Escaping into darkness: dissociation and the appeal of psychopathic characters

Abstract

Considering the mainstream success of entertainment that depicts sensationalized psychopathic characters, it is prudent to explore the factors that might influence individual attraction to psychopathy. Prior literature has highlighted increased individual maladaptive personality traits as a potential predictor to psychopathic characters. To examine other potential factors, this current study sought to examine how dissociative experiences influenced attraction towards five sensationalistic psychopathic representations portraying both real and fictitious psychopaths ("Deadpool," "Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story," "American Psycho," "Ted Bundy," and "You"). Individuals who experienced higher levels of dissociative experiences in their daily lives were not significantly more drawn to sensationalized psychopathic portrayals than individuals who experienced less dissociative experiences. However, individual dark personality traits did significantly predict attraction to sensationalistic psychopathic portrayals. Specifically, dark personality traits positively predicted attraction to sensationalistic psychopathic portrayals for most psychopath portrayals. These results suggest that variation in individual personality characteristics could contribute to an increased vulnerability to being drawn towards sensationalized psychopathic depictions represented in popular media.