The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us about Success
2013; Christian Association for Psychological Studies; Volume: 32; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0733-4273
Autores Tópico(s)Crime Patterns and Interventions
ResumoTHE WISDOM OF PSYCHOPATHS: WHAT SAINTS, SPIES, AND SERIAL KILLERS CAN TEACH US ABOUT SUCCESS. Kevin Dutton, New York, NY: Scientific American/Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2012. Pp 261, Hardback, $26. ISBN 978-0-374-29135-8 Reviewed by Geoffrey W. Sutton (Evangel LTniversity/Springfield, MO ).Every time we learn of a mass killing in an otherwise peaceful community, news sources descend on the hapless to represent our collective puzzlement, Why? How could anyone do such a thing? Leaders cringe when the perpetrators are linked to their religious or ethnic group as if an association implied causation. Dutton's thesis takes us beyond the violent acts of some psychopaths to the behavior of people who head governments, churches, and multinational corporations. Dutton focuses on the traits of psychopaths and believes we can learn something useful from a more moderate version of the callous core dimensions.Kevin Dutton is a passionate storyteller who piqued my interest by his clever lecture title, What Psychopaths Teach LTs about How to Succeed and his ability to weave experiments, interviews, and case studies into a cohesive nanative in a Scientific American (2012) podcast adapted from his book. He gains and maintains readers' attention by offering examples of mainstays like John Wayne Gracy and Gary Gilmore as well as other lesser-known members of this four percent club-including his own father. But Dutton is a psychological scientist at Oxford University who does not rely on case studies to support his thesis; he offers a smorgasbord of research in support of his thesis that the traits of psychopaths can be adaptive in society.Readers get an abbreviated tour of personality theory beginning with Hippocrates' four temperaments and rapidly proceeding to Cattel's sweet 16, the Big Five, and the final four factor model from Robert Hare's revision of the well-known Hare Psychopathy Checklist. After making his case for the measurement of personality and psychopathic traits, Dutton explores how select traits, or dimensions of those traits, may be linked to high levels of success in society. One recent such attempt is the developoment of the Business Scan scales (also four dimensions), designed to examine traits in corporate leaders. Here are a few examples of variations between leadership and psychopathic traits: charismatic versus superficial charm, self-confidence versus grandiosity, action-oriented versus thrill-seeking.Dutton identifies seven core psychopathic traits, which he labels the Seven Deadly Wins: ruthlessness, charm, focus, mental toughness, fearlessness, mindfulness, and action. He finds high levels of these traits in such diverse professions as CEOs, lawyers, salespersons and clergypersons. Low levels appear in nurses, therapists, teachers, and accountants. He heads to Broadmoor prison (United Kingdom) to test the theory that those incarcerated do not adjust the seven core traits to succeed in particular situations. Within the high security Paddock Centre, he interviews the inhabitants of the Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder wards using moral dilemmas. In novelistic style, Dutton illustrates the losing side of psychopathy. …
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