This month's issue of Scientific American features an excerpt from Kevin Dutton's new book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths (Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 2012). In the excerpt, Dutton, a research psychologist at the Calleva Research Center for Evolution and Human Science at the University of Oxford, explains how many of the personality traits and thinking styles that characterize psychopaths are also hallmarks of successful surgeons, politicians and military leaders. Sometimes, it's helpful to think like a psychopath. You can assess your own psychopathic traits by participating in The Psychopath Challenge.

To get a sense of what it's like to interact with a psychopath—and how the psychopathic mind works—read the transcript of an interview with a psychopath below. The transcript also appears in Dutton's previous book, Split-Second Persuasion (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).

Secure Unit, Summer 1995

"What are you doing tonight?"

"Don't know. Going out probably. Pub. Club, maybe? Why?"

"What are you going to do there?"

"What do you mean, what am I going to do there? Usual stuff, I suppose. Meet up with some mates. Have a few beers..."

"Pull some birds?"

"Yeah, I guess. If I'm lucky."

"And what if you're not?"

"Not what?"

"Lucky."

"There's always next time."

He nods. Looks down. Looks up again. It's hot. This is a place where the windows don't open. Not because they won't. But because they can't. Don't try to outsmart him, the psychiatrist had said. You've got no chance. Your best bet is just to play it straight.

"Do you think of yourself as a lucky person, Kev?"

I'm confused. "What do you mean?"

He smiles. "Thought so."

I swallow. "What?"

Silence. For about 10 seconds.

"There's always one, isn't there, Kev? The one you think about as you're eating your hot dog on the way home. The one that got away. The one you 'never got round to' because you were just too fucking scared. Scared that if you did get round to her, you'd end up doing exactly what you end up doing every other Friday night. Eating shit. Talking shit. Feeling shit."

I think about it. He's right. The bastard. Sort-of. A sea of faces strobes across my brain as I stand in the middle of an empty dance floor somewhere. Anywhere. What am I doing there? Who am I with? The promise of emptiness yanks me back to the present. How long have I been gone? Five, 10 seconds? I need to respond. And fast.

"So what would you do?" I say. Pathetic.

"The business." No hesitation.

"The business?" I repeat. I'm on the ropes here. "And what if she's not interested?"

"There's always later."

"Later? What do you mean?"

"I think you know what I mean."

Silence. Another 10 seconds. I do know what he means and it's time to wrap things up. I rummage around in my briefcase and power down the laptop. A nurse looks in through the glass.

"Mike," I say, "it's time for me to check out. It's been good talking to you. I hope things go okay for you in here."

8 Comments

1. 1. NickyR 11:01 PM 9/29/12

   This is a pretty mind-blowing article. I never thought that sensitivity could be a trait that holds me back from high achievement. It makes sense though. It's all about throwing moral implications out the window when it comes to something you want. Are these the kinds of psychological models our society is naturally selecting for? To be in charge of all the sheep at least.

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2. 2. Acoyauh2 01:09 PM 10/12/12

   Not just in our society, if you look at history. Sooner or later warlike civilizations take over, overrunning "higher" or more sophisticated cultures. Aztecs, Romans, what have you, started as well-armed barbarians not afraid to jump on the richer and more advanced, though weaker ones. Ate them up, 'recycled' what they wanted from the conquered cultures and built up their own from there.
   Violent psycho seems to work for civilizations - a more discrete shade for individuals... food for thought indeed.

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3. 3. Ghina 03:04 PM 10/12/12

   Maybe society values productivity and success, but I would rather be not so successful on being insensitive. After all I give more value for humanity and morality.

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4. 4. gesimsek 03:37 PM 10/12/12

   Capitalism rewards those who are hardworking and never questioning why they work so hard

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5. 5. frankblank in reply to NickyR 04:49 PM 10/12/12

   Haven't you noticed the recent events on Wall St.?

