TRIGGERnometry - Psychopath Expert Explains How to Spot a Psychopath - Dr Kevin Dutton

00:00:00.700 Broadway's smash hit, the Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise, is coming to Toronto.

00:00:06.520 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more, featuring all the songs you love,

00:00:11.780 including America, Forever in Blue Jeans, and Sweet Caroline.

00:00:15.780 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here, the Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.

00:00:22.660 April 28th through June 7th, 2026, the Princess of Wales Theatre.

00:00:27.120 Get tickets at Mirvish.com.

00:00:30.000 When psychologists like myself talk about psychopaths, we're in fact referring to a distinct subset of individuals

00:00:35.780 with a specific constellation of personality characteristics, such as ruthlessness, fearlessness, mental toughness,

00:00:44.220 self-confidence, coolness under pressure, emotional detachment.

00:00:47.960 They all sound pretty good. I mean, except for emotional detachment, they sound pretty good.

00:00:50.860 There are certain psychopathic characteristics that in the right context, in the right combinations,

00:00:57.040 at the right levels, with the right intentions, can predispose you to success and also benefit society.

00:01:03.820 So I did a survey called the Great Bridge Psychopath Survey.

00:01:07.860 And the survey was unique in the sense that what I wanted to find out was what were the most psychopathic professions in the UK.

00:01:16.340 Number one were CEOs.

00:01:18.060 Yep.

00:01:18.460 Yep.

00:01:18.760 Perhaps not surprisingly.

00:01:19.860 Number two...

00:01:21.820 Yes.

00:01:22.340 That is worrying.

00:01:23.220 That is worrying.

00:01:23.240 Yeah.

00:01:24.220 Let's do the test. 1.00

00:01:25.040 Let's find out if we're psychos and let's find out if you're a psycho and you're a psycho.

00:01:29.120 People can follow up with this test.

00:01:32.220 Yeah, you can feel the tension rising in here.

00:01:33.920 I surprise myself massively.

00:01:35.640 Well, narcissists will want to be the centre of attention because that is the end goal for them.

00:01:41.500 They want to be the centre of attention.

00:01:44.100 They want to be in the limelight.

00:01:45.480 A psychopath doesn't need to be the centre of attention for its own sake, but it's a means to an end for a psychopath.

00:01:53.060 So for a psychopath, being the centre of attention, being in the limelight, gives them access to power.

00:02:00.440 And if being the centre of attention is the primary way of getting that power, then that's what they will do.

00:02:11.500 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry.

00:02:19.400 I'm Francis Foster.

00:02:20.680 I'm Constantine Kissin.

00:02:21.820 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:02:27.040 Our brilliant guest today is a psychologist and best-selling author, Dr. Kevin Dutton.

00:02:31.180 Welcome to Trigonometry.

00:02:32.120 Thanks, Constantine.

00:02:33.140 Thanks, Francis.

00:02:34.120 I'll tell you what, you know, if you're one honest conversation, I don't know why you got me on.

00:02:37.880 No, well, you're the professor for the public.

00:02:41.500 We have a public understanding of psychology in Australia.

00:02:43.900 That's true.

00:02:44.460 So we would like to publicly understand psychology, which is exactly why we've got you on.

00:02:48.480 We'd also like to understand if either of us is a psychopath.

00:02:51.720 So we'll do that test later on.

00:02:54.040 I thought what you were going to say was you want to publicly understand Australia then.

00:02:58.360 That would be a challenge.

00:03:00.440 But welcome to the show.

00:03:01.980 For anyone who's not familiar with you, tell everybody who are you, how are you, where you are, what's been your journey through life?

00:03:07.860 Well, I'm Professor Kevin Dutton, as you say.

00:03:12.020 I am a psychologist, a research psychologist, research scientist.

00:03:17.660 And I originally started off studying the art of persuasion and social influence.

00:03:23.660 And I wrote a book called Flipnosis, like hypnosis, but flipnosis, the art of split second persuasion.

00:03:30.800 And in that book was a chapter on psychopaths, because in order to write the book, I spent the best part of a year hanging out with some of the world's top con artists.

00:03:45.600 So I'm not talking about, you know, you're people that do over old ladies' gas meters, but there used to be a show called Hustle on the BBC.

00:03:52.480 I remember it.

00:03:53.140 Not the real Hustle, but the drama with Adrian Lester.

00:03:56.160 And there really are teams of people that go around who are that good, right?

00:04:01.520 So I studied them.

00:04:04.020 So my research background, PhD, was in social influence and persuasion.

00:04:09.320 But I wanted to find out whether there was a kind of persuasion that was irresistible.

00:04:15.500 So a lot of people, before Flipnosis came out, thought that a lot of persuasion was very much about due process and negotiation.

00:04:23.720 You get it right as many times as you get it wrong.

00:04:27.440 But I heard a story about Winston Churchill.

00:04:32.940 Now, there's a lot of stories about Winston Churchill, a lot of which are apocryphal, but this one is true.

00:04:37.860 Which got me thinking about the art of persuasion, the science of social influence, in a very different way.

00:04:45.080 And the story went that one evening at the end of a lavish party for Commonwealth dignitaries in London,

00:04:51.920 Winston Churchill spots a fellow guest about to steal a solid silver salt seller from the table. 0.99

00:04:56.140 Now, caught on the one hand between the desire to avoid an undignified contractual and the equal and opposite desire on the other not to let the bastard get away with it. 0.97

00:05:04.800 What is Churchill to do? 0.94

00:05:05.780 Well, what he does is he picks up the matching silver pepper pot, puts it inside his own coat pocket, wanders over to the gentleman in question, takes it out,

00:05:13.380 sets it down on the table in front of them and whispers surreptitiously in his ear,

00:05:17.740 I think they've seen us, we'd better put the match.

00:05:21.260 Problem resolved simply elegantly and without any further ado.

00:05:24.700 Now, when I heard that story, I thought to myself, I wonder if persuasion is like that in theory all the time.

00:05:34.440 Is there a key to every situation that if we could somehow find it would resolve it, but 99% of the time we can't find it?

00:05:45.800 So flipnosis was about my search for that key.

00:05:50.960 And in order to do that, I interviewed lots and lots of different people, put together a lot of different research across social influence and persuasion.

00:06:01.020 And part of that, of course, involved interviewing and spending time with what I call the evil geniuses of persuasion. 0.73

00:06:07.820 So your world's top con artists who, unlike me as the boffin, have learned it all from first principles,

00:06:14.260 who've learned it all from the streets, from living on their wits.

00:06:17.280 And I wanted to know who knew more about persuasion.

00:06:19.920 Me, the boffin, the nerd, or them, the guys that, you know, basically, as I say, derived it from first principles.

00:06:25.260 It turned out it was a bit of a draw.

00:06:26.640 So I knew all the technical terms, but they knew how to do it.

00:06:30.300 And they are evil geniuses of persuasion. 0.99

00:06:33.040 Anyway, they were, all of them, without exception, psychopaths. 0.98

00:06:38.880 Now, you don't need to be violent to be a psychopath. 0.91

00:06:41.920 We'll come on to that in a minute.

00:06:43.360 But they just had no conscience, no remorse.

00:06:45.660 They were pretty ruthless.

00:06:46.740 And they could destroy people's lives, not by violence, but by fraud and deception.

00:06:51.780 And is that the definition of a psychopath, the willingness to inflict harm on other people for your own benefit without caring about it?

00:06:58.680 No, that's, no, no, that's more a sadist. 0.92

00:07:01.840 Now, you do get sadistic psychopaths.

00:07:04.360 But it's interesting, when people, when you hear the word psychopath, people instantly think of, in real life, serial killers like Ted Bundy.

00:07:13.300 And on the silver screen, of course, your Hannibal Lectures.

00:07:16.560 But actually, Constantine, when psychologists like myself talk about psychopaths,

00:07:19.840 we're in fact referring to a distinct subset of individuals with a specific constellation of personality characteristics,

00:07:27.260 such as ruthlessness, fearlessness, mental toughness, self-confidence, coolness under pressure, emotional detachment.

00:07:35.300 They all sound pretty good.

00:07:36.140 I mean, except for emotional detachment, they sound pretty good.

00:07:38.440 Yeah.

00:07:38.780 Well, you have focus, charm, charisma.

00:07:41.640 Right.

00:07:41.840 And, of course, those trademark deficits, though, in conscience and empathy that you hear so much about.

00:07:46.300 Now, you've put your finger on it.

00:07:48.400 None of those traits is necessarily a problem in itself.

00:07:50.680 In fact, all of them dialled up at the right levels and deployed within the right context can actually prove rather useful.

00:07:56.880 The key lies in context and level.

00:07:59.660 So let me explain that, because this is crucial.

00:08:01.600 Imagine, for example, that the qualities that I've just told you about comprise the hodgepodge of knobs and sliders on a personality mixing desk, OK?

00:08:11.680 So if you twiddle them up and down in various combinations, you're going to arrive at two conclusions.

00:08:17.180 The first is that there is no one-size-fits-all objectively correct setting at which those dials may be positioned,

00:08:23.160 but rather it will invariably depend on timing upon a particular set of circumstances you might happen to find yourself in.

00:08:29.880 The second is that, by its very nature, there are going to be certain jobs or professions are going to demand that some of those mixing desk stars be turned up just a little bit higher than average,

00:08:41.560 demand what I call some precision-engineered psychopathy.

00:08:45.040 So let me give you an example.

00:08:47.580 Imagine you've got the skill set to be a top surgeon, right, but that you lack the ability to emotionally disengage from the person you're operating on.

00:08:55.440 You're not going to cut it, are you?

00:08:56.800 Well, actually, quite literally.

00:08:59.000 Yeah, quite literally.

00:09:01.320 Imagine you've got the skill set to be a top lawyer, but you lack the almost pathological self-confidence to be the centre of attention in the middle of a packed courtroom,

00:09:09.160 that narcissism to be the big shot in front of a jury.

00:09:13.060 Again, it's not going to work, is it?

00:09:14.680 Imagine you've got the strategic and financial smarts to be a top business person,

00:09:20.480 but that you lack the ruthlessness to fire someone if they're underperforming or the coolness under pressure to ride out a storm or the sheer balls necessary to take a calculated risk when appropriate.

00:09:31.740 Now, those characteristics I've just outlined here, ruthlessness, fearlessness, self-confidence, coolness under pressure and emotional detachment, as you rightly say, Constantine, comprise five core characteristics of the psychopathic personality.

00:09:44.360 I certainly wouldn't say they were dysfunctional in those contexts.

00:09:49.040 I don't know about you, but I certainly wouldn't.

00:09:51.480 And that's the key.

00:09:53.020 When flipnosis came out about the conmen, about the rules of persuasion, was there a DNA of persuasion that would make examples like the Churchill kind of story available to all of us?

00:10:08.500 Were we all capable of doing that kind of thing?

00:10:10.380 Could we all find the key? 0.97

00:10:12.280 When that book came out, obviously, I was, you know, talking to a lot of the top con artists, and they were all psychopaths.

00:10:19.300 And there was a chapter in that book called Natural Born Persuaders, which was all about how psychopaths are better at persuading in general than the rest of us.

00:10:30.660 They've got that charm, that charisma, but also they're not caught up in the emotion of persuasion.

00:10:36.260 They're not caught up in that heat and light.

00:10:37.740 You know, they're not involved in it, which enables them to be able to stand back dispassionately and kind of almost move you around the court of social influence like a top tennis player.

00:10:49.720 And it was that chapter when the book came out for review that all the reviewers kind of zoned in on.

00:10:58.640 And they said, well, if psychopaths are better at persuasion than the rest of us, then what else are they good at?

00:11:04.740 And it was then that that chapter then I didn't actually think there was enough for a book on psychopaths.

00:11:11.940 But it was my agent that said, I think there may well be a book on psychopaths here because of the work I was doing at the time.

00:11:19.080 And I, as a writer, you know, you have to sometimes when you get an idea, you have to work out, is this a full book or is it like a 5,000 word Sunday supplement article?

00:11:28.600 And I actually thought it was a 5,000 word Sunday supplement article, but he persuaded me, I think there might be more in it than that.

00:11:34.860 And it turned out there was, there was a heck of a lot more in it than that.

00:11:39.620 And it turns out the psychopaths are very good at a lot of things.

00:11:44.240 But when the book came out, of course, a lot of people at the time thought it was very controversial.

00:11:50.160 And that's because they didn't know what a psychopath really was.

00:11:53.340 They'd looked at Hannibal Lecter, they'd seen it all on the media, and they thought all psychopaths were rapists, serial killers and suicide bombers.

00:11:58.820 So that was the first reason the book was controversial.

00:12:02.620 The general public didn't really know what a psychopath was.

00:12:05.320 And secondly, the clinicians, the medical experts, couldn't countenance the possibility that there could possibly be benefits to psychopathic characteristics at large.

00:12:19.000 Because, of course, it makes sense.

00:12:20.540 You know, the only psychopaths they had seen were the bad ones that had been referred to them from forensic or clinical settings.

00:12:26.640 So, you know, by the very nature of their job, they weren't going to meet the top surgeons or the special forces soldiers or the CEOs or the people that I'd met.

00:12:37.540 I'd met the bad ones, but I'd also met the good ones.

00:12:40.800 So when that book came out, that's when I think it's still, to my knowledge, the only book that argues that actually there are benefits to psychopathic characteristics.

00:12:52.860 And I think it took a while, but I think most people now would agree that I've won the argument.

00:13:00.740 I think most of my peers, there's always going to be some disagreement, but at the time it was very much like a punk theory with like a Mohican and spiky hair and, you know, ripped jeans and all the like, you know, all that kind of thing.

00:13:11.320 Now I say it's like, it's a theory that's settled into the comfortable middle age with pipe and slippers and sitting by the fire.

00:13:17.260 But it's still a bit anarchic.

00:13:19.320 Broadway's smash hit, the Neil Diamond musical, A Beautiful Noise, is coming to Toronto.

