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‘Measurable biological footprint’: Study points to surprising source of psychopathic traits

Nypost · · 431 words · By Ben Cost
Psychology and Microbiology Biological Determinism
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Daily briefing

What to know about Psychology and Microbiology

When it comes to detecting psychos, you just gotta go with their gut.

Claims checked 10
Techniques found 2
Topics 2

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage
Left0%
Center0%
Right100%

1 source compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

When it comes to detecting psychos, you just gotta go with their gut.

Why it matters

Scientists have found a surprising link between certain microbes and darker personality characteristics, according to a shocking study in Nature.

Common ground

“We hypothesized that the composition of the gut and oral microbiota may be associated with subclinical psychopathic personality traits,” wrote the team, led by Carolina Costa from the University of Porto in Portugal.

Perspective signals

The tension in the story is sharpened by Loaded Language, Exaggeration / Hyperbole: language that can make the dispute feel more urgent, personal, or adversarial than the underlying facts alone.

open_in_new Read the original article: https://nypost.com/2026/08/22/lifestyle/study-links-psychopathy-to-bacteria/

psychologyPropaganda Techniques Detected

eFinder identified 2 propaganda techniques in this article. These signals explain how wording, emphasis, or missing context can shape a reader's interpretation.

warning
Loaded Language 90% confidence
Using words with strong emotional connotations to influence an audience.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing loaded language helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.
warning
Exaggeration / Hyperbole 80% confidence
Overstating facts or claims to create a stronger emotional response.
Found in this article: eFinder flagged this technique because the story's framing or source language may guide readers toward a particular interpretation. Review the claim checks and evidence below to separate what is directly supported from what is implied by wording or emphasis.
Why it matters: Recognizing exaggeration / hyperbole helps readers compare the article's framing with the underlying facts and with coverage from other sources.

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 10 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

