Most will agree that psychopaths are a bad thing for society. They’re into genocide, violence, reckless banking, sadistic political policies and sending deranged tweets late at night.

However, a new study suggests psychopaths could act as a force for “greater good”. The research, by the University of Plymouth, found that when you need to carry out a bit of utilitarianism – sacrificing one person to save many others, for example – you might be wise to rely on someone with psychopathic traits to get the job done.

In experiments using virtual reality, a lifelike human model and a device that measured force and speed, volunteers were asked to make life-and-death decisions, involving physical force, to save other people. One involved deciding whether to stab to death an injured soldier in your group to prevent them being captured and tortured, or taking them with you at the risk of everyone being captured. Those with psychopathic traits (as measured through a prior test) were not more likely to dispense with an individual life, but they did seem to be more enthusiastic about the execution of it.

In written dilemmas or thought experiments, says Dr Kathryn Francis, one of the researchers of the study at Plymouth, people are less likely to carry out the action. “But if you put them in these immersive environments where they have to actually simulate the action, then you find the opposite and you get the majority of people choosing to carry out the action.” And people with psychopathic traits don’t hold back. “When they were simulating those actions, they were carrying them out with more power. We calculated that by looking at how much force they performed the action with and how fast they do it.”

One reason, says Francis, is that “perhaps lowered empathy means they have less aversion to performing harmful actions. It almost gives them a kind of resilience that then allows them to carry out these, what some people would consider, harmful actions.”