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6. 6. jgrosay in reply to Acoyauh2 07:08 PM 10/12/12

   I'm afraid, I guess you have no clearcut idea about what the romans were, and I don't want knowing what's your birthplace or your ethnic background. Romans never behaved in a different way of other peoples in their neighborhood, their main difference was that they were better organized and more aggressive, just Etruscans, another people in the Italian peninsula, but of Semitic origin (What the heck is a "Semite"?), surpassed them in luxury and sophisticated standard of living. The roman poet Juvenal wrote that it was given to Rome the task of ruling all the other peoples, an statement not very different for example, to the Monroe's doctrine: -"America for the Americans", and Europe? "For the Americans too".-> Back to the article's title: You must first realize that "Psychopath" is a medical diagnosis or description or label, and thus mainly a subject for doctors. The Jack Nicholson's character in "One Flew over the Cuckoo's nest" is a psychopat, those guys just don't have impressed in their minds the concepts of good and evil, and are not blocked in their desires by it, as daltonics don't distinguish between red and green, but this doesn't mandatorily mean that they're going to past their times committing crimes; perverse psychopats that do enjoy harming and producing pain, as in "The silence of lambs" are a peculiar and not very common subset of psychopats, psychopats do have all their primary instincts alive, and do use it for getting satisfactions and pleasures, a primary and very animal trait, they're also more sensitive to other people's feelings; our brains are prepared for survival, for survival of the individual and of the species, and many of the personality traits in psychopaths mean that they're more animally alive than others. Some readers of guys as F. Nietzsche have that kind of model as a rationalization for making unnaceptable things that will make them feel alive, their actual minds are closer to zombies than to living things, alive persons have to restrain and control themselves for social and practical purposes, while others feel the need of a criminal behavior to have a kick that makes them feel alive. There are better approaches for this, as the one by Johnny Cash: "I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel". Some would like to be psychopaths, but the underlying question may be: Why are we here put in this world, and what is expected from us? Salut +

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7. 7. SteveO 08:58 PM 10/14/12

   NickyR and others: no, I disagree. Perhaps for the first time in human history, non-psychopaths can be successful. Evidence: the rule of law, Pinker's study showing decreasing violence, violence as maladaptive in modern society, social justice as a factor in business performance. Companies getting in trouble for ethics violations, bad work environments (and not even at their company, at their suppliers), supporting questionable social stances.
   
   Sure, there are still exceptions, but overall the way to success in the modern world is not psychopathy. That most likely leads to jail. There are numerous books studying successful business leaders, and in none of them will you find psychopathy listed, and in fact you will find about the most opposite frequently listed: empathy.

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8. 8. inachu 06:39 AM 1/16/13

   From a medical condition I suffer from that I got from being hit by mother nature(lightning hit) I just got a memory back from the day before I was struck and I was so elated and delighted and equally as angry and frustrated when I found out my online nemisis Jeff Lindsay followed through with his threat that he was going to take my serial killer away from me.
   
   All you people who are fans of Dexter the TV show! I am the real creator of the serial killer now known as Dexter.
   
   From 1973 to 1997 Dexter never had a name. It was at a online web forum dedicated to new TV show ideas where Jeff Lindsay stole my Dexter from. But Jeff Lindsay calls theft RESEARCH.
   
   Nice try Jeff Lindsay! My serial killer got his name when I and Jeff Lindsay were still in the midst of arguing if my character had any merit to have his own TV show.
   
   Even before I arrive for the first time on that site Jeff was already in the mood with a existing serial killer but he was stuck with him because he did not know how to make him likeable by the masses.
   
   Jeff Lindsay asked me how I came up with the idea of my own serial killer and I told him it was from life experience that I was an abused kid beaten up by my father taken by my ankles and swung about like a baseball bat being slammed into the walls of my bedroom.
   
   He then asked what was the name of my serial killer and I told him I never named him. He called BS on me for that.
   
   Another person on that web forum said my character was kinda weird and should be named Dexter after Dexters Laboratory the cartoon.
   
   So there you have it guys.
   
   Oh and what inspired me back in 1973 to create Dexter?
   A song by Clint Holmes - Playground of my mind.

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