The Wisdom of Psychopaths (34 page)

  7
Or, as they’re commonly referred to, the “Big Five” …
For more on the structure of personality, and in particular the Big Five, see R. R. McCrae and P. T. Costa,
Personality in Adulthood
(New York: Guilford Press, 1990); McCrae and Costa, “A Five-Factor Theory of Personality,” in Lawrence A. Pervin and O. P. John (eds.),
Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research
, 2nd ed. (New York: Guilford Press, 1999), 139–53.

  8
In doing so, they’ve found a striking connection …
For more on the relationship between personality and career choice, see Adrian Furnham, Liam Forde, and Kirsti Ferrari, “Personality and Work Motivation,”
Personality and Individual Differences
26, no. 6 (1999): 1035–43; A. Furnham, Chris J. Jackson, L. Forde, and Tim Cotter, “Correlates of the Eysenck Personality Profiler,”
Personality and Individual Differences
30, no. 4 (2001): 587–94.

  9
Lynam and his colleagues at the University of Kentucky …
For the Lynam study, see Joshua D. Miller, Donald R. Lynam, Thomas A. Widiger, and Carl Leukefeld, “Personality Disorders as Extreme Variants of Common Personality Dimensions: Can the Five-Factor Model Adequately Represent Psychopathy?”
Journal of Personality
69, no. 2 (2001): 253–76. For more on the relationship between psychopathy and the five-factor model of personality, see T. A. Widiger and D. R. Lynam, “Psychopathy and the Five Factor Model of Personality,” in Theodore Millon, Erik Simonsen, Morten Birket-Smith, and Roger D. Davis (eds.),
Psychopathy: Antisocial, Criminal, and Violent Behavior
(New York: Guilford Press, 1998): 171–87; and J. D. Miller and D. R. Lynam, “Psychopathy and the Five-Factor Model of Personality: A Replication and Extension,”
Journal of Personality Assessment
81, no. 2 (2003): 168–78. For an analysis of the relationship between the five-factor model and other personality disorders, including psychopathy, see P. T. Costa and R. R. McCrae, “Personality Disorders and the Five-Factor Model of Personality,”
Journal of Personality Disorders
4, no. 4 (1990): 362–71, doi:10.1521/pedi.1990.4.4.362.

10
The picture of a U.S. president?
See Scott O. Lilienfeld, Irwin D. Waldman, Kristin Landfield, Ashley L. Watts, Steven J. Rubenzer, and Thomas R. Faschingbauer, “Fearless Dominance and the U.S. Presidency: Implications of Psychopathic Personality Traits for Successful and Unsuccessful Political Leadership,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
(Epub, abstract posted July 23, 2012, doi:10.1037/a0029392).

11
Back in 2000, Rubenzer and Faschingbauer had sent out …
See S. J. Rubenzer, T. R. Faschingbauer, and Deniz S. Ones, “Assessing the U.S. Presidents Using the Revised NEO Personality Inventory,” in “Innovations in Assessment with the Revised NEO Personality Inventory,” ed. R. R. McCrae and
P. T. Costa, special issue,
Assessment
7, no. 4 (2000): 403–19, doi:10.1177/107319110000700408. For more on the development and structure of the NEO Personality Inventory, see: P. T. Costa and R. R. McCrae,
Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) Professional Manual
(Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources, 1992); Costa and McCrae, “Domains and Facets: Hierarchical Personality Assessment Using the Revised NEO Personality Inventory,”
Journal of Personality Assessment
64, no. 1 (1995): 21–50.

12
DSM classifies personality disorders …
The complete inventory of component disorders comprising each cluster can be found at
www.wisdomofpsychopaths.com
.

13
Support for this latter, anti-separationist view …
See Lisa M. Saulsman and Andrew C. Page, “The Five-Factor Model and Personality Disorder Empirical Literature: A Meta-Analytic Review,”
Clinical Psychology Review
23, no. 8 (2004): 1055–85.

