Sunday e-mail 29th September: The great, the good, and the not-so-good

Psychopaths, dictators, and other politicians

Whatdya mean, Substack? This here’s a Superstack!!

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Here at Crime & Psychology, as you know, we always try to stay abreast of the news. Now, I don’t know whether you’ve noticed – the media have been very quiet on the subject – but there seems to be some sort of election going on. Sounds exciting.

With that in mind, I’ve chosen this week as the most appropriate to write about psychopaths.

Psychology has some interesting things to say on the topic of politicians and the psychopathic traits that successful ones display. I’ll be telling you all about that in our regular Wednesday newsletter. I know you can’t wait, so let me provide a small appetiser just to keep you going…

Psychopaths are not all bad. They display a number of different traits, some of which are more positive than others. One well-known scale in Psychology (called the Psychopathic Personality Inventory) puts these various traits into three clusters. I explain them in this week’s bullet-list, below. You can compare any given person’s score on these clusters with those of the general population to see whether they score in the top 20% (or quintile). The cut-off is slightly different for men and women, reflecting women’s generally-lower scores on the clusters.

A study by the psychologist, Kevin Dutton, considered a number of leaders from world history. Some have an extremely high score, coupled with a top-quintile finish on at least one of those three clusters. Here, in reverse order, are the top three: Idi Amin; Henry VIII; and, reigning champion, Saddam Hussein. (Adolf Hitler came fourth.)

British readers may be surprised to learn that neither Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher nor Queen Elizabeth I qualified as psychopathic. One well-known female politician certainly did qualify though…

Other important historical figures scored high on one cluster but less so on others. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln both scored high on the quality of Fearless Dominance, but relatively low on Self-Centred Impulsivity. They both possessed the more positive qualities associated with psychopathy, but relatively few of the negative ones. Hitler, (who we might think of as a prime example of a psychopath,) had the opposite pattern of scores.

What about the present race for the White House? You may well wonder. No surprise, more than a few psychologists have chosen to study the personality of, well, one of the two candidates. I’ll tell you more on Wednesday! Be there – all the cool kids will be! Meanwhile, please click Like or bash a bright blue button. Thank you!

This week’s bullet list features the qualities associated with psychopathy:

·       The Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised (PPI-R) assesses clients’ or patients’ personality by means of 56 different questions, each of which is know reliability to measure one trait.

·       It put the traits into three clusters. These clusters are called Fearless Dominance, Self-Centred Impulsivity, and Coldheartedness.

·       ‘Fearless Dominance’ includes these traits: social influence; stress immunity, and fearlessness (natch).

·       ‘Coldheartedness’ is exactly what it sounds like and there are no complexities here.

·       ‘Self-Centred Impulsivity’ includes these traits: Machiavellian self-interest; blame externalisation; rebellious non-conformity; carefree non-planfulness.

Remind you of anyone?