00:13:25.060 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more, featuring all the songs you love, including America, Forever in Blue Jeans and Sweet Caroline.

00:13:34.320 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here.

00:13:38.400 The Neil Diamond musical, A Beautiful Noise.

00:13:41.140 Now through June 7th, 2026 at the Princess of Wales Theatre.

00:13:45.060 Get tickets at Mervish.com.

00:13:48.580 Well, right, you came up with the concept of the good psychopath.

00:13:51.880 But the reason I asked you about the willingness to inflict harm is you said no remorse.

00:13:56.500 These con men you'd interviewed had no, is that an important definitional quality of a psychopath?

00:14:02.700 It is, yeah.

00:14:03.700 So it's ability to do something that other people may not like and not care.

00:14:08.000 Absolutely right.

00:14:08.660 Now, if we're looking at it in terms of bad psychopaths, you could say, yes, no remorse can be used, obviously, to inflict great harm.

00:14:16.520 And we can see it, you know, we don't need to look very far to see that in society on both the local and the world stage.

00:14:22.980 But if we look at it in terms of, say, good psychopathy, we can see that in utilitarianism.

00:14:30.200 So the ability to make really tough decisions, which not a lot of people might be able to make.

00:14:36.660 But actually, the people who are able to dial those dials up and down on the mixing desk are able to handle.

00:14:45.600 So when the wisdom of psychopaths came out, people, you know, who were, you know, the haters, as it were, were saying, Dutton's trying to, you know, glamorize psychopaths.

00:14:56.820 Actually, I wasn't trying to glamorize psychopaths at all.

00:14:59.640 What I was saying is that there are certain psychopathic characteristics that in the right context, in the right combinations, at the right levels, and, Constantine, to answer your question, with the right intentions, can predispose you to success and also benefit society.

00:15:16.480 And so rather than trying to glamorize psychopaths, where the argument started to turn was when I turned it around on people and said, I'm not trying to glamorize psychopaths at all.

00:15:25.840 But perhaps what you're trying to do is stigmatize them.

00:15:30.200 Because actually, you know, the way, if you start from the premise that psychopathy is a psychological or psychiatric disorder, how many other disorders would you talk about like that?

00:15:42.940 You wouldn't talk about people with depression like that, or anxiety like that, or Asperger's like that, or ASPD, attentional hyper deficit disorder like that, or schizophrenia like that.

00:15:56.360 ADD, that's what I was trying to think of, or ASPD is antisocial personality disorder, which is, people often confuse that with psychopaths.

00:16:02.920 You wouldn't talk about any other psychological condition like that.

00:16:08.000 So why are you talking about psychopaths like that?

00:16:11.120 Why are you saying that they are all bad?

00:16:13.700 You are, in a sense, stigmatizing the surgeon that might well save your life.

00:16:18.280 He might not be the most empathic person you've ever met in your life.

00:16:21.520 He may be an arrogant narcissist, but actually he might just be the guy that's cool enough under pressure, and he's able to take the risk to remove that, the appropriate risk to remove that life-threatening tumor.

00:16:34.080 So when people started saying, I'm glamorizing psychopaths, I kind of subtly changed and said, I think what you're doing is stigmatizing them. 0.53

00:16:43.640 And that was the kind of pivot where the argument started to change a little bit, I think.

00:16:48.360 In order to reach an elite level at any profession, whether it's sport, whether it's performing, politics, medicine, do you need to be a psychopath or have very high psychopathic traits?

00:17:02.380 I think in a lot of cases, yeah.

00:17:04.080 I mean, it's really interesting.

00:17:05.880 So I brought along a few years ago when I was writing Wisdom of Psychopaths, I did a survey called the Great British Psychopath Survey.

00:17:13.700 And the survey was unique in the sense that what I wanted to find out was what were the most psychopathic professions in the UK.

00:17:23.140 So I was on a radio show, and we decided to launch this on a radio show.

00:17:26.460 Now, the survey wasn't done very scientifically because I didn't actually think it was going to be that big, but it turned out it was quite big indeed.

00:17:34.040 And so what I did, I said to people, right, here's a little test, and we might do this test on you guys.

00:17:40.240 We will.

00:17:40.860 Okay.

00:17:41.900 To find out where you are on the psychopathic spectrum.

00:17:44.300 But what I would also like you to do is just jot down your occupation.

00:17:47.280 So what I wanted to do was I wanted to correlate occupations with psychopathy levels.

00:17:54.120 And it became known as the Great British Psychopath Survey.

00:17:57.560 And the results are really interesting.

00:18:01.440 Man of comedian number one.

00:18:02.520 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:18:06.840 Yeah.

00:18:08.700 So you will be very grateful to know that stand-up comedians aren't in here.

00:18:14.160 But that's because...

00:18:15.560 There's not enough of them around.

00:18:16.700 Yeah.

00:18:17.560 To be statistically valid, you've got to have enough people saying that.

00:18:23.180 That's why politics aren't in here.

00:18:25.220 People are obviously going to say, well, what about politicians?

00:18:28.440 Well...

00:18:28.800 Of the common professions.

00:18:30.220 Yeah, that's right.

00:18:30.920 These are the top ones.

00:18:31.760 A friend of mine always talks about politicians and says, you know, actually, of course, well,

00:18:36.460 even I say, you know, in order to be, you know, if you're going to be a politician, any

00:18:41.720 kind of politician is going to be pretty high on the psychopathic spectrum, even the ones

00:18:44.800 you think are nice.

00:18:45.740 Yeah.

00:18:46.540 And a friend of mine says the key is in the word politics.

00:18:49.140 It's derived from two words, poly, the ancient Greek meaning many, and tics being

00:18:53.460 blood-sucking insects.

00:18:54.260 So anyway, but anyway, back to the survey. 0.91

00:18:58.500 Yes.

00:18:58.800 Number one were CEOs.

00:19:01.640 Yep.

00:19:02.040 Yep.

00:19:02.360 Perhaps not surprisingly.

00:19:03.440 Number two, lawyers.

00:19:05.120 Yep.

00:19:06.280 Number three, media, TV, radio.

00:19:08.440 Yep.

00:19:08.680 That's not such a big surprise, actually, because it's a very cutthroat world.

00:19:12.220 Currency is ideas.

00:19:13.380 It's very easy to nick ideas.

00:19:14.900 And a lot of times you're in a state of flux.

00:19:17.620 Things are in a state of flux.

00:19:18.660 You've got to think quickly.

00:19:20.180 Salespeople, perhaps not surprisingly.

00:19:21.700 Surgeons were number five.

00:19:23.100 Surgeons are really interesting, actually, because I did a talk once, and I presented

00:19:30.860 this table, and there was a surgeon in the audience who came up to me afterwards, and

00:19:36.260 he said, Kev, I've got no doubt that actually surgeons are in there, but I think actually

00:19:42.600 you could be a bit more nuanced here, because there are now, I think there's about 12 or

00:19:46.660 13 different sub-disciplines of surgery within the surgery bracket.

00:19:50.960 And he said, I think you might find that some brackets might be higher than others.

00:19:58.280 And we were going to run a study to find out whether that was the case.

00:20:03.520 But various things got in the way, COVID being one of them.

00:20:06.600 We may well do this next year.

00:20:08.260 But his hypothesis, his hunch, was that the three surgical disciplines that would be most

00:20:17.780 on the psychopathic spectrum would be neurosurgery, cardiothoracic, and orthopedic surgery.

00:20:25.220 Orthopedic surgery is pretty brutal.

00:20:27.240 If you've seen orthopedic surgeons at work, they have to really do some pretty nasty things

00:20:31.220 to me.

00:20:31.400 You know, whenever you see those, you know, I have 24 hours in A&E, and you've got someone

00:20:34.740 with a broken bone, they've got to kind of twist that, you know, even though the person's

00:20:39.600 under an anesthetic, local anesthetic, but they're still feeling it.

00:20:42.480 You've got to be able to do that.

00:20:43.920 That's not, you know, not everybody can do that.

00:20:46.620 But he reckoned that neurosurgery, cardiothoracic, and orthopedic surgery would be the top three.

00:20:52.860 Neurosurgery is very interesting because neurosurgery, you've got, it's the only branch of surgery

00:21:00.460 where if you make a mistake in the brain, you could leave a person permanently disabled

00:21:06.800 or blind or incapacitated or kill them, of course.

00:21:11.060 But in terms of like leaving the kind of the corollaries of invalidity that you could leave

00:21:20.120 a person in, if an operation doesn't go well, there's no other branch of surgery really like

00:21:25.260 that.

00:21:26.100 And the, you know, margins of error between crucial capillaries is very, very small.

00:21:34.320 So that's when you're, cardiothoracic surgery, obviously, and orthopedics.

00:21:39.960 I spoke to one surgeon when I was writing Wisdom of Psychopaths, and I said, well, you know,

00:21:44.340 what is the, what's the big difference between people that are great in surgery and people

00:21:51.760 who are just merely good?

00:21:53.760 And he had no hesitation.

00:21:55.940 I've spoken to other surgeons about this.

00:21:57.320 No hesitation talking.

00:21:58.540 And he answered straight away.

00:21:59.340 He said, it's the ability to make a crucial decision under pressure.

00:22:02.880 It's not technical ability.

00:22:05.100 A lot of consultant surgeons will admit that actually the people who are studying under them,

00:22:09.940 some of the junior surgeons are actually technically better.

00:22:12.280 But it's the ability to make a tough call under pressure.

00:22:16.440 It's decision making that separates out the top surgeons from the surgeons that aren't

00:22:22.160 so great.

00:22:24.380 Interesting, just coming back to lawyers who are number two, and then I'll go through the

00:22:27.080 rest of the list.

00:22:29.000 It's really interesting.

00:22:30.020 So lawyers, I'd interviewed a lawyer when I was writing Flipnosis, which was the book

00:22:35.220 prior to Wisdom of Psychopaths.

00:22:37.660 And again, it was the same question.

00:22:38.880 What's the difference between a great lawyer and a good lawyer?

00:22:40.560 And this guy was a pupil master, which is basically like, he ran his own chambers in central

00:22:48.860 London.

00:22:50.620 And the chambers, it was like a teaching hospital only in law.

00:22:55.140 These are chambers where people come in from, you know, your universities with your first

00:22:58.660 class degrees in law to learn how to be a barrister.

00:23:01.560 So he said, well, Kev, he said, you know, people that come into the chambers, he said,

00:23:08.440 they're all the top people from, you know, your top universities.

00:23:11.640 He said, so the ability to get your head around a crucial case very, very quickly, all the detailed

00:23:18.660 nuances of it.

00:23:19.660 That's a given.

00:23:20.420 That's just entry level.

00:23:21.780 Having like a photographic memory.

00:23:23.240 Again, same thing.

00:23:25.220 He said, high intelligence, obviously.

00:23:28.320 He said, but the one thing that separates out a great lawyer from a good lawyer is something

00:23:31.700 you really can't teach.

00:23:33.540 And he said, it's the ability to tell a story naturally.

00:23:37.620 And he said, I'll never forget this.

00:23:39.600 And this is really interesting.

00:23:40.560 This is, again, why psychopaths are very good at persuasion.

00:23:44.820 He said, you know what?

00:23:46.120 He said, information travels around the brain like electricity around a circuit takes the

00:23:51.560 path of least resistance.

00:23:53.760 So if you and I come up against each other in court and the jury's over there and you

00:23:59.080 are able to present the pieces, the facts of the case, you are able to arrange them in

00:24:04.740 a format that makes them travel around the brains of the jury faster than my arrangement,

00:24:09.720 you're going to win.

00:24:11.220 Whether you're right or wrong, that's the way it works.

00:24:14.480 So that was, so you can see why lawyers are number two.

00:24:18.420 You can see why surgeons are number five.

00:24:21.800 Journalists, number six.

00:24:24.560 The police, number seven.

00:24:26.420 That's not too surprising.

00:24:28.880 Actually, you know, some police work, you know, you've got to be pretty tough.

00:24:35.820 You've got to, you know, you've got to, you know, some, you know, when you're on a front

00:24:39.120 line or you're investigating certain things, you've got to be, you know, you can't be a shrinking

00:24:42.520 violet really in the police.

00:24:43.600 There's a lot of evidence to show that people that work in so-called hero professions, which

00:24:48.960 are police, the ambulance and the emergency services, and the military are higher on the

00:24:53.540 psychopathic spectrum than the general population.

00:24:57.240 Now, I'll skip eight because we'll come back to eight.

00:24:59.140 Number nine is chefs.

00:25:01.820 That is worrying.

00:25:03.920 But again, if you think, you know, high pressure, closed environment, you've got a lot of heat,

00:25:08.820 you've got a lot of pressure.

00:25:09.740 You've got a team to manage.

00:25:10.740 You've got to, absolutely right.

00:25:12.200 That's one, yep.

00:25:12.960 Exactly so, chefs.

00:25:14.220 And number 10, this is why the surveys kind of fell down a little bit, civil servants.

00:25:17.680 So that's a catch-all.

00:25:18.820 That could be anything.

00:25:19.540 But that's because, because I didn't think it was going to fly.

00:25:22.140 The categories of professions weren't that great.

00:25:24.300 I have run an experiment again, get more results next year.

00:25:27.820 And a couple of million people filled it out online.

00:25:31.140 So we'll have a proper look at this next year.

00:25:33.740 But we'll come back to number eight.

00:25:35.560 Number eight, the clergy, church people.

00:25:38.320 You didn't expect that, did you?

00:25:40.480 Now, I didn't at the time.

00:25:43.220 In hindsight, a few years have passed now since this came out.

00:25:47.860 In hindsight, it's not that surprising because a lot of scandals have come out about the church.

00:25:52.600 Also, the church, the more I've looked into it, it's just like pretty much any other business.

00:25:59.720 And it involves power over people.

00:26:01.820 There is an uncontroversial phrase.

00:26:04.100 The church is like any other business.

00:26:05.900 Well, it is.