14
But, crucially, it was an overriding “Big Two” that did most of the heavy lifting …
Here are Saulsman and Page’s findings in graphical form:

15
The philosopher Theophrastus …
Theophrastus,
Characters
, trans. James Diggle, Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

16
In 1801, a French physician by the name of Philippe Pinel …
See Philippe Pinel,
Medico-Philosophical Treatise on Mental Alienation, Second Edition, Entirely
Reworked and Extensively Expanded (1809)
, trans. of
Traité médico-philosophique sur l’aliénation mentale, 1809
by Gordon Hickish, David Healy, and Louis C. Charland (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008).

17
The physician Benjamin Rush, practicing in America in the early 1800s …
See Benjamin Rush,
Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind
(New York: New York Academy of Medicine, 1812; New York: Hafner, 1962).

18
In his book
The Mask of Sanity,
published in 1941 …
See Hervey Cleckley,
The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt to Clarify Some Issues About the So-Called Psychopathic Personality
(St. Louis, MO: C. V. Mosby, 1941, 1976). The entire text may be downloaded for free at
www.cassiopaea.org/cass/sanity_1.pdf
.

19
This moral conundrum was first put forward by Judith Jarvis Thomson …
See Judith Jarvis Thomson, “The Trolley Problem,”
Yale Law Journal
94, no. 6 (1985): 1395–1415.

20
In 1980, Robert Hare (whom we met in chapter 1) unveiled the Psychopathy Checklist
 … See Robert D. Hare, “A Research Scale for the Assessment of Psychopathy in Criminal Populations,”
Personality and Individual Differences
1, no. 2 (1980): 111–19, doi:10.1016/0191-8869(80)90028-8.

21
The checklist—which, in 1991, underwent a facelift …
See R. D. Hare,
The Hare Psychopathy Checklist Revised: Technical Manual
(Toronto: Multi-Health Systems, 1991).

22
but recent activity by a number of clinical psychologists …
See R. D. Hare,
The Hare Psychopathy Checklist Revised
, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Multi-Health Systems, 2003). For a detailed overview of the dynamical structure of the psychopathic personality, see Craig S. Neumann, R. D. Hare, and Joseph P. Newman, “The Super-Ordinate Nature of the Psychopathy Checklist Revised,”
Journal of Personality Disorders
21, no. 2 (2007): 102–17. Also R. D. Hare and C. S. Neumann, “The PCL-R Assessment of Psychopathy: Development, Structural Properties, and New Directions,” in Christopher J. Patrick (ed.),
Handbook of Psychopathy
(New York: Guilford Press, 2006), 58–88.

23
In prison populations ASPD is the psychiatric equivalent of the common cold …
See Megan J. Rutherford, John S. Cacciola, and Arthur I. Alterman, “Antisocial Personality Disorder and Psychopathy in Cocaine-Dependent Women,”
American Journal of Psychiatry
156, no. 6 (1999): 849–56.

24
In addition, this 20 percent minority punches well above its weight …
For more facts and figures on psychopathy, plus an extremely accessible introduction to the world of the psychopath in general, see Robert D. Hare,
Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us
(New York: Guilford Press, 1993).

25
Studies comparing the recidivism rates among psychopathic and non-psychopathic prisoners …
See James F. Hemphill, R. D. Hare, and Stephen Wong, “Psychopathy and Recidivism: A Review,”
Legal and Criminological Psychology
3, no. 1 (1998): 139–70, doi:10.1111/j.2044-8333.1998.tb00355.x.

26
Jimmy is thirty-four years old and has been sentenced to life imprisonment …
The idea for two prototypical, fictionalized stories highlighting the differences between psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorder, respectively, is borrowed from a similar depiction featured in James Blair, Derek Mitchell, and Karina Blair,
The Psychopath: Emotion and the Brain
(Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), 4–6.

27
For a start, studies reveal that concordance rates …
See Hare,
The Hare Psychopathy Checklist Revised
(Toronto: Multi-Health Systems, 1991).

28
A recent study led by Stephanie Mullins-Sweatt …
See Stephanie M. Mullins-Sweatt, Natalie G. Glover, Karen J. Derefinko, Joshua M. Miller, and Thomas A. Widiger, “The Search for the Successful Psychopath,”
Journal of Research in Personality
44, no. 4 (2010): 554–58.

29
The Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI for short) …
See Scott O. Lilienfeld, and Brian P. Andrews, “Development and Preliminary Validation of a Self-Report Measure of Psychopathic Personality Traits in Noncriminal Populations,”
Journal of Personality Assessment
66, no. 3 (1996): 488–524.

