The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success

by Kevin Dutton

“Deep inside me there’s a serial killer lurking somewhere. But I keep him amused with cocaine, Formula One, booty calls, and coruscating cross-examination.”

Great and Good are seldom the same man. —WINSTON CHURCHILL

In normal members of the population, theta waves are associated with drowsy, meditative, or sleeping states. Yet in psychopaths they occur during normal waking states—even sometimes during states of increased arousal … “Language, for psychopaths, is only word deep. There’s no emotional contouring behind it. A psychopath may say something like ‘I love you,’ but in reality, it means about as much to him as if he said ‘I’ll have a cup of coffee.’ … This is one of the reasons why psychopaths remain so cool, calm, and collected under conditions of extreme danger, and why they are so reward-driven and take risks.

Their brains, quite literally, are less ‘switched on’ than the rest of ours.”

the Museum of Serial Killers in Florence. The museum is located on Via Cavour, a ritzy side street within screaming distance of the Duomo.

“Do not be afraid, doctor,” said Saddam Hussein on the scaffold, moments before his execution. “This is for men.”

“I have no compassion for those whom I operate on,” he told me. “That is a luxury I simply cannot afford. In the theater I am reborn: as a cold, heartless machine, totally at one with scalpel, drill and saw. When you’re cutting loose and cheating death high above the snowline of the brain, feelings aren’t fit for purpose. Emotion is entropy, and seriously bad for business. I’ve hunted it down to extinction over the years.”

Psychopaths are fearless, confident, charismatic, ruthless, and focused. Yet contrary to popular belief, they are not necessarily violent. And if that sounds good, well, it is. Or rather, it can be.

To find out, Meloy asked 450 criminal justice and mental health professionals whether they’d ever experienced such odd physical reactions when interviewing a psychopathic subject: violent criminals with all the dials on the mixing desk cranked right up to max. The results left nothing to the imagination. Over three-quarters of them said that they had, with female respondents reporting a higher incidence of the phenomenon than males (84 percent compared to 71 percent), and master’s/bachelor level clinicians reporting a higher incidence

Did they knew before being askef or before the interaction?

from which ontological perspective the condition should actually be viewed: from a clinical standpoint, as a disorder of personality? Or from a game theory standpoint, as a legitimate biological gambit—a life history strategy conferring significant reproductive advantages in the primeval ancestral environment?

Their analysis revealed a significant correlation between a utilitarian approach to the trolley problem (push the fat guy off the bridge) and a predominantly psychopathic personality style. Which,

theory of utilitarianism, are generally thought of as good guys. “The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation,” Bentham once famously articulated. Yet dig a little deeper and a trickier, quirkier, murkier picture emerges—one of ruthless selectivity and treacherous moral riptides. Crafting that legislation, for example, excavating those morals, will inevitably necessitate riding roughshod over someone else’s interests.

“Intellectual ability on its own is just an elegant way of finishing second,” one successful CEO told me. “Remember, they don’t call it a greasy pole for nothing. The road to the top is hard. But it’s easier to climb if you lever yourself up on others. Easier still if they think something’s in it for them.”

Jon Moulton, one of London’s most successful venture capitalists, agrees. In a recent interview with The Financial Times, he lists determination, curiosity, and insensitivity as his three most valuable character traits. No prizes for guessing the first two. But insensitivity? “The great thing about insensitivity,” explains Moulton, “is that it lets you sleep when others can’t.”

Whereas the heart rates of all the operatives remained stable, something quite incredible happened with the ones who’d been decorated. Their heart rates actually went down. As soon as they entered the danger zone (or the “launch pad,” as one guy I spoke with put it), they assumed a state of cold, meditative focus: a mezzanine level of consciousness in which they became one with the device they were working on.

Even though none of the volunteers had any idea what they were inhaling, those who were exposed to the fear sweat showed considerably more activity in their brains’ fear-processing zip codes (their amygdalae and hypothalami) than those who’d breathed the exercise sweat. In addition, on an emotion recognition task, volunteers who had inhaled the fear sweat were 43 percent more accurate at judging whether a face bore a threatening or neutral expression than those who’d gotten the workout sweat.