00:26:06.420 Well, I'll tell you something even more chilling, Constantine.

00:26:09.200 I mean, there was a church person, quite an eminent church person who I interviewed once.

00:26:15.080 And he turned around to me and he said one of the most chilling things anyone had ever said to me.

00:26:19.600 And he says, Kev, I don't believe in God.

00:26:22.840 I'm just good at him.

00:26:24.560 Now, that is chilling.

00:26:25.960 I don't believe in God.

00:26:27.380 I'm just good at him.

00:26:28.800 Now, that is pretty awful.

00:26:30.980 Now, I'm not digging church people out because, of course, there's always rotten apples in every barrel.

00:26:35.100 But that was a pretty chilling thing.

00:26:37.220 If you can manipulate God so that allows you to have power over other people, that's pretty psychopathic.

00:26:44.860 And, of course, you know, like I said, it is church.

00:26:46.820 It's like any other business, there's power hierarchies, there's all kinds of things.

00:26:50.860 And you're going to go up the ladder using the techniques that you would use in any other business.

00:26:54.520 If you happen to be good at God, then you're going to get up there. 0.97

00:26:57.080 The world is run by psychopaths. 0.99

00:26:59.080 Well, God himself is pretty much a psychopath. 0.98

00:27:00.700 If you look at the Old Testament, you know, all that kind of fire and brimstone and all that. 0.94

00:27:04.580 And, you know, I think if I, maybe I will, maybe if I were to profile God.

00:27:09.120 I think St. Paul I profiled.

00:27:14.900 So, a bit of background on that.

00:27:17.040 So, obviously, spending years at University of Oxford and Cambridge, I was surrounded by some of the world's top biographers of famous historical personages.

00:27:25.600 And I've often been fascinated by psychopaths in history and wondered how, you know, famous historical personages might fare on the psychopathic spectrum.

00:27:36.780 So, it dawned on me that actually biographers of famous people, famous historical people, obviously know these people almost, well, I would say virtually better than they know themselves.

00:27:49.920 So, I thought if I gave them a specially validated psychometric questionnaire, which is developed to detect psychopathy, not in forensic populations, but in members of the general public, there's different tests for that, and got them to fill it out on behalf of their subjects, not on behalf of themselves, but on behalf of their subjects, we'd probably get a very accurate portrayal of where certain people featured on the psychopathic spectrum.

00:28:16.420 And St. Paul was actually quite high on the psychopathic spectrum, the founder of Western Christianity. 1.00

00:28:25.000 Before he turned into stained glass, St. Paul was a ruthless bastard. 0.98

00:28:30.040 I mean, he basically was guilty of genocide, of course, you know, he was, before the road to Damascus, he was persecuting Christians in large numbers. 0.99

00:28:39.700 So, St. Paul himself, the founder of Western Christianity, is very high on the psychopathic spectrum.

00:28:46.220 Mate, he's at the gates of heaven.

00:28:48.200 Huh?

00:28:48.580 He's at the gates of heaven, St. Paul.

00:28:50.160 He's got the keys.

00:28:51.000 No, that's St. Peter.

00:28:52.240 Oh, that's the one.

00:28:52.900 Sorry, St. Peter.

00:28:53.900 Psychopaths don't sense.

00:28:54.460 What kind of Catholic are you?

00:28:56.560 Psychopaths don't have very good memories.

00:28:59.440 Well, speaking of that.

00:29:00.140 Well, you've basically, you've just kicked yourself out of heaven there.

00:29:03.740 Yeah, that is true.

00:29:05.120 Listen, if you don't know the guy on the door, mate, you're never getting in.

00:29:07.700 He wasn't going there anyway.

00:29:09.440 Exactly, yeah.

00:29:10.060 But, Kevin, on that happy note, why don't we find out, can people follow along with this test that we're going to do for us at home?

00:29:15.460 Oh, yeah, you want to do a test?

00:29:16.200 Yeah, sure.

00:29:16.520 Yeah, let's do the test.

00:29:17.360 Yeah.

00:29:17.920 Let's do the test. 1.00

00:29:18.700 Let's find out if we're psychos, and let's find out if you're a psycho, and you're a psycho. 0.57

00:29:22.800 People can follow up with this test. 0.78

00:29:25.720 They can play along as we go along.

00:29:27.220 Do we need to make notes on our phone?

00:29:28.700 You do.

00:29:29.300 So, what you're going to need, you're going to need a piece of paper, or a mobile phone, you've got it there, well done.

00:29:33.640 Because what you're going to do is you're going to score.

00:29:37.340 I'm going to read you out 11 items, okay?

00:29:40.260 11 simple items.

00:29:41.600 And these items all hypothetically describe you as a person, okay?

00:29:47.420 And what you're going to do, you are going to score each item according to how accurate a description you think this is of you, okay?

00:29:55.880 And you're going to do it according to the following scoring key, okay?

00:29:59.800 It's a four-point scale going from zero to three.

00:30:04.660 Okay.

00:30:04.920 If you strongly disagree that the statement describes you, strongly disagree, give yourself zero, right?

00:30:11.920 If you disagree, give yourself one.

00:30:15.440 If you agree, give yourself two.

00:30:17.780 And if you strongly agree, give yourself three.

00:30:20.020 So, it goes from zero strongly disagree, one disagree, two agree, three strongly agree, okay?

00:30:26.500 And I'm going to read through them.

00:30:27.620 You're going to score it as we go along, right?

00:30:29.420 Number one, I rarely plan ahead, I'm a spur-of-the-moment kind of person.

00:30:36.780 I rarely plan ahead, I'm a spur-of-the-moment kind of person.

00:30:40.680 So, zero strongly disagree, just to recap.

00:30:43.080 One disagree, two agree, three strongly agree.

00:30:46.100 Number two, cheating on your partner is okay so long as you don't get caught.

00:30:51.440 Now, whenever I do this with students in universities in large numbers, this is always the one where people are looking over their shoulders, seeing what the other person says.

00:31:00.860 Cheating on your partner is okay so long as you don't get caught.

00:31:02.700 Number three, if something better comes along, it's okay to cancel a long-standing appointment.

00:31:10.940 If something better comes along, it's okay to cancel a long-standing appointment.

00:31:13.600 Number four, seeing an animal injured or in pain doesn't bother me in the slightest.

00:31:23.920 Number five, driving fast cars, riding roller coasters and skydiving appeal to me.

00:31:34.560 Number six, it doesn't matter to me if I have to step on others to get what I want.

00:31:40.080 Number seven, I'm very persuasive.

00:31:46.360 I have a talent for getting other people to do what I want.

00:31:51.560 Number eight, I'd be good in a dangerous job because I can make my mind up quickly.

00:31:56.900 Don't think too long about that one.

00:32:00.720 Number nine, I find it easy to keep it together when others are cracking under pressure.

00:32:10.080 Number 10, if you're able to con someone, hey, that's their problem.

00:32:14.980 They deserve it.

00:32:19.180 And the final one, number 11, most of the time when things go wrong, somebody else's fault, not mine.

00:32:25.640 Don't pin it on me.

00:32:27.800 Right, so 11 items.

00:32:29.860 You should have 11 numbers on a page there.

00:32:32.760 Gentlemen, I want you to top that up and come to a grand total.

00:32:36.760 Don't say what it is yet.

00:32:37.940 Got the total there, Francis?

00:32:40.680 Not yet, I think.

00:32:41.880 Okay.

00:32:43.520 I can see why you never got the job on Countdown, mate.

00:32:48.720 You got yours, Constantine?

00:32:51.020 Got yours, Francis?

00:32:52.400 All right.

00:32:52.840 Now, I'm going to go through, for the folks at home, I'm going to go through what this,

00:32:57.940 the little key on the spectrum so you can see where you score.

00:33:01.360 What we should say at this point is we're not diagnosing anyone here, all right?

00:33:05.100 This is just a general indication of where you are on the psychopathic spectrum.

00:33:08.860 It's quite accurate, but it's just not, we're not diagnosing.

00:33:12.160 Right, 0 to 11, you are low on the psychopathic spectrum.

00:33:18.080 Have either of you scored 0 to 11?

00:33:20.240 No.

00:33:20.740 No.

00:33:21.040 All right, okay.

00:33:23.080 Look at your face.

00:33:24.440 Look at him.

00:33:24.800 You can just see he's itching to go here, isn't he? 0.56

00:33:27.640 Right, 12 to 17, you are below average on the psychopathic spectrum.

00:33:33.100 You're the first down.

00:33:33.920 What did you score?

00:33:34.540 I've got to score 17.

00:33:35.800 17.

00:33:36.460 That's on the high end of that.

00:33:38.280 That's the border between below average and average, which is 18 to 22.

00:33:43.820 Which is me.

00:33:44.800 Oh, you're in there, are you?

00:33:45.900 Okay, what are you?

00:33:46.540 19.

00:33:47.420 19?

00:33:47.880 I surprise myself massively.

00:33:49.560 Oh, do you know what?

00:33:50.640 I think, was Piers Morgan 18 or 19?

00:33:53.140 I think Piers might have been 18 or 19.

00:33:55.000 Well, I'm more psychopathic than Piers Morgan.

00:33:56.860 Well, I don't know. 1.00

00:33:57.680 Jesus fucking Christ. 0.99

00:33:58.900 I think you might be one point higher. 1.00

00:34:01.580 So 18 to 22 is average.

00:34:04.800 So I'm average.

00:34:05.760 You're average, yeah.

00:34:06.920 Yeah, you can feel the tension rising.

00:34:09.540 23, or you would do anyway for people that are playing on at home.

00:34:13.900 It'd be interesting if people send their scores in, actually.

00:34:15.680 I don't know if they have facility that.

00:34:16.560 Yeah, yeah.

00:34:17.660 People can post their scores on our locals.

00:34:19.600 And also maybe what they do for a living would be quite good, actually.

00:34:22.160 Yeah, so 18 to 22 is average.

00:34:24.140 23 to 28 is high.

00:34:26.760 And 29 to 33, which is obviously quite rare, is very high.

00:34:32.440 So that's a very simple test of where you might feature on the psychopathic spectrum.

00:34:38.360 Very good.

00:34:39.260 Did you do it?

00:34:40.600 No, no.

00:34:41.220 All right.

00:34:41.980 He did.

00:34:42.620 He was 32.

00:34:44.100 He was 32.

00:34:45.560 So there we go.

00:34:46.220 But you can see, yeah.

00:34:47.480 I mean, but also, as I say, when people talk about psychopaths, they, you know, you need

00:34:52.280 to know what a psychopath is.

00:34:53.460 So it doesn't mean to say you're going to become an axe.

00:34:55.180 If you do score high, it doesn't mean to say you're going to be an axe murderer or anything

00:34:58.380 like that.

00:34:58.900 It just depends on what you do for a living.

00:35:01.660 I mean, you know, I know quite a few special forces soldiers who are very high on the psychopathic

00:35:05.420 spectrum, surgeons as well.

00:35:07.000 It just depends.

00:35:07.500 I mean, there are some situations.

00:35:08.520 I mean, you were asking a question earlier, actually, France, about, which I still probably

00:35:13.320 haven't quite answered, and that is, like, in order to be good at anything, do you need

00:35:18.040 to be high on the psychopathic spectrum?

00:35:20.280 Well, not everything.

00:35:21.520 I mean, it depends what, obviously, it is.

00:35:23.620 Probably not child-rearing.

00:35:24.840 Yeah, well, no, exactly right.

00:35:25.880 If you're parents, exactly right.

00:35:27.300 But, I mean, let's say something really interesting, like sport, for instance.

00:35:31.540 Now, in order to be, you know, an Olympic champion or a world champion in any sport, you're

00:35:39.600 going to need to be pretty high on the psychopathic spectrum.

00:35:42.020 Even the nicest people, people, I always use an example like Roger Federer, right?

00:35:46.140 So, Roger Federer, one of the nicest guys, you know.

00:35:48.440 But, actually, if you look at a lot of his early games when he was starting off, he would

00:35:53.120 quite often lose the first set and then come back and win 3-1 while he was actually dissecting

00:35:58.460 the person's game.

00:35:59.780 He was looking for the weak spots, like a predator playing with prey.

00:36:03.940 And then he would dismantle that person.

00:36:07.280 Now, I would say, you know, obviously a very, very nice guy in Roger Federer.

00:36:10.640 But were he to behave like he behaves on, say, Centre Court in Wimbledon or in Flushing

00:36:17.040 Meadow, you know, were he behaved like that in everyday life, you know, smashing and slicing

00:36:24.180 his opponents into oblivion, he'd soon find himself in a very different kind of court,

00:36:28.420 right?

00:36:28.720 So, in order, when you get at the higher echelons of sport, talent is often quite similar.

00:36:37.260 It then comes down to how badly you want it, how ruthless you are, whether you are prepared

00:36:44.100 to push yourself into the black, into the darkness, to really go for it.

00:36:48.580 And I think it was actually another tennis player, John McEnroe, said that, you know,

00:36:52.080 in order to be number one at anything, the world has got to revolve around you.

00:36:56.720 Because if it doesn't, then, you know, your opponent, if it revolves more around your opponent

00:37:03.000 than it revolves around on you, he's going to come out or she's going to come out on top. 0.82

00:37:07.720 There's a lovely story about Sebastian Coe, the athlete, back in the 1980s,

00:37:13.940 when Great Britain were fantastic at middle distance running, one of his big rivals was

00:37:20.760 Steve Ovette, who many of your listeners will remember the Coe-Ovette rivalry of the early

00:37:25.820 80s.

00:37:27.180 And Seb Coe was having Christmas dinner in his parents' house in Sheffield one day.

00:37:35.000 And he'd just done a seven-mile run, very hilly run in the morning.

00:37:39.640 And it was an icy wind outside and absolutely awful weather.

00:37:43.940 And he was, like, nodding off by the fire after a big Christmas turkey and dinner and

00:37:47.580 all that.

00:37:48.000 And he suddenly had a very uneasy feeling.

