The Missing “We”: What Psychopathy Reveals About Identity, Relationships, and Belonging
Thursday, June 11, 2026.
Ask a grandmother who she is.
She may tell you about her grandchildren.
Ask a devoted husband who he is.
He may tell you about his wife.
Ask a teacher who she is.
She may tell you about her students.
Ask a firefighter who he is.
He may tell you about his crew.
Notice something strange.
The deepest answers to the question Who are you? often contain other people.
We tend to think of identity as something private, something discovered by looking inward.
Modern culture encourages us to find ourselves, express ourselves, optimize ourselves, and become our authentic selves. The self is treated almost like a personal project.
But a fascinating new study published in Social and Personality Psychology Compass suggests that one of the most important differences between folks may not be what they think about themselves.
It may be whether other people live inside their definition of self at all.
And that brings us to psychopathy.
Not the movie version.
The psychological version.
Which turns out to have something profound to teach us about belonging, connection, and the mysterious thing we call "we."
The Self Is Not One Thing
Psychologists use a term called self-construal to describe how people understand who they are.
Some folks primarily define themselves through personal qualities:
I am intelligent.
I am ambitious.
I am creative.
I am independent.
Researchers call this an independent self-construal.
Others define themselves through relationships:
I am a husband.
I am a mother.
I am a friend.
I am part of this family.
This is known as interdependent self-construal.
Most psychologically healthy adults possess both. We are individuals with unique talents and aspirations, but we are also woven into networks of loyalty, obligation, affection, and love.
The question is not whether we have an "I."
The question is whether we also have a "we."
The Familial Self
Family therapists often observe something that psychology struggles to measure directly.
Healthy development does not merely produce an individual self.
It produces what might be called a familial self.
A self that experiences the well-being of loved ones as partly its own.
A self that carries other souls inside its identity.
When a child succeeds, the parent feels genuine joy.
When a spouse suffers, the partner feels concern almost automatically.
When a family member struggles, attention turns outward rather than inward.
This is not because boundaries have disappeared.
It is because identity has expanded.
The "I" has made room for a "we."
The healthiest relationships do not erase individuality.
They enlarge it.
What the Researchers Found
The researchers wanted to understand how specific psychopathic traits relate to identity.
Rather than treating psychopathy as a single characteristic, they separated it into distinct dimensions.
Among these were:
Callousness and emotional coldness.
Manipulativeness.
Impulsivity and disinhibition.
Boldness and fearlessness.
They then examined how these traits related to different forms of self-construal.
One finding stood above the rest.
Individuals higher in callousness were significantly less likely to define themselves through close relationships.
This is more important than it first appears.
The researchers are not simply saying that callous individuals care less about other people.
They are suggesting that relationships occupy a different place within the architecture of identity itself.
Family becomes less central.
Friendships become less central.
Close attachments become less central.
The psychological mirror contains fewer other faces.
The Difference Between Having a Relationship and Being in One
Imagine a husband whose wife is hospitalized.
One response is practical concern.
Who will handle the schedule?
Who will pick up the children?
How will daily life be affected?
Another response is something deeper.
Her suffering feels, in some strange way, like his own.
The distinction is difficult to measure but impossible to miss.
One response emerges primarily from connection.
The other emerges primarily from distance.
Most enduring marriages depend upon the first response.
Not because spouses lose themselves.
But because they gradually allow another person to become part of themselves.
This is what many couples mean when they say, "We're a team."
The relationship is no longer merely something they have.
It has become part of who they are.
The Missing "We"
This finding may help explain a painful experience many partners describe in therapy.
They often say:
"It's like they were here, but they were never really with me."
Sometimes the problem is not communication.
Sometimes it is not conflict.
Sometimes it is not even affection.
Sometimes the deeper issue involves identity itself.
One partner experiences the relationship as part of who they are.
The other experiences the relationship as something they possess.
Those are not the same thing.
One protects the relationship because it feels like part of the self.
The other protects it only as long as it remains useful, rewarding, or convenient.
When hardship arrives, the difference becomes visible.
The "we" either holds.
Or it was never fully there.
Boldness Is Not Callousness
The study also uncovered something equally important.
A trait known as boldness was associated with a stronger independent self-construal.
Bold souls tended to see themselves as autonomous, distinct, and unconstrained by social expectations.
Importantly, boldness is not the same thing as cruelty.
A courageous entrepreneur may be bold.