“there may be a hidden biological component to human social dynamics, in which emotional stress is, quite literally, ‘contagious.’”

“I might be nuts,” one of them commented. “But I’m certainly not stupid.”

A personality disorder is not just for Christmas (though Christmas does, admittedly, bring out the best in them).

“mad without being mad.” Manie sans délire.

A brilliant transplant surgeon has five patients. Each of the patients is in need of a different organ, and each of them will die without that organ. Unfortunately, there are no organs currently available to perform any of the transplants. A healthy young traveler, just passing through, comes into the doctor’s office for a routine checkup. While performing the checkup, the doctor discovers that the young man’s organs are compatible with all five of his dying patients. Suppose, further, that were the young man to disappear, no one would suspect the doctor. Would the doctor be right to kill the young man to save his five patients? This moral conundrum was first put forward by Judith Jarvis Thomson, the author of the fat-man-and-trolley experiment we discussed in chapter 1. Though certainly a talking point, it’s pretty easily resolved by most people. It would be morally reprehensible for the doctor to take the young man’s life—no physician has the right to kill a patient, irrespective of how humane or compassionate the justification may seem at the time. It would be murder, plain and simple. But what would someone like Joe’s take on it be? “I can see where the problem lies,” he commented matter-of-factly when I put it to him. “If all you’re doing is simply playing the numbers game, it’s a fucking no-brainer, isn’t it? You kill the guy, and save the other five. It’s utilitarianism on crack … The trick’s not to think about it too much … If I was the doctor, I wouldn’t give it a...

Contrast this with just a 20 percent hit rate for psychopaths. In addition, this 20 percent minority punches well above its weight. Around 50 percent of the most serious crimes on record—crimes such as murder and serial rape, for instance—are committed by psychopaths, and continue to be committed by psychopaths. Studies comparing the recidivism rates among psychopathic and non-psychopathic prisoners reveal that the former are up to three times more likely to reoffend than the latter within a period of just one year. If we factor violence into the equation, the curve gets even steeper. The psychopath emerges as anything up to five times more likely to beat, rape, kill, or mutilate his way back behind bars. More accurate is to say that the relationship between ASPD and psychopathy is asymmetrical. For every four people diagnosed with ASPD, you may also have a psychopath on your hands. But every individual presenting with psychopathy will also, by default, be presenting with ASPD.

“People think [psychopaths] are just callous and without fear,” he says. “But there is definitely something more going on. When emotions are their primary focus, we’ve seen that psychopathic individuals show a normal [emotional] response. But when focused on something else, they become insensitive to emotions entirely.”

The situation was hopeless. And so at ten o’clock, on the night of April 20, a momentous decision was taken: some individuals would have to be put to the sword. Such an action, reasoned Rhodes, would not be unjust to those who went over the side, for they would surely have perished anyway. But if, on the other hand, he deigned to take no action, he would be responsible for the deaths of those whom he could have saved. Unsurprisingly, not all of the assembly concurred

Eventually salvation beckoned and the survivors were rescued by a trawler bound for Le Havre. And when, at last, they arrived in Philadelphia, they filed a lawsuit with the district attorney. On April 13, 1842, almost a year to the day since he’d cheated the icy Atlantic, able seaman Alexander Holmes stood trial on a charge of murder. He was the only crew member they could find in Philadelphia—and was the only one to ever be indicted for his actions.

But psychopaths, Ohira and Osumi discovered, play the game rather differently. Not only do they show greater willingness to accept unfair offers, favoring simple economic utility over the exigencies of punishment and ego preservation, they are much less bothered by inequity. On measures of electrodermal activity (a reliable index of stress based on the autonomic response of our sweat glands), the difference between psychopaths and other volunteers was telling, to say the least. Psychopaths were far less fazed than controls when screwed by their opposite numbers—and at the conclusion of the study, had more in the bank to show for it. A thicker skin had earned them thicker wallets.