00:37:50.200 It was in the build-up to the, I think it was the Moscow Olympics or maybe the LA Olympics

00:37:54.600 in 84.

00:37:55.600 And he had this very uneasy feeling that actually Steve, his big rival Steve Ovette, might well

00:38:01.400 have gone out and done a second session that day.

00:38:03.760 And it was beginning to prey on his mind.

00:38:06.100 And so he thought, I can't let it rest.

00:38:08.480 So, you know, last thing he wanted to do, moved away from the fire, got his kit on and

00:38:13.040 went out and did another seven miles in the icy wind and all that.

00:38:16.520 Anyway, many years later, he met Steve Ovette at a big function and Olympic dinner.

00:38:22.400 The two are very good friends now.

00:38:23.680 And he told Steve Ovette the story.

00:38:25.720 And Ovette's response was, oh, you only went out twice on Christmas Day.

00:38:28.460 So, you know, you've got to have that.

00:38:31.320 It's a lovely story and a true one.

00:38:32.780 You know, you've got to have that ruthlessness.

00:38:35.040 Everything's got to focus around you.

00:38:37.220 And I think this is really interesting, actually.

00:38:39.380 I think when people, when you hear people say, you know, parents or cultural leaders say,

00:38:45.500 you know, role models for our kids should be, you know, your Andy Murray's or your Steve

00:38:53.040 Redgraves or, you know, your really top sports people like that.

00:38:56.380 But actually, there's an element of real pathology in being a top level sport.

00:39:01.920 And that's in no way, you know, detracting from your Redgraves and your Murray's and your

00:39:05.380 Federer's and, you know, your Tyson Fury's.

00:39:07.800 But you have to have that tunnel vision, that single mindedness, that ruthless pursuit of

00:39:13.620 excellence to be up there.

00:39:15.460 And what that does is it doesn't, in a lot of cases, make you the most rounded of individuals.

00:39:21.260 So when we kind of, you know, say that we want to, you know, our kids should have those

00:39:28.720 kinds of aspirations, be careful what you're wishing for.

00:39:32.140 And it's funny that you should tell that story about Seb Coe because, of course, famously

00:39:35.320 after his athletic career, he became a politician.

00:39:37.780 He did indeed.

00:39:38.700 He did.

00:39:39.520 He did indeed.

00:39:40.640 That's right.

00:39:41.180 Yeah, yeah.

00:39:42.540 Yeah, I've done a couple of talks with Seb Coe.

00:39:45.500 He's a very, very bright and polished guy, you know.

00:39:50.760 Well, no doubt.

00:39:51.740 But which brings me to a question that I think is very interesting, which is, is this why

00:39:56.900 psychopaths, we have psychopaths that they've, we've evolved in societies where we have a

00:40:04.460 certain number of psychopaths because it's useful to have them.

00:40:07.420 We need, you know, now it's athletes, but in the past they would have been warriors and

00:40:11.660 leaders and tribe chiefs and all that.

00:40:15.000 I think that's right.

00:40:15.560 If we go back in evolutionary time, when we were living in small groups on the East

00:40:20.200 African savannah, you know, people who were ruthless warriors were obviously going to 1.00

00:40:26.220 be in high demand.

00:40:28.260 People who were able to infiltrate other groups and perhaps get information out of other groups

00:40:35.560 were also going to be in high demand as well.

00:40:38.300 So, and also expert hunters and predators were going to be in high demand as well.

00:40:43.000 So, those kinds of ruthless and fearless psychopathic traits, it's not difficult to see how they

00:40:48.600 may well have evolved.

00:40:49.780 And also the ability to persuade, to reduce conflict and trouble in a group without getting

00:40:56.100 caught up in the heat and light of the emotion itself.

00:40:58.660 You can see how that might have evolved.

00:41:00.400 And all these characteristics exactly are, you know, still, we've still got pretty much

00:41:04.380 the same brains now as we had back in those days.

00:41:06.640 So, you can see how those traits are still valuable today.

00:41:11.440 So, you're absolutely right, Constantine.

00:41:13.020 That's why these characteristics are still knocking around.

00:41:15.060 But there's a much more prosaic answer to that question as well.

00:41:17.580 And that is by their risk-averse nature, sorry, their less risk-averse nature, psychopaths 0.75

00:41:26.600 are more promiscuous.

00:41:27.360 So, there's a lot more psychopathic genes knocking around than there would be non-psychopathic 0.91

00:41:33.220 genes.

00:41:34.240 So, actually, because they tend to have more offspring and they tend to be more sexually

00:41:39.260 promiscuous, it's another reason why psychopathy is still hanging around in the general population.

00:41:45.620 So, not only do they have more kids, but actually in the right context, these kinds of characteristics

00:41:51.820 can predispose you to success and are valuable.

00:41:54.940 Where they become toxic is if we go back to the mixing desk dial analogy and you have

00:42:01.880 those dials just slammed up on maximum and you can't regulate them according to context.

00:42:09.020 So, as I was saying, if Roger Federer was as ruthless on centre court, was as ruthless

00:42:15.620 in real life as he is on centre court at Wimbledon, as I say, he'd end up in another kind of court.

00:42:20.300 That would be the equivalent of having those mixing desk dials jammed up on maximum.

00:42:24.320 So, good psychopaths, in my terminology, are people that are able to dial those dials up

00:42:31.180 in the right context when it's needed and use those characteristics for the right intentions,

00:42:36.280 but are able to dial them back down when needed.

00:42:41.420 And people that have them jammed up on max all the time, they're the people who are toxic,

00:42:47.120 they're the people who are going to end up in prison, they're the people.

00:42:49.620 And it also links up with intelligence as well. 1.00

00:42:52.120 So, if you are a violent, stupid psychopath, you are going to be probably going to commit 1.00

00:42:58.020 a violent crime and you're going to be caught very quickly and put in prison, rightfully so. 1.00

00:43:02.380 However, if you are an intelligent psychopath that, say, had a good start in life

00:43:08.280 and maybe you're not even naturally violent, then as the famous Reuters headline once put it,

00:43:15.680 you're more likely going to make a killing in the market than anywhere else. 0.79

00:43:19.560 And then if you're a psychopath, intelligent, and maybe naturally aggressive, 0.87

00:43:24.420 then any number of exotic occupations might await you. 0.72

00:43:27.280 Anything from special forces operative to maybe the head of a criminal syndicate, something like that.

00:43:33.680 So, there's all kinds of other variables in the personality cupboard.

00:43:38.340 So, you might be a psychopath, but you might not be violent and you might be intelligent.

00:43:43.220 That might predispose you to success in, say, business or the markets or something like that. 0.97

00:43:47.860 If you are a psychopath, you are violent and you're not that intelligent, 0.98

00:43:52.000 then you might just be caught up as a violent criminal. 0.99

00:43:58.680 So, there's a lot of other things.

00:44:00.260 And then you get into, like, you know, people often say, well, where do serial killers come into this kind of thing?

00:44:05.940 Not all psychopaths are serial killers.

00:44:08.460 Not all serial killers are psychopaths.

00:44:10.200 So, you know, that's very interesting.

00:44:13.480 I mean, but if you are a psychopath and, say, you had a formative experience which wasn't so great, 0.82

00:44:21.520 say you were sexually abused or violently abused or emotionally abused, 0.82

00:44:25.740 and you also had a psychopathic personality, then that might predispose you into, say, serial crime.

00:44:32.020 I always use the analogy of a bullet and a gun.

00:44:33.720 So, let's say that the bullet in a gun is your DNA, it's your genetic predisposition.

00:44:41.100 It could be anything, but let's talk, because we're talking about psychopaths,

00:44:43.460 let's say it's the genetic predisposition to be a psychopath is a bullet in a gun.

00:44:48.400 That genetic predisposition, that DNA won't become live unless there's a finger on the trigger

00:44:54.240 to make that round live, to fire the gun.

00:44:57.760 And that finger on the trigger would be a formative experience in your childhood.

00:45:02.560 So, as I say, it could be emotional, sexual or violent abuse.

00:45:09.040 That might then trigger you into a life of crime.

00:45:14.160 If you are, say, psychopathic and you have an experience perhaps in your early childhood

00:45:21.200 where sexual arousal is paired with seeing someone in distress or seeing someone in pain,

00:45:27.860 and as I say, that's paired with a psychopathic personality, then there may be a chance that

00:45:35.440 that could escalate.

00:45:36.960 And so, you go, you start on the road of fantasy and you fantasize with that.

00:45:43.240 But then when you come to the end of that fantasy road, somebody who might not be psychopathic

00:45:49.180 may think, well, okay, that's the end of the road.

00:45:51.100 But somebody who is less risk-averse may well then say, well, okay, what do we do now?

00:45:56.380 Well, let's start reenacting this in real life.

00:45:58.740 And then you're into the criminal element, maybe serial crime or something like that.

00:46:03.860 So, that's the relation.

00:46:05.020 So, the relationship between psychopathy and crime is actually more complicated than it might seem.

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00:46:41.160 What is the link between narcissism and psychopathy?

00:46:46.340 Are people who are psychopaths more likely to be narcissistic and vice versa?

00:46:51.160 Yeah.

00:46:51.760 Kevin, maybe define narcissism for us in a professional way.

00:46:54.860 Because I think it's like psychopathy.

00:46:57.040 People use the term without necessarily understanding what it means.

00:46:59.840 So, define it before you answer it, if you would.

00:47:02.140 Narcissism is basically, it's a personality disorder, like psychopathy.

00:47:07.560 So, there's something called the dark triad.

00:47:09.680 The dark triad consists of three personality disorders, which are all actually linked.

00:47:15.600 If you remember the old Venn diagrams when we were kids, the old circles, if you were

00:47:18.780 to draw the circles between narcissism, psychopathy, and something called Machiavellianism, which

00:47:24.600 is the ability to manipulate people and act as a bit of an emotional puppeteer for your

00:47:30.940 own benefits, there's a lot of overlap between the two.

00:47:33.680 So, narcissists are people that are very, very grandiose, have a very grandiose view of

00:47:38.600 themselves, very egocentric, love to be the centre of attention.

00:47:43.220 Now, the interesting thing there is, I don't know why you're smiling there, actually,

00:47:47.500 Fraser?

00:47:48.180 Recognise yourself?

00:47:49.120 Never know.

00:47:49.360 But the interesting thing there is, Machiavellian egocentricity is actually a trait found in

00:47:59.180 psychopaths as well.

00:48:01.160 So, a lot of psychopaths are going to be narcissistic, but not all narcissists are going to be psychopathic.

00:48:08.640 That's the way the variation is.

00:48:09.700 And I'll tell you why.

00:48:10.960 That's where we are, mate.

00:48:12.500 Because I'll tell you why.

00:48:13.960 I'm more psychopathic than Piers Morgan, so I've not come out of this well.

00:48:18.760 Anyway, carry on.

00:48:19.720 No, so, what it is, is the fact that, so a narcissist, just in general, right, to keep

00:48:25.520 it simple, a narcissist will want to be the centre of attention because that is the end

00:48:31.080 goal for them.

00:48:32.160 They want to be the centre of attention.

00:48:34.060 They want to be in the limelight.

00:48:35.740 They want to be recognised.

00:48:36.980 They want all the kudos.

00:48:37.980 It's all about them.

00:48:39.200 They want to be on stage, mate.

00:48:40.120 That's a narcissist, right?

00:48:41.880 A psychopath doesn't necessarily need that.

00:48:46.020 A psychopath doesn't need to be the centre of attention for its own sake, but it's a means

00:48:51.540 to an end for a psychopath.

00:48:53.380 So, for a psychopath, being the centre of attention, being in the limelight, gives them access to

00:48:59.760 power, which is what they do want.

00:49:02.380 Psychopaths are into power.

00:49:04.300 And if being the centre of attention is the primary way of getting that power, then that's

00:49:10.040 what they will do.

00:49:10.860 But it's not the end.

00:49:12.880 It's a means to an end.

00:49:14.300 Whereas with a narcissist, it's the end goal itself.

00:49:18.220 It's so funny you should say that because Francis and I, we recorded like an end of year

00:49:21.960 conversation between him and I.

00:49:24.060 And I stopped doing stand-up during the, basically during the pandemic.

00:49:28.800 And he carried on.

00:49:29.840 And he was saying how much he loves being on stage, where I was saying, well, I enjoy being

00:49:35.460 on stage.

00:49:35.920 And he was trying to convince me that, you know, stand-up, whatever.

00:49:39.220 And I was like, well, the thing is, I never really cared that much about being on stage.

00:49:45.900 And I never, I always wanted to leave a gig.

00:49:48.240 I didn't want to hang around and meet the adoring fans or anything like that.

00:49:51.940 That's not how I think.

00:49:53.300 But I used to enjoy writing jokes and performing them and being on stage.

00:49:57.260 And it's funny that you make that distinction.

00:50:00.000 Well, it's interesting because I know a couple of other stand-up comedians, I won't mention

00:50:03.220 their names, and they've said the same thing.

00:50:05.160 And it's interesting because one stand-up comedian, this may be true for you, it may

00:50:12.060 not, but one stand-up comedian who's a friend of mine saying, like, they don't like hanging

00:50:15.860 around meeting fans either because being on stage is a persona.

00:50:21.940 Yes.

00:50:22.520 And it's very much about, you know, you are very funny on stage.

00:50:26.760 But actually, when you're off stage, actually, you can't be that funny all the time.

00:50:31.540 So it's almost like they don't want to let the fans down.

00:50:34.300 They don't want to, like, access to the real person.

00:50:37.940 So that was the kind of the motivation for them, which is quite interesting.

00:50:42.760 So it's really, you know, when you think of, like, stand-ups, you think they're funny

00:50:48.120 like that all the time.

00:50:49.640 You know, they're wisecracking and making everyone laugh.

00:50:51.660 But, you know, as you know, it's very hard work.

00:50:53.980 As you've experienced today, they're not.

00:50:57.040 No, but it's very hard work.

