.
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