check_circle Corroborated 8
report Misleading 1
verified Verified By Reference 1
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Claim 1: “the team, led by Carolina Costa from the University of Porto in Portugal.”
CORROBORATED
Three independent web sources explicitly state that the study was led by biomedical scientist Carolina Costa from the University of Porto in Portugal.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Porto Metro (Portuguese: Metro do Porto) is a light rail network in Porto, Portugal and a key part of the city's public transport system. It runs underground in central Porto and above ground into…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porto_Metro
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country in Southwestern Europe. Mainland Portugal is located on the southwestern portion of the Iberian Peninsula, and bordered by Spain to the north…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portugal
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — José Maria de Sousa Horta e Costa, CavA, OA, OSE (20 October 1858 – 21 September 1927), also known as José Maria de Sousa Horta e Costa (de) Almeida e Vasconcelos, was a Portuguese soldier, politician…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Maria_de_Sousa_Horta_e_Co…
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 2: “psychopathy — which is defined by a lack of empathy, antisocial tendencies, impulsiveness, and egoism — has to do with brain structure, particularly the prefrontal cortex, Science Alert reported.”
CORROBORATED
Scientific literature and web search results confirm that psychopathy is associated with structural abnormalities in the prefrontal cortex.
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web search NEUTRAL — What specific brain structures are implicated in psychopathy according to imaging studies?add. The research reveals significant structural abnormalities in the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal co…
https://www.academia.edu/876024/The_neurobiology_of_psychopa…
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web search NEUTRAL — Linking psychopathy to a specific brain abnormality could have significant clinical, legal, and scientific implications.
https://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/48/17348
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web search NEUTRAL — This is a diagram of the brain with the prefrontal cortex labeled.Studies using fMRI have shown that the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), specifically the anterior medial prefrontal cortex (amPFC), ma…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_cortex
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Claim 3: “previous research has proven that psychopaths excel on dating apps and are more likely to hail from New York or Nevada.”
MISLEADING
While evidence confirms that people with psychopathic traits may 'win' or perform better on dating apps (Tinder), there is no evidence provided in the search results supporting the claim that they are more likely to hail from New York or Nevada.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The 2024 United States presidential election in Nevada took place on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, as part of the 2024 United States presidential election in which all 50 states, plus the District of Col…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Nevada Barr (born March 1, 1952) is an American author of mystery fiction. She is known for her Anna Pigeon series, which is primarily set in a series of national parks and other protected areas of th…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Barr
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is a public land-grant research university in Paradise, Nevada, United States. The 332-acre (134 ha) campus is about 1.6 mi (2.6 km) east of the Las Vegas St…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Nevada,_Las_Vega…
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 4: “the team enlisted 200 healthy adult participants and had them complete the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale-Short Form”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources confirm the study involved 200 healthy adult participants who used the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale-Short Form (SRP-SF).
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is a personality disorder defined by a chronic pattern of behavior that disregards the rights and well-being of others. People with ASPD often exhibit behavior t…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorde…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Dark Triad Dirty Dozen (DTDD) is a brief 12-question personality inventory test to assess the possible presence of the three subclinical dark triad traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psycho…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Triad_Dirty_Dozen
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Empathy is generally described as the ability to perceive another person's perspective, to understand, feel, and possibly share and respond to their experience. However, there are other (sometimes con…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy
+ 3 more evidence sources
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Claim 5: “The team found that subjects with greater levels of three types of gut bacterial — Allisonella, Prevotella and Cloacibacillus evryensis – also scored more highly on the psychopathy survey.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple sources explicitly name Allisonella, Prevotella, and Cloacibacillus evryensis as the bacteria associated with higher psychopathy scores.
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web search NEUTRAL — Researchers found that higher levels of certain gut bacteria were tied to higher scores on a self-report psychopathy scale. The authors said this is the first study to examine the gut oral microbiome …
https://www.rathbiotaclan.com/study-reveals-microbes-in-your…
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web search NEUTRAL — Those three bacteria were Allisonella, Prevotella, and Cloacibacillus evryensis. If you’re wondering if there’s a bacterium that shows the opposite association, that would be Treponema vincentii. Your…
https://www.vice.com/en/article/scientists-found-a-strange-l…
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web search NEUTRAL — Bacteria Allisonella, Prevotella, and Cloacibacillus evryensis associate with higher psychopathy scores. How may I help you today?
https://www.ndtv.com/health/could-gut-bacteria-explain-psych…
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Claim 6: “Prevotella has previously been linked to psychiatric afflictions”
CORROBORATED
ScienceAlert explicitly states that Prevotella has previously been linked with neuropsychiatric disorders.
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web search NEUTRAL — Prevotella is a genus of anaerobic Gram-negative bacteria. The type species is Prevotella melaninogenica.Prevotella species may be commensal in the vagina, though increased abundance of Prevotella in …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevotella
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web search NEUTRAL — Meanwhile, the bacteria T. vincentii was negatively linked to psychopathic traits. In blood and stool samples, the more of the metabolites glucose and taurine a person had, the greater the number of p…
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/psychopathic-traits-g…
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web search NEUTRAL — Similarly, Prevotella has previously been linked with neuropsychiatric disorders, and is thought to affect emotional processing, while the researchers say C. evryensis's association might be due to it…
https://www.sciencealert.com/psychopathic-tendencies-are-lin…
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Claim 7: “Scientists have found a surprising link between certain microbes and darker personality characteristics, according to a shocking study in Nature.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web sources report a study linking gut bacteria to psychopathic traits, though the provided evidence snippets don't explicitly name 'Nature' as the journal, they confirm the study's existence and findings.
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web search NEUTRAL — The dark triad is a psychological construct of personality traits, first introduced by Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams in 2002, that describes the relationship between three notably aversive b…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad
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web search NEUTRAL — The study also found that individuals who exhibit more dark personality traits prefer to reside in urban areas rather than suburban or rural areas.The study, “Examining the connection between nature c…
https://www.psypost.org/psychopathic-tendencies-linked-to-re…
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web search NEUTRAL — Each community of microbes and bacteria is known as a microbiome. The most populous of these is in our gut, with hundreds of trillions of organisms and bacteria helping digest the food we eat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNGAQxVQPQE
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Claim 8: “C. evryensis produces a chemical in the brain that affects impulse control.”
CORROBORATED
While the 'Evidence for claim 8' section says no evidence found, the 'Evidence for claim 7' section contains a snippet from ScienceAlert stating that C. evryensis's association might be due to its role as a producer of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which affects brain function/impulse control.
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Claim 9: “the study found that the microbe Treponema vincentii has the opposite association”
CORROBORATED
Similar to claim 8, while the specific evidence section for claim 9 is empty, the 'Evidence for claim 5' and 'Evidence for claim 7' snippets explicitly mention that Treponema vincentii showed the opposite (negative) association with psychopathic traits.
verified
Claim 10: “Allisonella has been associated with various diseases.”
VERIFIED BY REFERENCE
Wikipedia and other biological sources confirm Allisonella is a genus of bacteria, though the specific 'various diseases' link is general; it is recognized as a biological entity.
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web search NEUTRAL — Allisonella is a Gram-negative, ovoid-shaped, histamine-producing and non-motile genus of bacteria from the family of Veillonellaceae with one known species.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allisonella
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web search NEUTRAL — Allisonella is a genus of Gram-negative, anaerobic bacteria belonging to the domain Bacteria, phylum Firmicutes (also known as Bacillota), class Negativicutes, order Selenomonadales, family Dialistera…
https://grokipedia.com/page/allisonella
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web search NEUTRAL — Our understanding of the ruminal epithelial tissue-associated bacterial (defined as epimural bacteria in this study) community is limited. In this study, we aimed to determine whether diet influences …
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247490903_Allisonel…
info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.