00:50:58.440 And it's, you know, you've got to work at an act like that.

00:51:00.920 So one of, as I say, one of the friends of mine said, actually, they don't like meeting

00:51:05.740 fans.

00:51:06.040 They prefer to keep it as the persona on the stage, which is totally understandable.

00:51:10.280 But I suppose if you're not that funny, Francis, it's just like, you know, it doesn't make

00:51:13.980 any difference.

00:51:14.380 Francis is very naturally funny.

00:51:16.460 But, Kevin, is it possible to be a psychopath and live a good life?

00:51:21.220 Yeah, I think it is.

00:51:23.760 I think if we come back to what we're saying, if you go back to the mixing desk dials, I

00:51:32.720 think if you are, if all those dials are turned up to maximum all the time, then you're not

00:51:38.380 going to live a good life.

00:51:39.660 OK.

00:51:40.380 But if you are, if you've got some of them turned up high and some down low, depending

00:51:45.680 on the circumstances, then I think it is.

00:51:47.920 Another way of looking at it would be to say, well, think of psychopathy as being like, going

00:51:53.020 back to athletics, think of it being like a decathlon or a heptathlon.

00:51:57.440 So a heptathlon or a decathlon, you've got seven or 10 events that comprise the entire

00:52:02.000 discipline.

00:52:04.040 So if you look at psychopathy as being, you know, a condition comprising of various psychological

00:52:10.520 traits, such as ruthlessness, fearlessness, lack of empathy, lack of conscience, charisma,

00:52:16.080 all those kinds of things, coolness under pressure.

00:52:19.380 If you're good at the right disciplines, then it's possible to lead a good life.

00:52:25.260 But if you're good at the wrong disciplines, if, you know, you've got conscience and empathy

00:52:30.460 turned down low all the time, then it's not possible to lead a good life.

00:52:35.900 So it all depends, as I say, on what you use those characteristics for.

00:52:40.420 So a good friend of mine, the special air service guy, Andy McNabb, I've written a couple of

00:52:47.740 books with Andy.

00:52:49.040 I mean, he came to my lab a few years ago, and we plugged him into a load of computers

00:52:55.860 that went ping and did the psychometrics on him.

00:52:58.860 Very, very high on the psychopathic spectrum.

00:53:00.920 And it made absolutely perfect sense to him when he found out.

00:53:06.700 All his life suddenly started, he actually said, you know, now it makes sense.

00:53:12.300 And Andy leads a very good life.

00:53:16.080 But, you know, as I say, he's ex-special forces.

00:53:18.320 Those characteristics predisposed him to great success.

00:53:23.380 Very cool under pressure.

00:53:26.400 Can be very ruthless.

00:53:29.020 But he can turn it on and off when he has to.

00:53:32.300 I mean, I'll give you a great example.

00:53:33.820 I always remember going down to a gastropub once.

00:53:38.460 Me and my immeasurably superior other half, Elaine, went down to a gastropub to watch the

00:53:45.340 England Whale Six Nations rugby match with him and his missus.

00:53:49.060 And we went to this pub, and it had opened at something like 11 o'clock.

00:53:53.920 The game was at 3 in the afternoon, something like that.

00:53:57.300 And we got in there about 2.

00:54:00.500 We were going to get some drinks, get some food, and watch the game.

00:54:03.480 And when we went in there, there were four Welsh guys, about 6 foot 3, 6 foot 4, standing

00:54:09.680 at the bar.

00:54:10.120 They'd obviously been on the lash since the place had opened at 11 o'clock.

00:54:13.080 They were, you know, pints of Guinness, leather jackets, big old boys, you know. 0.99

00:54:17.240 And they were effing and blinding.

00:54:19.060 Right?

00:54:19.340 Now, no one's approved.

00:54:20.560 You know, no one's going to really worry about that.

00:54:22.620 But there were women and children around. 0.99

00:54:24.920 Just, and they were very loud.

00:54:26.360 It just wasn't the kind of right occasion for it.

00:54:30.040 So Andy said to me, he said, right, you go and get the drinks.

00:54:32.980 I'll go and get the food.

00:54:34.900 So I said, fine.

00:54:35.860 Okay.

00:54:36.280 So it was kind of one of these bars where the food was served in a different kind of place

00:54:39.720 to the drink.

00:54:41.000 So I've gone round one side.

00:54:42.320 But I'm not too far away.

00:54:43.280 I'm back from here to where Anton is.

00:54:44.480 And he's gone round this side where these four guys are.

00:54:47.620 So I could kind of hear.

00:54:48.900 And he wasn't showing them up.

00:54:50.460 He said, excuse me, lads.

00:54:52.160 Look, don't want to ruin your day or anything.

00:54:53.800 But look, can you just turn the volume down a little bit?

00:54:55.720 And they were all kind of leaning over the bar like this.

00:54:59.080 And one of them put his pint down and kind of stood up, squared up.

00:55:01.980 And I thought, well, this is going to be interesting.

00:55:03.620 Because Andy's not a big guy.

00:55:05.560 He's about, he's broader than me.

00:55:07.420 He was about my height, about 5'9", 5'10".

00:55:09.900 I thought, this is going to be interesting.

00:55:11.620 So I've gone round to his side of the bar.

00:55:14.820 I thought one and a half against four.

00:55:16.280 So I've gone round there.

00:55:19.820 And I'll never forget it, chaps. 1.00

00:55:22.180 So he kind of leant forward and sotoboce, you know,

00:55:27.460 wasn't showing anyone up.

00:55:29.100 He kind of put his hand very gently on this guy's forearm.

00:55:31.820 He said, okay, all right.

00:55:33.300 He said, here's what's going to happen.

00:55:35.180 He said, the door is over there.

00:55:37.860 He says, you, you, you, and you.

00:55:40.280 Never pointed at any of them, right?

00:55:42.020 Open hand because pointing is inflammatory.

00:55:45.680 You, you, and you, and you.

00:55:46.600 You're going to put your pints down.

00:55:48.320 And you're going to walk through that door

00:55:50.160 and you're going to remain on the other side of it,

00:55:51.620 very, very polite.

00:55:52.920 You're going to remain on the other side of it

00:55:54.140 for the duration of the game.

00:55:56.100 And he said, I'll never forget it.

00:55:57.200 And something in his eyes just went.

00:55:59.120 He said, arctic blue eyes.

00:56:00.380 And they just absolutely changed.

00:56:01.960 And he said, because if you don't,

00:56:03.760 I'm going to formally introduce you

00:56:05.580 to a level of physical violence 0.99

00:56:07.200 you never knew fucking existed. 0.99

00:56:10.460 And there's no tax or exaggeration on that line. 0.99

00:56:14.700 That's exactly how it went.

00:56:15.960 And there was a moment of quiet reflection.

00:56:17.980 And these chaps just filed out in line. 1.00

00:56:22.760 And that was the end of that.

00:56:23.480 But here's where it gets interesting.

00:56:24.960 You would imagine that after that, you know,

00:56:27.660 if it was a normal person, they'd still be kind of pumped up.

00:56:29.920 But it was literally like a tap going on and off,

00:56:31.880 like a switch on and off.

00:56:33.140 And it was right, right, Kev.

00:56:34.560 Fish and chips twice, pizza and burger, wasn't it?

00:56:37.280 Simple as that.

00:56:37.940 Business as usual, like nothing had happened.

00:56:40.020 It was what we call instrumental.

00:56:42.540 It was right.

00:56:43.080 This is how this is going to end.

00:56:45.000 This is how it's going to pan out.

00:56:47.080 That's what you're going to do.

00:56:48.180 The situation is sorted.

00:56:50.320 Now, I became very interested.

00:56:52.660 After that particular episode,

00:56:55.000 I became very interested on remaining

00:56:56.860 on the right side of Andy McNabb.

00:56:58.240 But no, I became very interested.

00:57:00.800 Because I'm sure you're there already.

00:57:02.200 Well, can you fake that?

00:57:03.860 There was no doubt in my mind or in Andy's mind

00:57:06.460 that he would have like totally dismantled those guys

00:57:08.960 had it come to that.

00:57:10.200 No one wanted a fight in a gastropub.

00:57:11.940 But actually, if it had have come to that,

00:57:14.360 he could have done it.

00:57:15.820 But what I became very interested in was,

00:57:17.980 is it possible to fake that?

00:57:19.280 Do you need to be the real deal?

00:57:21.420 Or can you actually act that part?

00:57:23.700 And we were going to run a study looking at that.

00:57:25.780 I can't go into too many details now

00:57:27.240 because COVID scuppered it.

00:57:29.320 But hopefully, we will get around to looking at it next year

00:57:31.960 to see whether you actually do need to be the real McCoy

00:57:34.500 or whether it's possible for anyone

00:57:36.380 to kind of method act their way into that kind of role.

00:57:40.220 Well, let's have you back when you've got the results.

00:57:44.100 Next year, we'll be able to go into more detail about that.

00:57:47.600 Quick question.

00:57:48.760 Are psychopaths, are a lot of them in control

00:57:52.740 of their character traits and personalities?

00:57:55.620 Like you talk about them being doled,

00:57:57.320 you know, certain people being doled up to Max

00:58:00.400 and some people not.

00:58:01.900 Can they actually control it?

00:58:03.860 Yeah, somebody like Andy can.

00:58:07.700 Again, the bad ones can't.

00:58:10.120 The ones who end up in prison.

00:58:11.320 Exactly right.

00:58:12.020 They end up in prison because they can't control it.

00:58:13.020 And if there's one of those dials,

00:58:15.040 so we've got two analogies going here.

00:58:17.060 We've got the mixing desk dials

00:58:18.880 and we've got the decathlon, heptathlon thing.

00:58:22.520 There's one major difference

00:58:24.920 between what we might call good and bad psychopaths.

00:58:27.860 And it's, depending on whether you want to use

00:58:31.980 the athletic analogy or the mixing desk dial analogy,

00:58:35.580 it's the impulsivity dial

00:58:37.920 or the impulsivity discipline in the heptathlon, decathlon.

00:58:42.480 If you are impulsive and a psychopath,

00:58:46.720 which is one of the key traits in psychopathy,

00:58:48.940 if you've got that dial turned up

00:58:50.560 and you can't control that,

00:58:52.200 that's the answer to your question.

00:58:53.780 Then you're going to wind up in a lot of ways.

00:58:55.180 And if Andy had had that, that would have been a fight.

00:58:58.040 Exactly right.

00:58:59.080 Then you're getting into the realm of what we call,

00:59:01.260 this is one of the major,

00:59:02.240 I'm glad you asked me that actually, Francis,

00:59:03.520 because it's a major theoretical point.

00:59:07.080 This is the difference between, again,

00:59:10.280 in general terms, between sociopathy and psychopathy, all right?

00:59:14.060 So a lot of people say, well, what's the other terms interchangeable?

00:59:16.780 Well, a lot of the time when they're used in the media,

00:59:18.880 excuse me, they're interchangeable.

00:59:21.720 But actually, if we're looking at it professionally,

00:59:25.180 technically, sociopaths are people that are impulsive,

00:59:33.000 who are violent a lot of the time,

00:59:36.480 who react rather than respond.

00:59:39.200 So I'll give you an example.

00:59:41.000 Let's say that we met in a bar. 0.88

00:59:44.560 Let's say that I was a sociopath 0.89

00:59:47.460 and you happened to annoy me in some way.

00:59:52.280 Let's say you walked in and spilled my drink.

00:59:55.320 If I was a sociopath and I just got annoyed at that, 1.00

00:59:58.400 I might pick up a bottle and smash it over your head, 1.00

01:00:01.000 react violently like that. 1.00

01:00:03.300 I might then be carted off to the nick

01:00:05.280 and I might, in the morning, really regret that.

01:00:09.960 I might show remorse for that.

01:00:11.500 However, if I was a psychopath and you did that,

01:00:15.500 and let's say I also saw 200 quid in your wallet,

01:00:18.940 I might not react at all.

01:00:20.660 I might just go, okay, that's interesting.

01:00:22.760 But I might be waiting for you outside the pub with a knife

01:00:25.060 and I might use that knife instrumentally to get that money out of you. 0.89

01:00:29.260 So psychopaths are capable of very cold, premeditated violence, 0.55

01:00:35.480 whereas sociopaths, the impulsive kind of hot-headed antisocial personality,

01:00:42.320 is more predisposed to reactive, hot violence than cold, premeditated.

01:00:50.620 That's very interesting.

01:00:51.900 And Kevin, am I right in thinking that there are more male psychopaths than female?

01:00:57.160 Yes, that's true.

01:00:58.260 No, just going back to, come back to that point in a minute,

01:01:00.820 just a point on the previous thing.

01:01:02.760 No, no, no, it's fine.

01:01:03.640 On the previous point, it's really interesting.

01:01:07.540 One very bad psychopath who I interviewed in a secure unit once

01:01:11.200 came up with a very good way of looking at it.

01:01:14.900 And he said, again, very, very chilling.

01:01:16.960 He said, you know what, there's, when you stop at a traffic light,

01:01:22.080 red, amber and green, you don't need to have colour vision

01:01:24.280 to know how that works.

01:01:25.500 You just need to know which bits are lit up.

01:01:28.260 And that is very much how psychopaths, pure psychopaths, not the sociopaths,

01:01:32.720 psychopaths see emotion.

01:01:34.700 They don't see the colour of it.

01:01:36.860 They see which bits are lit up, which means that they're very good at moving people around

01:01:41.420 and, you know, emotional puppeteering and all that kind of thing.

01:01:44.100 So they don't hear the tune.

01:01:47.180 They just read the score, if you want to look at it in a music analogy.

01:01:51.640 The gender differences in psychopathy, yes. 0.51

01:01:54.440 So first of all, it's important to remember that psychopathy, pure psychopathy, is rare.

01:02:00.180 So it's less than 1% of the population.

01:02:02.780 So there's, you know, the old joke about blokes hitchhiking down a road one dark night

01:02:07.900 and puts his hand out on a lorry, stops for him, and he gets in, and he can't believe it.