“Sometimes, when you’re in a hostile situation, your best option is to match the aggressive intentions of a potentially violent individual. And then go one step beyond them. Raise them, in other words, to use a poker analogy. Only then, once you’ve gained the psychological ascendancy, shown them … hinted … who’s boss, can you begin to talk them down.”

One observes a similar dynamic in monkeys still today. Male chimpanzees (our closest living relative, with whom we share 96 percent of our DNA) will compete through “magnanimity”: through the direction of unsolicited altruism toward subordinates. Such magnanimity is usually gastronomic in nature: enduring danger to provide the troop with food, sharing out the proceeds of one’s own kills charitably, and confiscating those of others for the purposes of reallocation. As the primatologist Frans de Waal points out, “Instead of dominants standing out because of what they take, they affirm their position by what they give.”

Speak softly and carry a big stick, goes the phrase.

that when mistakes were punished by a painful electric shock, psychopaths were slower to pick up the rule than non-psychopaths. But that was just the half of it. When success was rewarded by financial gain, as well as by avoidance of shock, the roles reversed. This time it was the psychopaths who were quicker on the uptake.

Bravo Two Zero “will remain in Regimental history forever.” He wasn’t kidding. In fact, it’s now become part of a wider cultural history. And Andy has become a brand.

“It’s pretty much constant. Everyone is always slagging everyone else off. Taking the piss. And like most things in the regiment, there’s a good reason for that. If you’re captured, you’re taught to be the ‘gray man.’ To act tired and out of it. To give your interrogators the impression that you don’t know shit. That you’re of little use to them. “Now, if [your captors are] any good, they’ll start to look for weaknesses. They’ll look for the tiniest of reactions—fleeting microexpressions, infinitesimal eye movements—that might give away your true mental state. And if they find anything, then take it from me: that’s that, mate. It’s game over. Put it this way. If you’ve got a problem with the size of your dick, an Iraqi interrogation suite probably isn’t the best place to find out. “So, in the regiment, everything’s fair game. The slagging is purely functional. It’s an efficient way of building up psychological immunity. It inoculates you against the kind of shit they can throw at you if you’re captured. It’s the right kind of wrong,

“The problem with a lot of people is that what they think is a virtue is actually a vice in disguise. It’s much easier to convince yourself that you’re reasonable and civilized than soft and weak, isn’t it?” “Good men sleep peacefully in their beds at night,” George Orwell once pointed out, “because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

1. Ruthlessness 2. Charm 3. Focus 4. Mental toughness 5. Fearlessness 6. Mindfulness 7. Action

Though contrary, perhaps, to their delicate intellectual sensibilities, New Testament scholars might struggle to disagree. Two thousand years ago, a certain Saul of Tarsus sanctioned the deaths of countless numbers of Christians following the public execution of their leader—and could today, under the dictates of the Geneva Convention, have been indicted on charges of genocide. We all know what happened to him. A dazzling conversion as he journeyed on the road to Damascus* transformed him, quite literally overnight, from a murderous, remorseless tentmaker into one of the most important figures in the history of the Western world. Saint Paul, as he’s more commonly referred to today, is the author of just over half of the entire New Testament (fourteen of the twenty-seven books that comprise the corpus are attributed to him); is the hero of another, the Acts of the Apostles; and is the subject of some of the best stained glass in the business.

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same…”

Stoicism is a quality greatly prized by society. And with good reason. It can come in handy in all sorts of ways: during bereavement, after a breakup, at the poker table—even, at times, when you’re writing a book.

The conclusion seems pretty clear. When the stakes are high and backs are against the wall, it’s a psychopath you want alongside you. But if there’s nothing to play for and you’re on an even keel, forget it. Psychopaths switch off, and take just as much time getting the show on the road as the rest of us. Indeed, EEG studies have revealed consistent differences in the way that the brains of psychopaths and non-psychopaths respond to tasks and situations that are either highly interesting or highly motivating, respectively. When the handwriting’s on the wall, psychopaths show significantly greater activation in the left prefrontal regions of their brains (the area directly behind the left forehead) compared to non-psychopaths—cerebral asymmetry associated with considerable reduction in anxiety, enhanced positive affect, increased focusing of attention, and orientation to reward.