Despite Miller's (1969) now-famous clarion call to "give psychology away" to the general public, scientific psychology has done relatively little to combat festering problems of ideological extremism and both inter- and intragroup conflict. After proposing that ideological extremism is a significant contributor to world conflict and that confirmation bias and several related biases are significant contributors to ideological extremism, we raise a crucial scientific question: Can debiasing the general public against such biases promote human welfare by tempering ideological extremism? We review the knowns and unknowns of debiasing techniques against confirmation bias, examine potential barriers to their real-world efficacy, and delineate future directions for research on debiasing. We argue that research on combating extreme confirmation bias should be among psychological science's most pressing priorities.

Although psychopathic personality (psychopathy) is marked largely by maladaptive traits (e.g., poor impulse control, lack of guilt), some authors have conjectured that some features of this condition (e.g., fearlessness, interpersonal dominance) are adaptive in certain occupations, including leadership positions. We tested this hypothesis in the 42 U.S. presidents up to and including George W. Bush using (a) psychopathy trait estimates derived from personality data completed by historical experts on each president, (b) independent historical surveys of presidential leadership, and (c) largely or entirely objective indicators of presidential performance. Fearless Dominance, which reflects the boldness associated with psychopathy, was associated with better rated presidential performance, leadership, persuasiveness, crisis management, Congressional relations, and allied variables; it was also associated with several largely or entirely objective indicators of presidential performance, such as initiating new projects and being viewed as a world figure. Most of these associations survived statistical control for covariates, including intellectual brilliance, five factor model personality traits, and need for power. In contrast, Impulsive Antisociality and related traits of psychopathy were generally unassociated with rated presidential performance, although they were linked to some largely or entirely objective indicators of negative job performance, including Congressional impeachment resolutions, tolerating unethical behavior in subordinates, and negative character. These findings indicate that the boldness associated with psychopathy is an important but heretofore neglected predictor of presidential performance, and suggest that certain features of psychopathy are tied to successful interpersonal behavior.

Pseudoscience and questionable science are largely neglected problems in police and other law enforcement work. In this primer, the authors delineate the key differences between science and pseudoscience, presenting 10 probabilistic indicators or warning signs, such as lack of falsifiability, absence of safeguards against confirmation bias, and lack of self-correction, that can help consumers of the police literature to distinguish scientific from pseudoscientific claims. Each of these warning signs is illustrated with an example from law enforcement. By attending to the differences between scientific and pseudoscientific assertions, police officers and other law enforcement officials can minimize their risk of errors and make better real-world decisions.

In a 1995 monograph, Lykken asserted that an innate fearless temperament underpins the development of primary psychopathy as described by Cleckley (1941). To embed this insight in a larger theory of behavior, Lykken embraced constructs from Gray's (1982) reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST). Specifically, he hypothesized that in primary psychopaths the behavioral inhibition system (BIS) lacks normal sensitivity to cues of conditioned punishment or non-reward. Subsequent researchers have embraced Carver and White's (1994) BIS scale as the instrument of choice for testing Lykken's theory of primary psychopathy, a practice that this review calls into question. We note (a) a dearth of research using the BIS scales in offender samples, where more psychopathic individuals are likely to be found and (b) limited BIS scale coverage of the functions attributed to the behavioral inhibition system in RST. In addition, (c) we review literature suggesting that rather than assessing the fear sensitivity function critical to Lykken's theory, the BIS scale instead functions primarily as an index of negative emotionality. We recommend a moratorium on the use of the BIS scale to test Lykken's theory of primary psychopathy. Psychopathy and Lykken's Theory of Psychopathic SubtypesPsychopathy is one of the most heavily researched personality disorder constructs (Hare, 1996). Modern conceptualizations of psychopathy date to Cleckley's (1941Cleckley's ( /1976) classic text, The Mask of Sanity, which "embodied … the idea that psychopathy entails the juxtaposition © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. of severe underlying pathology against the overt appearance of robust mental health" (Patrick, 2007, p. 113). Psychologically adaptive features of psychopathy that Cleckley identified include, among others, superficial charm and good intelligence, absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking, and absence of nervousness or "psychoneurotic" manifestations. Psychologically maladaptive features included indicators of both emotional-impersonal deficits (e.g., untruthfulness and insincerity; lack of remorse or shame) and behavioral deviance (e.g., poor judgment and failure to learn by experience; sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated). NIH Public AccessEven as Cleckley was introducing this syndrome, Karpman (1941Karpman ( , 1948a expressed the need to distinguish the primary psychopath, whose disorder was assumed to arise from a constitutional deficit of unknown origin, from the secondary psychopath, whose psychopat...

These findings point to the need for further investigation of the association between psychopathy and ASPD traits and heavy episodic drinking behaviors in college students.