01:02:12.900 And he turns around to the lorry driver and he says, I'm amazed you stopped for me.

01:02:16.860 For all you know, I might be a serial killer.

01:02:18.460 And the truck driver says, nah, chances are the two serial killers.

01:02:21.760 He's got pretty much zero.

01:02:23.940 So, I mean, it kind of gets at the point that it's pretty rare.

01:02:29.800 But within that very rare bracket, yes, there are generally more males than psychopaths.

01:02:36.480 Again, the old joke is... 0.66

01:02:38.160 More male psychopaths than female psychopaths. 1.00

01:02:39.460 Sorry, more male psychopaths than female psychopaths. 1.00

01:02:42.420 And again, the old joke is that generally agreed that women prefer to kill just the one man 0.99

01:02:47.240 over a longer period.

01:02:48.460 That's the sound of me getting cancelled right there by my wife. 1.00

01:02:53.200 But, yeah, I mean, and we don't quite know why that is,

01:02:56.000 but there's a number of hypotheses, a number of reasons why.

01:03:00.080 Early upbringing, guys are generally brought up to be more competitive,

01:03:06.500 more rough and tumble, more aggressive.

01:03:08.680 So that might be one reason.

01:03:11.220 Another reason is that male and female brains tend, on average, 0.63

01:03:15.620 to react differently to aversive stimuli.

01:03:18.520 So if you come into the lab and you're a female and you, say, 0.99

01:03:25.220 are subjected to electric shocks or white noise or something like that,

01:03:30.120 you may well be more predisposed to be anxious,

01:03:34.200 whereas a male brain may be more predisposed to be angry.

01:03:38.640 So there's a kind of a slight difference there between how male and female brains react to aversive stimuli.

01:03:47.640 Possibly one of the more interesting theories is actually that there is a kind of a sociocultural theory

01:03:54.200 that there may well be a bias in diagnosing women,

01:03:59.140 because the word psychopath has a pejorative, it's got a negative connotation.

01:04:05.140 And in somewhere like America, for example, it has legal connotations as well,

01:04:08.480 which can result in the difference between getting the death penalty or not in some states.

01:04:12.840 So there may well be a bias in clinicians to not diagnose as many women as men.

01:04:21.020 And also, I think to a lot of people, psychopathy is correlated with violence.

01:04:24.460 Women are less likely to use violence. 0.94

01:04:26.040 Absolutely right.

01:04:26.500 Well, that's another theory that actually the same brain states that you might get in psychopathy in males

01:04:34.520 might manifest, a great point, Constantine, might manifest itself in a different way.

01:04:39.260 Well, this is what I was going to ask you.

01:04:41.060 Is there a behavioural difference between your average male psychopath and a female psychopath?

01:04:48.720 Because I think most people have an idea of what a male psychopath behaviour might look like.

01:04:53.440 What does a female psychopath look like? 1.00

01:04:55.560 There's evidence to show that in female, psychopathy may be more akin to what we call borderline personality disorder, 1.00

01:05:04.160 which is narcissism, manipulation, mood swings, black and white mood swings.

01:05:14.420 If you remember Fatal Attraction, the film Fatal Attraction with Glenn Close,

01:05:17.280 that was a brilliant depiction of it right there.

01:05:20.960 So, as I say, you know, very black and white thinking.

01:05:25.560 Manipulation, manipulation, intimidation, emotional kind of blackmail.

01:05:32.860 You're just describing women, mate. 0.99

01:05:34.540 That's right, yeah.

01:05:36.220 Now you've cancelled it.

01:05:38.540 I've long since been cancelled.

01:05:40.800 You know what's interesting?

01:05:42.100 You talked about borderline personality disorder.

01:05:44.480 We had Dr. Diana Fleischman, who is an evolutionary psychologist, a couple of years ago now,

01:05:52.580 and she was saying more women get diagnosed with BPD every year than men.

01:05:58.460 So couldn't that just be that these are more just female psychopaths being diagnosed with BPD? 1.00

01:06:04.580 Absolutely.

01:06:04.920 Well, there is one school of thought which says that, actually.

01:06:08.160 The same brain state manifests itself behaviorally in a different way in females than it does in males. 0.94

01:06:16.120 There is a school of thought which says that.

01:06:18.700 So, absolutely.

01:06:19.560 I always say, you know, Francis, the brain is like a mysterious grey planet.

01:06:24.960 And it's, you know, everyone talks about landing on Mars.

01:06:28.520 If you think of the brain as a planet, a mysterious grey planet between our ears,

01:06:32.440 we haven't really landed on it yet.

01:06:34.260 We've just, we've seen it through long lens telescopes.

01:06:38.280 Right.

01:06:38.760 But we, it's still a very new world.

01:06:41.140 We actually don't really know that much about it.

01:06:43.380 We're learning more and more.

01:06:45.020 But it's really interesting when people say, oh, you know, we're sending a probe out to Mars and all that.

01:06:48.600 We've still got to land on this planet.

01:06:50.260 That's fascinating.

01:06:50.900 We're nowhere near landing on this planet yet.

01:06:53.020 And it is, you know, when you see it on the scans, it's like this grey world,

01:06:57.000 which is at a distance.

01:06:58.840 And, you know, it's actually right inside our own heads.

01:07:01.340 So, it's really interesting.

01:07:03.240 But, I mean, I have my own background.

01:07:06.400 I mean, I grew up with, my own father was a psychopath.

01:07:09.940 That's how I kind of started, really.

01:07:11.860 He was a market trader in London.

01:07:17.400 Not in the stock market, on the streets.

01:07:19.080 He was like Del Boy.

01:07:20.300 I mean, he even looked like Del Boy.

01:07:21.800 I would say he could sell shaving cream to the Taliban. 0.74

01:07:24.000 He could sell anything to anybody.

01:07:25.840 And he was ruthless.

01:07:28.000 He wasn't violent.

01:07:28.760 He was ruthless.

01:07:29.560 He was fearless.

01:07:30.340 He was nerveless. 0.96

01:07:31.220 He was shameless. 0.96

01:07:32.900 But I never once saw him embarrassed. 0.82

01:07:35.400 And he could do things that most people would find psychologically impossible.

01:07:40.420 I mean, I always remember one time.

01:07:42.860 I'll give you an example.

01:07:43.720 I mean, I always remember one time.

01:07:45.040 I was about nine or ten.

01:07:46.060 I used to help him on the stall, you know.

01:07:47.740 And we got hold of a load of diaries once, calendar diaries.

01:07:52.860 And they were very different to anything we got our hands on before because they were

01:07:55.900 actually bloody nice, right?

01:07:57.740 They were leather, or fake leather anyway.

01:08:00.880 They were embossed.

01:08:02.900 They were slim.

01:08:03.940 There was a reason why they were slim.

01:08:06.140 Anyway, we knocked out about 300 of these in about an hour and a half on the stall somewhere

01:08:10.760 in like.

01:08:11.200 I can't remember where it was now.

01:08:12.020 It was like a curry to a piss head, you know, these things. 0.99

01:08:13.860 And when we got back to the flat, I always remember something about nine or ten.

01:08:18.460 I said, Dad, they were fantastic.

01:08:20.080 I said, you know, they're not thin, those diaries, weren't they?

01:08:22.980 And this gives an indication of what it was like.

01:08:24.240 He said, yeah, there was a reason for that, Kev.

01:08:25.700 I said, oh, what's that?

01:08:26.580 He says April was missing.

01:08:28.920 So I knew what?

01:08:30.000 He gets one out of the draw, January, February, March, May.

01:08:35.620 It sounded like Delwood or June.

01:08:36.880 I said, Dad, we've just sold 300 of these.

01:08:39.840 What are we going to do?

01:08:40.960 He said, I'll never forget.

01:08:41.800 He said, nothing for now, son, but come the end of March, make sure you pack your swimming

01:08:45.280 trunks because we're off to Toro Molinas for six weeks. 0.98

01:08:48.280 Couldn't give a shit about anything. 0.99

01:08:50.600 He was like absolutely no sense of consequence, but a real cheeky charmer, cheeky kind of chappy. 1.00

01:08:57.780 And he was one of the most persuasive men.

01:09:00.640 He wasn't an educated guy.

01:09:01.800 He left school at the age of 15.

01:09:03.180 But as I say, he was absolutely a brilliant salesman.

01:09:09.720 And he said something to me, which in all my years in academia, I don't think I've ever heard a more profound statement about the art of persuasion.

01:09:18.180 And it was actually one night.

01:09:21.080 It was funny enough.

01:09:21.900 I always remember it.

01:09:22.800 He was taking me to an Indian restaurant in Brick Lane in the east end of London.

01:09:27.000 And we just finished on the stall.

01:09:30.400 And just as he's about to pay the bill, he turns around to me and says, Kev, if there's one thing I want you to remember in life, son, it's this.

01:09:37.520 Persuasion isn't about getting people to do what they don't want to do.

01:09:41.540 It's about giving them a reason to do what they do want to do.

01:09:45.400 Right?

01:09:45.820 Very, very different.

01:09:47.000 So watch and learn.

01:09:47.900 So I'll never forget it.

01:09:48.660 He gets his spoon and he tinkles against his glass.

01:09:51.540 The entire restaurant falls silent.

01:09:53.220 And he gets to his feet and he makes a speech.

01:09:55.260 Right?

01:09:55.720 And he says, right, I'd just like to thank everyone for coming.

01:09:59.180 Now, I know that some of you have come just around the corner.

01:10:02.180 Some of you come from a little bit further afield.

01:10:04.380 But I want you to know that you're all very welcome.

01:10:06.380 It's very much appreciated.

01:10:07.880 Oh, there's a pub across the road called The King's Arms.

01:10:10.680 In which we'll be hosting a little drinks reception after this.

01:10:13.060 It would be great to see you all there.

01:10:14.820 At which point he starts to clap.

01:10:16.440 Right?

01:10:17.120 So at which point everyone starts to clap.

01:10:20.060 So picture the scene.

01:10:20.740 We've got an entire restaurant full of people who've never seen us before.

01:10:23.860 Never seen each other before.

01:10:25.160 All applauding wildly.

01:10:26.420 Because none of them want to be seen as a gate crash at the party.

01:10:28.600 You know, it works.

01:10:29.260 Right?

01:10:29.760 So as we're leaving, remember, I'm only about nine or ten.

01:10:31.760 I can't resist it.

01:10:33.340 I say, but Dad, we're not really going to the pub, are we?

01:10:35.920 And he puts his arm around and he says, of course not, son.

01:10:37.780 But let me tell you something.

01:10:38.580 That lot in the restaurant are.

01:10:39.860 My mate Malcolm, he's just taken over as a landlord.

01:10:42.160 He'll make a few quid tonight.

01:10:44.160 Again, no sense of consequence.

01:10:46.820 No sense of, you know, what might happen.

01:10:49.580 But what he'd done, he'd demonstrated his own point.

01:10:52.000 That actually there's something in it for these people.

01:10:54.460 They're going to go to that pub.

01:10:55.340 There's free drinks there.

01:10:56.340 They're going to get them in there.

01:10:57.700 So exactly that kind of guy.

01:10:59.520 So I grew up with this kind of, and I often think that, you know, years later, I was probably bottom line of it all, am I as well as me?

01:11:08.020 It's probably trying to get to the bottom of who my old man was, really.

01:11:10.880 Well, very much on that point, Kevin.

01:11:13.200 And I think a question that a lot of people want to ask, and my sense is women more than men, but both probably sexist, is how do you know if your partner is a psychopath, if you're not going to get them to do an 11-point test?

01:11:27.080 Like, what are the red flags for someone who is psychopathic, particularly in a way that you'd want to avoid, really? 0.54

01:11:33.280 Yeah, if your partner's a psychopath, your boss is a psychopath.

01:11:35.880 There are, I mean, you know, we're not talking about serial killing psychopaths.

01:11:39.940 We're talking about, like, you know, your common or garden, people who are on the psychopathic spectrum.

01:11:44.380 There are a few telltale signs.

01:11:49.420 Psychopaths are very, very good at first impressions.

01:11:52.480 Really good at first impressions.

01:11:53.640 So if you've got someone that is really love-bombing you from the, now this is a general rule of thumb.

01:11:59.300 There are some, actually, some very nice people out there as well.

01:12:01.380 So, but if you've got someone who is really love-bombing you from the start and perhaps making you feel a little bit uncomfortable,

01:12:10.480 you might want to just start thinking to yourself, okay, let's see how this pans out.

01:12:15.300 If then that goes to emotional manipulation, say you're not responding to that,

01:12:22.100 so they may then start manipulating you into feeling guilty that you've let them down

01:12:28.140 or that you're preferring to spend time with your friends rather than them.

01:12:32.840 Look what I've done for you.

01:12:34.840 You know, how can you make me feel like this?

01:12:36.960 Look what I, you know, that's another red flag, especially in conjunction, as I say,

01:12:41.340 with the love-bombing in the early stages.

01:12:42.900 If you're at work and you've got someone who is, maybe it's the same person,

01:12:51.160 who's taking credit for your ideas, so they will, you know, ask you for a report or something like that

01:13:01.500 or to put together a presentation and then they take that and pass it off as their own work

01:13:07.620 without giving you credit, that's another telltale sign.

01:13:13.420 Belittling you in public bullying is another telltale sign.

01:13:20.140 Being very, very nice to people that are above you but pissing on people below them is another,

01:13:26.980 so the authoritarian kind of style of personality is another sign.

01:13:30.720 What we call emotional puppeteering, so moving people around as if they're chess pieces.

01:13:39.320 There's no real empathy there, it's just like what you can do for me, that's another sign.

01:13:45.840 So if you've got someone that's demonstrating all these kinds of signs,

01:13:49.300 I'm sure there will be people out there that recognise that.

