The core traits of famous PSYCHOPATHS: Scientists identify five key characteristics in Ted Bundy, Clyde Barrow and Bernie Madoff – including callousness, dishonesty and cruelty

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Scientists have identified the five key personality traits that are common among famous psychopaths, including serial killer Ted Bundy, disgraced fraudster Bernie Madoff and robber Clyde Barrow. 

The US academics looked for shared traits in six men - Ted Bundy, Bernie Madoff, Clyde Barrow, James Bond, Sherlock Holmes and Chuck Yeager - who have previously been identified as psychopathic. 

They found that Bundy, Madoff and Barrow are all psychopaths guilty of callousness, manipulativeness, dishonesty, arrogance and cruelty.

However, Bond, Holmes and Yeager likely are not psychopaths, and may have been misidentifed in the past due to their fearlessness and boldness, the experts say.   

Psychopathic traits common among serial killer Ted Bundy, robber Clyde Barrow and fraudster Bernie Madoff were callousness, manipulativeness, dishonesty and cruelty

The research was conducted by Cristina Crego at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia and Thomas Widiger at the University of Kentucky. 

'There remains considerable debate as to what are the core traits of psychopathy,' they say in their paper, published in Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment.

'One approach to addressing this question is to identify the traits that are present in persons said to be actual or even prototypic examples of psychopathy.' 

According to the team, Ted Bundy, Clyde Barrow, Bernie Madoff, pilot Chuck Yeager and two fictional men – James Bond and Sherlock Holmes – have all previously been described psychopaths. 

Ted Bundy was a serial killer, rapist and necrophile who assaulted and murdered numerous young women during the 1970s, while Madoff is one of the best known 'snakes in suits', implementing what many consider to be the largest Ponzi scheme and financial fraud in US history. 

As for Barrow, he committed over 100 robberies, many implemented in a rash and impulsive manner, with his partner Bonnie Parker.

'He ruthlessly murdered policemen, prison guards, and a fellow inmate, along with law-abiding citizens,' the authors say. 'He was though said to be charming and engaging, and at the time was considered a folk hero within some newspapers and within multiple subsequent "Hollywood" movies.'  

For the study, the team prepared case histories for each of the six men, spanning three to five pages long. 

Researchers then recruited volunteers to read through these case histories and score each of the men on a comprehensive range of traits that have been listed in various psychopathy scales used in previous studies. 

Eight traits were found to be common to all six men – low vulnerability, low self-consciousness, low anxiousness, fearlessness, boldness, assertiveness, dominance and excitement-seeking. 

However, these traits can also be used to describe people not considered to be psychopaths, suggesting that the past studies to have used them as measures of psychopathy may not be reliable. 

NOT A PSYCHOPATH: British secret agent James Bond is depicted here by Daniel Craig, in a shot from the 2006 film 'Casino Royale' 

NOT A PSYCHOPATH: Chuck Yeager (pictured) was a 'fearless' US Air Force pilot who in 1947 became the person to fly faster than the speed of sound. Here, Yeager sits in an Air Force aircraft in 1948

NOT A PSYCHOPATH: Pictured is Benedict Cumberbatch's depiction of Sherlock Holmes for the BBC

Meanwhile, the five indisputably psychopathic traits were those related to antagonism – callousness, manipulativeness, dishonesty, arrogance and cruelty.      

Yeager, Bond and Holmes didn't show these antagonistic traits, so they can't be described as psychopaths, according to the team.  

These three men may have been mistakenly identified as psychopathic in the past simply because of their fearlessness, boldness, assertiveness and dominance – traits found in, but not exclusive to psychopaths.

Today, Yeager, Bond and Holmes are also seen as heroes, although 'the hero and psychopath are twigs from the same branch', the authors point out.  

'From this perspective, the hero and psychopath may not represent twigs from the same branch but entirely independent branches,' the team say. 

PSYCHOPATH: Clyde Barrow (1909 - 1934) is seen here holding a machine gun while sitting on the front fender of a car

PSYCHOPATH: Bernard Madoff leaves US Federal Court after a hearing regarding his bail on January 14, 2009 in New York

PSYCHOPATH: Ted Bundy (pictured) was a serial killer, rapist and necrophile who assaulted and murdered numerous young women during the 1970s

Yeager was the least psychopathic person out of the six – he only showed thrill-seeking and low anxiousness (traits that aren't exclusive to psychopaths).  

Interestingly, Madoff also scored highly in many aspects of conscientiousness, including striving for achievement and being competent.  

Madoff robbed 37,000 victims in 136 countries of $64.8 billion, taking one's money to pay off the other, for two decades before finally being arrested in 2008 after his two adult sons turned him in. 

Many of his victims came from the Jewish community where Madoff had been a major philanthropist.