Psychopathy is a clinical construct usually referred to as a personality disorder defined by a constellation of interpersonal, affective, lifestyle, and behavioral characteristics that encompass a wide range of antisocial behaviors. In social interactions, psychopathy is characterized by glib or superficial charm, narcissism or grandiose self-worth, pathological lying, and conning/manipulation. In the emotional dimension, psychopathy is characterized by callousness and lack of empathy, failure to accept responsibility, shallow emotion, and lack of guilt or remorse. Regarding life management, psychopaths lack realistic life goals, have a parasitic orientation and are impulsive while seeking stimulation. The greatest strength of psychopathy as a construct is its predictive validity across a range of behavioral outcomes. Consequently, it can be used as the unifying causal construct for explaining co-occurring antisocial behaviors and broad forms of psychopathology. Psychopathy has shown empirical value in predicting antisocial outcomes among diverse populations and subpopulations selected from community, clinical, and correctional samples. Several features of psychopathy are suggestive of a biosocial etiology. The disorder emerges in childhood as callous and unemotional traits that are usually associated with conduct problems. The core characteristics of psychopathy match the conceptual nature of antisocial behavior and embody or exemplify the essence of emotions and behaviors that inevitably violate the rights of others. It can be used to study an array of crimes among diverse subgroupings of offenders. 5 notes and 132 references