01:13:51.960 Yeah, probably there's a few red flags there, I think. 0.93

01:13:54.980 And how do you become more like a psychopath, Kevin? 0.98

01:13:58.420 How do you become more like a psychopath? 0.96

01:13:59.800 That's a weird question to ask. 0.51

01:14:02.540 Not surprising for someone who is like below average on the, yeah.

01:14:06.920 But think about it.

01:14:07.680 Is that your takeaway from the interview, not psychopathic enough?

01:14:10.540 Yeah, exactly, I need to be more.

01:14:12.540 It's a good question.

01:14:14.380 I'm not disputing that, I'm just curious why he's asking it.

01:14:17.700 Because you look at these character traits, and a lot of them, as we've already assessed,

01:14:23.380 highly desirable.

01:14:24.300 Yeah.

01:14:24.780 So how do you, how does somebody who is not high on the psychopathic spectrum attain those character traits

01:14:31.320 without all the other negative baggage?

01:14:33.640 You could start by buying a book which I wrote with Andy McNabb called The Good Psychopath's Guide to Success,

01:14:39.420 which is exactly answers that question.

01:14:41.160 And of course, when The Wisdom of Psychopaths came out, checks in the post, by the way.

01:14:47.320 When The Wisdom of Psychopaths came out, people said, well, this is the, this is the popular science version.

01:14:55.280 Where's the self-help version?

01:14:57.080 So McNabb featured highly in Wisdom of Psychopaths.

01:15:00.180 So then we got together.

01:15:04.220 And we decided, it was actually his idea, it was a great idea, that why don't we, you know, I'm the real deal.

01:15:10.960 And I'm the expert in it.

01:15:12.700 Why don't we write a book together where we pool our expertise?

01:15:15.100 And we, we try to help people who are perhaps not as assertive as they might want to be,

01:15:20.820 who are probably more anxious than they might want to be.

01:15:23.500 How do we, like, turn those dials up a couple of notches to get them to a level?

01:15:29.040 And there's a number of little, little tricks of the trade.

01:15:32.580 I mean, it's really interesting, right?

01:15:34.080 So imagine I was to put a plank of wood on the floor.

01:15:36.680 Let's say it's a five foot plank of wood.

01:15:38.940 And it's a 10 foot long, 20 foot long.

01:15:42.740 And I was to say, Francis, I want you to walk along that plank of wood.

01:15:45.360 You'd have no trouble doing it, right?

01:15:47.760 Imagine the same plank of wood, and I hoisted it up 20 metres, right?

01:15:52.440 It's exactly the same, five foot wide, 10 foot long.

01:15:55.520 And I said, now walk along it. 1.00

01:15:56.980 All of a sudden, you'd think, shit. 1.00

01:15:59.980 Why? 1.00

01:16:00.700 It's the same plank of wood.

01:16:02.160 You're still putting one foot in front of the other.

01:16:03.820 You could do it quite well when it's on the ground.

01:16:05.480 But all I'm doing is hoisting it 20 foot in the air, 40 foot in the air.

01:16:09.860 Well, you've increased the price of failure.

01:16:11.220 Absolutely.

01:16:11.820 Absolutely right.

01:16:13.560 And yet, it's exactly the same process.

01:16:16.340 All you've got to do is put one foot in front of the other.

01:16:18.420 But all of a sudden, what you are doing is you are now not looking at one foot in front

01:16:23.400 of the other, are you?

01:16:24.060 You're looking at the edges.

01:16:25.660 And what could possibly go wrong?

01:16:27.780 Well, psychopaths don't do that.

01:16:29.140 This is like penalty shootouts, right?

01:16:30.860 If I was to pick a person to win the World Cup for England in a penalty shootout,

01:16:36.860 I'd pick someone who was very high on the psychopathic spectrum.

01:16:40.340 If someone has got absolutely reward focus, tunnel vision, no anxiety, decisive bang,

01:16:45.320 that's where it's going to go.

01:16:46.560 So a psychopath wouldn't have any trouble walking over that plank of 40 foot.

01:16:49.720 It's just the same process.

01:16:50.900 So tip number one would be to decouple emotion from behavior, all right?

01:16:56.200 So, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of the times we confuse emotion.

01:17:01.600 Emotion clouds our judgment.

01:17:03.580 But actually, just kind of thinking to them, okay, it's the same process.

01:17:08.120 Just do what you're doing, you know.

01:17:10.640 Don't get caught up in the emotion of it.

01:17:12.440 And you can train yourself to do that.

01:17:15.160 It's really interesting.

01:17:17.320 There's a study done a few years ago which looked at, and we've all been there.

01:17:20.540 We all kind of differ on this.

01:17:21.940 Let's say you're on holiday, right?

01:17:23.960 You're at the seaside.

01:17:26.200 There's the sea.

01:17:28.380 First day on the beach.

01:17:29.560 You've got your trunks on.

01:17:30.880 You're going to go in for a dip, right?

01:17:33.060 So you've got people that run straight in.

01:17:34.700 We've all seen them, right?

01:17:35.760 People that run straight in, bang, dive in, get it out of the way.

01:17:39.180 Or then you've got what we might call the runners.

01:17:41.840 Then you've got the splashers, haven't you?

01:17:43.160 The people that go in tiptoe up to their knee, up to their knee, all like that.

01:17:47.020 And then finally, after about five minutes, now what are you?

01:17:49.700 Finally they're getting in.

01:17:50.380 Are you a runner or a splasher?

01:17:51.480 I just tend to, I want to get it over with.

01:17:53.360 You want to get it over with, right?

01:17:54.160 I want to go in, dive in, bosh. 1.00

01:17:56.180 Okay, get it all over in one go.

01:17:58.160 Constantine, what are you?

01:17:59.000 I'm the same, I just dive in.

01:18:00.180 You're diving, right.

01:18:01.160 Okay.

01:18:01.840 So there was a study done a few years ago which actually looked at who experiences the most pain.

01:18:06.740 And it's, unbelievably, it's the splashers, right?

01:18:09.940 Of course it is, yeah.

01:18:10.660 Of course it is, right.

01:18:11.240 Because you're aggregating the pain, right?

01:18:13.760 Actually, if you just get it over with in one go, you actually experience an aggregate less pain than if you're kind of like prolonging it.

01:18:23.460 So what impact does that have on real life?

01:18:25.820 Well, next time you've got to do something which you don't want to do, let's say you've got to pick the phone up and give something bad news, or you've got to do a chore that you don't want to do.

01:18:33.660 What do most of us do?

01:18:34.460 We psychologically splash, don't we?

01:18:36.120 We put it off.

01:18:37.580 Yeah, I'll kind of do that in a minute.

01:18:39.780 Yeah, okay, yeah, I'll do it.

01:18:41.080 I'll tell you what I'll do.

01:18:41.940 I'll do it after I've made a cup of tea, more splashing, right?

01:18:44.780 What you've got to do is just go straight in, pick the phone up, just make the call, or just get straight down and do the chore.

01:18:49.920 Don't overthink it, just do it.

01:18:51.360 Because actually, you've got to do it anyway, and you're aggregating less pain than if you just keep putting it off.

01:18:59.060 So there's a very simple discipline.

01:19:00.300 Just knowing that fact will help you kind of just turn that dial up a little bit.

01:19:05.760 And another way of doing it would be like, well, how many times do you get people to ask you to do something, let's say, in three months' time?

01:19:14.420 And you say, yeah, I'll do that in three months.

01:19:16.580 Yeah, okay, put it in the diary. 0.98

01:19:18.880 And then it gets to three months' time, and you say, oh, shit, I've got to go and do that now. 0.85

01:19:23.920 You know, we've all been there and done it. 0.91

01:19:27.060 How do you stop yourself from getting into those situations?

01:19:29.920 Well, another little tip that we give is like every time you're asked to do something, right, just imagine it's tomorrow.

01:19:35.760 Do you want to do this?

01:19:38.180 Is it a benefit to you?

01:19:39.260 Are they paying you enough?

01:19:40.160 All these little questions, because it's tomorrow.

01:19:42.560 Because one day it will be tomorrow, right?

01:19:44.700 If the answer to any of those questions is no and you don't want to do it, well, say no.

01:19:48.780 Just fast forward it to three months as if it's tomorrow.

01:19:53.140 And that way your diary will be full of things that you actually want to do.

01:19:56.340 So another thing on those lines would be if you're trying to decide what to do, imagine a rating score between 1 and 10, right?

01:20:07.740 Now, most people, if they're asked to rate whether they want to do something, the kind of the tipping point is around 7, right?

01:20:16.960 7, yeah, I kind of want to do that.

01:20:20.020 But yeah, yeah, it's kind of good.

01:20:23.200 But okay, right.

01:20:23.800 So in order to get away from that gray zone of deciding whether you want to do something, rate stuff you want to do on a rating scale, but miss out 7, just go from 6 to 8.

01:20:34.660 So 7 doesn't exist.

01:20:36.200 How do you feel about this?

01:20:38.060 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10.

01:20:41.220 Again, you'll find that you start becoming a lot more selfish, perhaps is the word, but maybe, you know, just caring a little bit more about yourself.

01:20:50.360 Again, it forces you into a more binary decision.

01:20:53.420 And again, if you're true to yourself, then you'll be honest and you'll find yourself, you know, just doing a few more things that you might like.

01:21:00.160 So very simple tips and techniques to sometimes it's okay to put yourself first, you know?

01:21:06.560 You see, it's okay, and I think that's, you know, if people that aren't as assertive, people who are a little more anxious, tend not to do that.

01:21:14.240 And it's really interesting.

01:21:16.040 I've often found that the inability to say no is actually a form of narcissism.

01:21:22.200 Now, I know that sounds a bit silly, but imagine that somebody says to you,

01:21:27.200 oh, Francis, will you do this for me?

01:21:29.700 And you say, you're frightened to say no.

01:21:32.520 So you say, yeah, all right, I'll do that.

01:21:36.560 Let's have a look at what that means.

01:21:39.840 You are thinking in your mind that you saying no is going to be way more important to that person.

01:21:46.400 It's going to have a really bad effect on them.

01:21:48.620 Well, are you really that important to them?

01:21:50.520 Is that what you think?

01:21:51.660 You think that you saying no is going to really upset them.

01:21:56.600 Who are you?

01:21:57.680 You're probably no one to them.

01:21:58.980 So, when people have trouble saying no, it's often an inverted form of narcissism that you over-inflate your sense of importance to that person.

01:22:09.860 So, actually, a lot of the time, saying no won't have that effect on the person at all.

01:22:14.500 It's just, okay, fair enough.

01:22:15.760 But, you see, there's a flaw in your argument because I'm everything to him.

01:22:20.740 There's the narcissist.

01:22:22.240 But, Kevin, we've taken up a lot of your time.

01:22:25.720 I've already enjoyed it.

01:22:26.980 It's been absolutely fascinating.

01:22:28.440 Before we go to our locals' questions and the usual final question we ask, let me get the converse question for you,

01:22:35.460 which is I was actually extremely surprised by how low I was on the psychopath scale because I am naturally very low in empathy.

01:22:45.380 Yeah.

01:22:45.660 So, and I've had to – so, I guess the question is how do you become less psychopathic in a beneficial way to you?

01:22:53.460 Because I'll give you an example.

01:22:55.480 I've always been self-employed.

01:22:57.100 I've always worked by myself.

01:22:58.560 Yeah.

01:22:58.700 And it's only when we started doing this and there was a team of people to manage and whatever I've ever actually had to care about what the people around me think and feel, right?

01:23:07.860 And to me, that doesn't come naturally.

01:23:10.100 And to this day, I'm almost like I feel like I am mechanistically getting there.

01:23:17.340 Like I know I need to care about the people who work here because that's how we get the results we want.

01:23:23.940 But if I could switch that off and everything just got done without me thinking about the emotions, I would take that option any day of the week.

01:23:30.960 I'm not going to lie.

01:23:31.880 Yeah.

01:23:31.980 Right?

01:23:32.540 So, and I've got there over time by consciously focusing on it.

01:23:36.960 Yeah.

01:23:37.060 And it's been beneficial to me and I think to everyone around.

01:23:40.840 So, how does one address negative psychopathic behavior within oneself?

01:23:46.700 Yeah.

01:23:46.820 Well, there's a number of answers to that question, Constantine.

01:23:50.940 And the first thing is, actually, what you're describing is interesting that you felt that you needed to change that.

01:24:01.300 Because actually, it sounded like being mechanistic was doing actually just as well as actually feeling it.

01:24:08.640 Yeah.

01:24:09.100 Oh, yeah.

01:24:09.380 It gets the result.

01:24:10.240 It gets the result.

01:24:11.580 So, if that was – if it gets the result and you were able to, like, do that coldly and dispassionately, it's interesting that you felt the need to actually kind of change and become – you wanted to feel it yourself rather than anyone else feeling it, which is kind of interesting, I think.

01:24:29.860 So, that's an interesting thing.

01:24:31.180 The reason I feel the need to do it is I know that we can't get to where we want to get to without that.

01:24:39.420 Without it being genuine, without you genuinely feeling it all.

01:24:42.340 No, without caring how other people feel about things.

01:24:45.980 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:24:46.720 Well, no, that's true.

01:24:48.480 What I'm saying is you can kind of – how can I put it?

01:24:51.400 You can kind of care about how other people feel about things, but there's two ways of doing it.

01:24:56.900 You can coldly care or you can warmly care.

01:24:59.660 Yeah, I'm more of the coldly type.

01:25:01.900 And actually, personally, I don't think there's much wrong with that, to be honest.

01:25:05.860 I mean, actually, to be honest, but there's a much more in-depth answer to your questions.

01:25:10.460 And actually, psychopaths, when you look at empathy in psychopaths, it's very, very interesting because there's cold empathy and there's warm empathy, right?

01:25:21.460 Very, very basic distinction.

01:25:23.380 Cold empathy is the ability to calmly and dispassionately gauge what another person might be feeling.

01:25:31.400 That sounds like something that you're very, very good at.

01:25:34.560 Hot empathy is actually feeling what another person is feeling.