30
The autistic spectrum, for instance …
Autistic spectrum disorders include autism, Asperger’s syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, Rett syndrome, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified. For more information on autism in general, go to:
www.autism.org.uk/
. For more information on the idea of an autistic spectrum, go to
www.autism.org.uk/about-autism/autism-and-asperger-syndrome-an-introduction/what-is-autism.aspx
.

31
Less familiar, perhaps, but equally pertinent …
For more information on schizophrenia—symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, and support—go to
www.schizophrenia.com/
. For more information on the schizophrenic spectrum, and possible underlying neural correlates, go to
www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/002561.html
.

32
In an ingenious experiment, Newman demonstrated …
See Kristina D. Hiatt, William A. Schmitt, and Joseph P. Newman, “Stroop Tasks Reveal Abnormal Selective Attention Among Psychopathic Offenders,”
Neuropsychology
18, no. 1 (2004): 50–59.

33
In a separate study, Newman and his colleagues …
See Joseph P. Newman, John J. Curtin, Jeremy D. Bertsch, and Arielle R. Baskin-Sommers, “Attention Moderates the Fearlessness of Psychopathic Offenders,”
Biological Psychiatry
67, no. 1 (2010): 66–70.

  1
“Two Police Community Support Officers did not intervene …”
Matthew Moore, “Officers ‘Not Trained’ to Rescue Drowning Boy,”
The Telegraph
, September 21, 2007,
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1563717/Officers-not-trained-to-rescue-drowning-boy.html
.

  2
In an experiment, for instance, that hitched the latest in social networking …
See Vladas Griskevicius, Noah J. Goldstein, Chad R. Mortensen, Robert B. Cialdini, and Douglas T. Kenrick, “Going Along Versus Going Alone: When Fundamental Motives Facilitate Strategic (Non)Conformity,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
91, no. 2 (2006): 281–94, doi:10.1037/0022-3514.91.2.281.

  3
The psychologist Irving Janis …
See Irving L. Janis and Leon Mann,
Decision Making: A Psychological Analysis of Conflict, Choice and Commitment
(New York: Free Press, 1977).

  4
Andrew Colman, professor of psychology at the University of Leicester …
See Andrew M. Colman, Andrew and J. Clare Wilson, “Antisocial Personality Disorder: An Evolutionary Game Theory Analysis,”
Legal and Criminological Psychology
2, no. 1 (1997): 23–34, doi:10.1111/j.2044-8333.1997.tb00330.x.

  5
In 2010, Hideki Ohira, a psychologist at Nagoya University …
See Takahiro Osumi and Hideki Ohira, “The Positive Side of Psychopathy: Emotional Detachment in Psychopathy and Rational Decision-Making in the Ultimatum Game,”
Personality and Individual Differences
49, no. 5 (2010): 451–56.

  6
“To subdue the enemy without fighting …”
This quote originates in Sun Tzu’s much-celebrated work of military strategy,
The Art of War
. See
The Art of War by Sun Tzu—Special Edition
, trans. and ed. Lionel Giles (1910; repr. El Paso, TX: El Paso Norte Press, 2005).

  7
One observes a still similar dynamic in monkeys today …
For the latest on altruistic behavior in chimpanzees, see Victoria Horner, J. Devyn Carter, Malini Suchak, and Frans B. M. de Waal, “Spontaneous Prosocial Choice by Chimpanzees,”
PNAS
108, no. 33 (2011): 13847–51, doi:10.1073/pnas.1111088108. Altruistic combat is also observed in birds. Male ravens, for example, compete with each other for mates not by means of aggression, but rather by performing “acts of bravery.” That is, instead of going beak to beak in ornithological combat, they challenge each other to deadly games of one-upmanship: the “game,” in this case, comprising the hazardous undertaking of verifying whether or not potential carrion is dead (the perilous alternatives being sleeping, injured, or pretending). “By demonstrating that they have the courage, experience, and quickness of reaction to deal with life’s dangers,” says Frans de Waal, professor of primate behavior at Emory University, “the occasional boldness of corvids serves to enhance status and impress potential mates.” (Quote taken from Frans B. M. de Waal,
Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals
[Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996], 134.)