A firefighter entering a burning building may be bold.
A reformer challenging public opinion may be bold.
Boldness says:
"I am not afraid."
Callousness says:
"I do not care."
Those are profoundly different psychological realities.
One can be deeply loving and extraordinarily brave.
The science reminds us not to throw every difficult personality trait into the same bucket.
The Strange Fate of Modern Identity
There is another layer to this study that extends far beyond psychopathy.
Modern culture celebrates independence so enthusiastically that we rarely stop to ask whether a completely independent self is something to admire or something to mourn.
Nearly every message we receive points toward autonomy.
Choose yourself.
Prioritize yourself.
Protect your peace.
Find your truth.
Some of these ideas contain genuine wisdom.
But every culture has blind spots.
One of ours may be forgetting that human beings were never designed to become entirely self-contained.
The infant survives through attachment.
The child develops through family.
The adult flourishes through friendship, commitment, community, and love.
We become ourselves partly through one another.
The self is not merely discovered.
The self is co-created.
The Tragedy Hidden Inside Callousness
We often imagine psychopathy as dangerous because of what it can do to other people.
That is certainly true.
But studies like this hint at another possibility.
Callousness may also be tragic because of what it removes from the self.
The capacity to experience another person's life as meaningful to one's own.
The ability to be enlarged by devotion.
The opportunity to participate fully in belonging.
The richest moments of human existence usually involve some version of this experience.
Marriage.
Parenthood.
Friendship.
Community.
Sacrifice.
Love.
Each requires us to let another soul enter the definition of who we are.
The callous sort may lose more than empathy.
They may lose access to one of the deepest forms of human meaning.
FAQ
What is self-construal?
Self-construal refers to how folks define themselves. Some primarily define themselves through personal traits and achievements, while others define themselves through relationships, communities, and social roles.
What did this study find about psychopathy?
The strongest finding was that emotional callousness was associated with lower levels of relational self-construal. In other words, folks higher in callousness were less likely to define themselves through close relationships.
Does this mean psychopaths cannot love?
No. The study does not suggest that souls with psychopathic traits are incapable of attachment or affection. It suggests that relationships may play a different role in their sense of identity.
What is the difference between boldness and callousness?
Boldness involves confidence, fearlessness, and social dominance. Callousness involves emotional coldness and reduced empathy. The study found that these traits related differently to personal identity.
Why does this matter in marriage?
Strong marriages often involve the development of a shared identity—a healthy sense of "we." Partners who experience the relationship as part of their identity may be more likely to invest in repair, sacrifice, and long-term commitment.
What is the familial self?
The familial self is the idea that healthy development includes the ability to experience loved ones as part of one's identity. It is the psychological foundation of loyalty, caregiving, belonging, and enduring attachment.
The Size of Your Circle
The researchers caution that these findings emerged from college students rather than clinical psychopaths. More research is needed before drawing broad conclusions.
Still, the study points toward a question worth asking ourselves.
Who lives inside your identity?
When you answer the question Who am I?, what names appear?
Your spouse?
Your children?
Your closest friends?
Your family?
Your community?
Listen carefully when others answer that question.
The answer may tell you less about their personality than about the size of their circle.
Some identities contain only the self.
Others contain spouses, children, friends, neighbors, ancestors, and communities.
The question is not whether you have an identity.
Everyone does.
The question is how many other souls can live there.
The mature self never loses the "I."
But it never loses the "we," either.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Brewer, M. B., & Gardner, W. (1996). Who is this “we”? Levels of collective identity and self-representations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(1), 83–93. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.71.1.83
Lishner, D. A., Tacke, L. J., Saltigerald, B., Jacquez, H. R., Hillman, V., Meendering, M., Burgess, B., Smith, A., Vitacco, M. J., & Neumann, C. S. (2026). Psychopathy and self-construal: Trait-specific associations with independent and interdependent self-construal. Social and Personality Psychology Compass.
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–253. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.98.2.224
Neumann, C. S., Uzieblo, K., Crombez, G., & Hare, R. D. (2013). Understanding psychopathic personality through the lens of the triarchic model. Current Psychiatry Reports, 15(7), 379. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-013-0379-1
Patrick, C. J., Fowles, D. C., & Krueger, R. F. (2009). Triarchic conceptualization of psychopathy: Developmental origins of disinhibition, boldness, and meanness. Development and Psychopathology, 21(3), 913–938. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579409000492