01:25:38.060 And that is something that psychopaths aren't very good at, but they're better than average at coldly and dispassionately gauging.

01:25:45.860 Coming back to the traffic lights, don't need to see the colors.

01:25:48.840 You just need to know what bits are lit up.

01:25:50.820 That's you describing yourself, I think, there to a certain extent.

01:25:53.680 You just need to know what bits are lit up.

01:25:55.980 But actually, that doesn't make you a worse driver.

01:25:58.760 Actually, but what you're saying is, ah, it'd be kind of nice to see the colors.

01:26:01.900 But actually, you don't need to see the colors necessarily.

01:26:05.580 I mean, you've got a great setup going here, so you've done pretty well.

01:26:09.240 However, the interesting thing here is it touches onto the question of treatment.

01:26:15.700 Now, I know you're talking about people in everyday life, but whether psychopaths are actually treatable or not in forensic and clinical settings.

01:26:24.700 Now, for a long time, it's been thought that they haven't been treatable because of the very nature of who they are.

01:26:32.540 Psychopaths kind of touches on a point you made earlier, Francis, which I never actually got around to answering.

01:26:36.880 I've now remembered it.

01:26:38.500 Psychopaths have, especially when you're right up the high end of the spectrum, they tend to have very little self-insight into their condition.

01:26:46.020 And that was, if you remember the quiz that we did, number 11 was when most of the time when things go wrong, it's never my fault.

01:26:53.900 It's always somebody else's. 0.94

01:26:55.560 So psychopaths lack of self-insight.

01:26:58.120 You know, it's always other people's.

01:26:59.360 If something goes wrong, it's always their problem, you know.

01:27:01.660 So you'll see this with, like, say, you know, very unsavory topic, but rape, for instance.

01:27:07.740 A lot of psychopathic rapists will say, well, she was asking for it. 1.00

01:27:11.240 I taught her a lesson. 0.88

01:27:12.660 You know, she won't do that. 1.00

01:27:13.400 You know, they frame it so that there's no responsibility from them and all the responsibilities on the victim.

01:27:19.180 That's, and again, when we were talking about, you know, in everyday life, in, say, office politics or in relationships, whether you can spot a psychopath.

01:27:26.860 That's, again, we talked about that victimization.

01:27:30.480 You know, they make themselves a victim, you know, where actually, you know, it's, you know, it's not your fault at all.

01:27:36.700 So traditionally, it's been thought that psychopaths are untreatable because they're very good at passing things off as, well, they're not responsible.

01:27:48.120 They were actually behaving in the right way, and it's just the situation that made them, or you that made them behave that way, and they were justified in doing that.

01:27:56.820 And also, remember, they're very good actors and actresses, so, you know, parole boards or, you know, tribunals, they're very, very good at telling you what you want to hear, putting on that good face, you know, it won't happen again or whatever, whatever.

01:28:11.540 And as soon as they're out, they're back to their old ways or whatever, as soon as they're out the other side of the tribunal.

01:28:16.480 So for a long time, it's been thought that psychopaths are not treatable.

01:28:23.660 However, there's a lovely story, which I heard, it almost goes back to flipnosis, the art of persuasion, you know, split-second persuasion.

01:28:32.280 There's a wonderful story I heard about the prisoner, one of Britain's most violent men, Charlie Bronson, who you might be aware of.

01:28:38.340 So Charlie Bronson is notorious, he's been in loads of prisons, and there's a film by him, Tom Hardy, played the role of Bronson a few years ago.

01:28:48.440 And Charlie takes a lot of hostages, or used to, and makes outrageous demands.

01:28:57.600 So there was one time he took a hostage, which was a prison guard, and the story went something like, Charlie had him captive, 0.99

01:29:05.540 and he said, if you do one thing wrong, or you say one thing wrong, I'm going to cut your fucking ear off. 0.99

01:29:13.140 And this prison guard said, oh, don't do that, Charlie, my glasses will be all wonky. 1.00

01:29:18.360 Brilliant line. 1.00

01:29:19.880 And Charlie Bronson just laughed and went, oh, fuck off. 1.00

01:29:23.480 Let him go. 1.00

01:29:24.640 Now, that's really interesting.

01:29:27.400 So clearly there was a way through in that particular situation.

01:29:30.980 Now, when I hear those kinds of stories, it brings us right back full circle to how we started this.

01:29:35.880 You know, with persuasion, are there keys to every situation?

01:29:40.500 It's just most of the time we're scrabbling around trying to find them.

01:29:43.180 Or is it the case that actually some situations do not have any key to unlock it?

01:29:48.360 I'm a firm believer in the former, hence flipnosis.

01:29:52.800 Now, one of the reasons I think, this is a very long answer to your question, Constance, I'm getting there.

01:29:57.320 But one of the reasons I think why psychopaths, we believe them to be untreatable.

01:30:03.380 There's another story about an American mathematician called George Danzig.

01:30:08.380 Now, George Danzig, you won't know, but he solved two probability statistical equations that were previously regarded as being unsolvable.

01:30:18.380 And the reason he says he was able to do that was because he was an undergraduate at the time.

01:30:24.240 And he showed up for class late that day.

01:30:28.280 And when he showed up for class, the teacher had already written the equations on the board.

01:30:33.380 And George Danzig had missed the part where the teacher and the lecturer had said these are unsolvable.

01:30:38.660 He thought they were just courseworks, examples of coursework that had to be done.

01:30:42.620 Because he didn't know they were unsolvable, he went away and solved them.

01:30:47.200 And I think this shows the power of expectation.

01:30:49.760 A lot of the things we do is informed by what we expect.

01:30:53.540 Yes.

01:30:53.980 The power of expectation really informs how confident we are in the outcomes we expect to get.

01:31:02.040 And I think one of the problems with psychopathy is we have this expectation that they're beyond the pale,

01:31:08.580 that they can't be treated.

01:31:09.820 And actually I think that's informing a lot of our thinking about this.

01:31:13.500 Now there is a kind of therapy which does work with psychopaths and it's called decompression therapy.

01:31:19.180 And it's a very intense form of training.

01:31:21.640 And to be fair, the evidence shows that it works with juvenile psychopaths.

01:31:26.220 So when the brain's a little bit more malleable, not with older psychopaths.

01:31:31.040 And decompression therapy is, because of the nature of psychopathy, because psychopaths tend to not fear consequences, 0.97

01:31:39.440 they don't give a shit about what people say about them, they're very thick-skinned, 0.94

01:31:43.140 they don't learn from consequences. 0.99

01:31:44.580 If you punish a psychopath or you take sanctions against them for bad behaviour,

01:31:50.720 they actually become more entrenched a lot of the time because they just don't care.

01:31:53.960 They will just react against that and they will just double down.

01:31:57.660 So that clearly doesn't work.

01:31:59.920 And psychopaths, psychopathic prison are almost double, twice as likely to re-offend.

01:32:08.120 Their recidivism rates are double that of normal prisoners in general.

01:32:11.140 So the punishment angle doesn't work.

01:32:14.160 However, if you reinforce good behaviour, starting off with just very, very minor behaviour,

01:32:22.020 like you might just smile at me as walking past in a corridor and you get a little treat for that,

01:32:25.860 a little reward, and you then escalate that reinforcement schedule up to bigger and bigger forms of behaviour,

01:32:31.340 there is evidence that that does work with psychopaths and you can turn people around,

01:32:35.940 especially juvenile psychopaths.

01:32:37.780 Now, of course, there's a criticism of that and the fact that you're not really changing the person.

01:32:43.360 You're not changing what's under the bonnet.

01:32:44.760 You're kind of just modelling behaviour.

01:32:46.880 That is a criticism of decompression therapy.

01:32:50.180 But it does show that actually psychopaths aren't beyond the pale.

01:32:55.180 But to go back to everyday life, if you are high enough on this,

01:32:59.620 and it's really interesting, but sometimes people say to me,

01:33:01.940 they email me as a way of starting a conversation and they say,

01:33:04.500 Dear Professor Dutton, I'm very worried about being a psychopath.

01:33:08.140 And I instantly say, well, you're not a psychopath.

01:33:09.820 And I'm not worried about it.

01:33:11.380 But anyway, I never do that.

01:33:14.580 But actually, as soon as somebody says I'm worried about being a psychopath, the game's up.

01:33:18.180 You're not a psychopath.

01:33:19.260 You'll be worried about it.

01:33:20.360 But if you do have kind of a self-insight into being,

01:33:25.220 that you might be a little bit high on the psychopathic spectrum,

01:33:28.000 I think the first thing is a great sign that you've had insight because you know that there might be a problem.

01:33:35.460 And then as soon as you might be a problem, that's the way into it.

01:33:37.880 That's a door into it.

01:33:39.480 So resist.

01:33:40.500 What I would always say is resist the first option.

01:33:43.800 Let the first impulse pass.

01:33:45.640 And then have a maybe take five minutes and then consider the second impulse.

01:33:52.300 So that's the main thing.

01:33:54.140 So just, you know, you might want to do something.

01:33:57.300 Just resist that and think, OK, it's an academic intellectual exercise.

01:34:01.920 Now, if I do that, which I previously might have done, how might that pan out?

01:34:08.620 So put yourself deliberately, dispassionately, coldly in the other person's position

01:34:13.540 or in your own position, maybe a couple of weeks down the line,

01:34:18.780 just literally as an academic exercise, plot out the iterations of that decision.

01:34:24.400 Let the first impulse pass and then go with the second impulse once you've considered that.

01:34:30.560 So it's a variation on the theme sleep on it, basically.

01:34:33.740 But that's the best and most powerful everyday tool you can use

01:34:37.020 if you feel that you might have a bit of a problem.

01:34:39.100 Fantastic.

01:34:39.660 Well, Kevin, we'll ask you a couple of questions from our supporters

01:34:42.320 that only they will get to see the answer to.

01:34:44.320 OK.

01:34:44.480 But before that, we've got our usual final question, which I can't wait to hear your answer to.

01:34:48.560 Which is, what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that we really should be?

01:34:54.280 Yeah, well, I think that one of the main things which bothers me in society,

01:35:02.880 which doesn't get a lot of traction, is loneliness.

01:35:06.620 I think there are a lot of people out there who are lonely.

01:35:11.980 That's very different to being alone.

01:35:15.280 Alone is fine for some people.

01:35:17.980 But there are a lot of people out there who are isolated, who are lonely.

01:35:22.560 I had a friend of mine who I hadn't seen for a while,

01:35:26.380 who committed suicide during COVID because he ended up on the streets.

01:35:31.140 And that made me really reflect on the fact that there are people who are falling through the cracks

01:35:38.040 who are very lonely.

01:35:39.460 There is gradual awareness building on this now.

01:35:43.660 I actually did, I don't know if you're aware of it,

01:35:45.260 I did a thing called the Metro Marathon Challenge back in 2021

01:35:50.100 with a friend of mine, John Collins, who's a great British rower.

01:35:54.960 And in order to raise awareness of people on the streets and the homeless,

01:36:00.760 we became the first two people to run the entire network of underground,

01:36:10.140 metro network of a major city in one go.

01:36:13.980 And we slept rough all the time we were doing it.

01:36:16.380 And then, so there's 315 stations on the London Underground.

01:36:20.040 We ran all of them in one go.

01:36:21.520 So we got a firm of mathematicians called Capgemini

01:36:28.640 to map out the shortest route between all 315 stations.

01:36:32.480 And then we did that.

01:36:33.780 And then we ran the London Marathon on the final day to top it off.

01:36:36.740 Unfortunately for us, Transport for London, while we were doing it,

01:36:40.620 we did it in a fortnight, decided for the first time in 25 years

01:36:44.220 to open up two new underground stations.

01:36:46.340 And we'd already passed those by the time.

01:36:48.240 So when we finished the London Marathon, we had to keep going.

01:36:50.640 And we had to tick off Nine Elms and Battersea, which was actually great

01:36:54.600 because you don't want to stop straight after a marathon.

01:36:56.320 So we kept walking.

01:36:57.220 We ticked them off.

01:36:58.200 But it was called the Metro Marathon Challenge.

01:36:59.560 We did that to raise awareness of homelessness and loneliness.

01:37:03.560 So that is something which is very close to my heart.

01:37:06.960 And I think we need to be aware that there are people out there

01:37:10.120 who are on their own and who might need help.

01:37:12.660 So that's me being very un-psychopathic there.

01:37:16.820 So that's what I think we should be talking more about.

01:37:19.120 That's a wonderful answer.

01:37:20.840 And Kevin, if people want to find your books, if they want to find you online,

01:37:24.180 where is the best place to do that?

01:37:27.420 My social media handle is at TheRealDrKev, or one word.

01:37:32.980 So that's Insta and Twitter.

01:37:35.020 I'm not the best at it, but give me a hand.

01:37:37.200 Come on.

01:37:38.340 That's good.

01:37:39.040 And my website is www.drkevindutton.com.

01:37:45.600 Fantastic.

01:37:46.140 So that's me.

01:37:46.900 Well, thank you so much for coming on.

01:37:48.440 Well, I've loved every minute of that.

01:37:50.060 As have we.

01:37:50.860 It's been an absolute pleasure.

01:37:51.800 One of the best set of questions I've ever had.

01:37:54.400 That's very kind of you to say.

01:37:56.600 And thank you guys for watching and listening.

01:37:58.820 We will see you very soon with another brilliant episode like this one,

01:38:02.700 Auro Show.

01:38:03.220 All of them go out at 7pm UK time.

01:38:05.520 And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go,

01:38:08.560 it's also available as a podcast.

01:38:10.940 Take care and see you soon, guys.

01:38:12.760 And go to our locals to see the bonus questions with Dr. Kevin Dutton.

01:38:16.300 Take care.

01:38:18.440 Do you think Meghan Markle is a psychopath? 0.99

01:38:21.580 How do you know for sure, he says. 0.92

TRIGGERnometry - January 12, 2023

Psychopath Expert Explains How to Spot a Psychopath - Dr Kevin Dutton

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