SL: We're not finding that in our data. So, again, the...it's hard to say because the literature is still pretty preliminary, but from the fragmentary literature literally that's out there, I don't think there's much support for that view, no.
Rob: Okay, but what are unsuccessful traits? What do you mean by unsuccessful traits?
SL: So, basically what we mean are more the, and of course it's a very broad brush but, typically what people think of as the unsuccessful traits -- again, going back to this triarchic model -- are the traits that fall under the domains of disinhibition, poor impulse control, those are ones that often get people in trouble. They often lead to antisocial behaviors, particularly when they're conjoined with callousness, with coldness....so those are traits that more often than not are linked to a higher rate of antisocial behavior, criminal behavior, irresponsible behavior, and so on.
Rob: Okay, so you mentioned in law...in the police, my question that I had written is are psychopaths handled differently by different fields -- law, psychology, business, government, politics, for example?
SL: When you say "handled differently" do you mean treated differently or are they differentially attracted to those fields?
Rob: Yeah... (laughs).
SL: (Laughs) Yeah, the latter I don't know...it's an interesting question that the latter one was one we're interested in and we don't know the answer so...you'd think we would, right? I mean it seems like pretty obvious question, it's a great question -- is...are there some particular occupational niches, for example, that are especially likely to attract people with these traits? Clinically people have talked about that a lot. There are...but the ratio of speculation to data is just staggering here. So, lots of people have argued that people with some of these traits, like boldness and maybe like disinhibition, are especially attracted to some occupations, maybe like law enforcement, maybe frontline combat, maybe high risk sports like race car driving and so on; maybe politics and so on. And, again, the evidence for that is really pretty preliminary.
In our Presidents study we talked about earlier, we did a comparison, but I...it's always a little tricky because we're measuring people, almost all of whom are no longer alive, so one has to be a bit careful here. But we did compare their scores on some of the psychopathy dimensions I talked about earlier with those of the general population and the one thing we did find, but I would, again, attach some caveats to it because here we're having historians rate people, many of whom have been dead for a long time. But we did find that on average, the Presidents were somewhat higher in the fearless dominance dimensions of psychopathy then, again, the parts that are related to being bold, charming, persuasive, fearless...but not higher...
Rob: It almost seems to be a necessary characteristic of politicians.
SL: Well, we wondered about that too. So we, yeah, and that's what I was saying...they were not higher than the other dimensions of psychopathy, which was interesting. But you're right, I think that's something that we have wondered about too is, is it necessary and is it becoming particularly important. So in another follow up study we did, you mentioned narcissism earlier...and narcissism is related to psychopathy, it's a someone different trait but many psychopathic people are egocentric and narcissistic to some degree -- it's a very common feature. We found that if you looked at a trait called grandiose narcissism, that is...it's a kind of narcissism that is related to being very self-aggrandizing and flamboyant, and really not just being self-centered but being self-centered and proud of it. We found that those traits were somewhat higher in the Presidents and interestingly, we found some hints that the rates of grandiose narcissism were actually going up in the Presidents...over time. Now it's a little hard because you know maybe they're just...maybe their traits have been there all along or they're just becoming more visible with more press coverage and more media coverage and so on. But it's a provocative finding that does make you wonder maybe, especially with all the media scrutiny out there, that you almost have to have a massive ego to both run for and be elected President now-a-days.
Rob: Now it seems to me that narcissism is another one of those key elements of psychopathy too though, isn't it?
SL: Yes it is. It's definitely one major trait of psychopathy, I would agree with that. And it...in terms of this triarchic model, it kind of folds into several of these different dimensions. So it doesn't fall neatly into any of those traits but it certainly, in part, the grandiose part, I think, is in part a function of being bold, being willing to put yourself out there, being dominant. But there's also an element to being a little cold and calloused that also plays into narcissism because when you're very narcissistic oftentimes you are indifferent to the feelings of others. That's not an invariable feature of narcissism, but it's very common because you're often much more concerned about your feelings than you are about other feelings. So when you've done something to hurt someone else's feelings, what may strike you more than anything else is how it affects you. So if you cheated on your partner, 'Oh that's too bad, I shouldn't have done that. I feel really bad for you, but look how it's affected me....look at how it's caused me all this stress. Look at how this has complicated my life.' And the person may pay lip service to the hurt its caused the other person but that maybe secondary at best.
Rob: Okay. I've got so many questions but we're running out of time here. Next question, what can you tell us about the evolutionary and anthropological aspects of psychopathy? And I'll throw in, how are psychopaths handled in indigenous tribal cultures? And I did dig up a great little quote in one of the papers you sent me about how they're described in Alaska -- they have a name for people who know what's right and they act differently anyway.
SL: Yeah the term is "kunlangeta." It's a term -- kunlangeta is a term used by a group of...I think they're still there...a group of Inuit Eskimos very close to the Bering Strait, and they were studied by anthropologist Jane Murphy at Harvard in the 1970s. And she studied them because at the time, I would assume things have changed now but, at the time there was...these people had almost no contact at all with western civilization. And she did find a term they used -- kunlangeta -- that I think was used to describe about 1 in 500 people in the Eskimo culture who was exactly right, they were people who rationally understood what they were doing was wrong, but didn't care...who were sexually promiscuous, who didn't seem to learn from punishment, who lied, cheated, stole, and so on. The quote that you might be remembering, which I've always liked is, Murphy asked one of the elders what do they normally do with someone who is kunlangeta, how do they handle that person. And the person said, "We usually try to push them off the ice when no one else is looking." So (laughs) I've always liked that quote. So we don't know much about how they're handled in other cultures, but from the little we can tell, they're not thought of much more fondly than we think of them in western culture...and that's probably true.
So at this point, it's still largely unknown -- there's remarkably little known about cultural differences in psychopathy, which is really scandalous as far as I can tell because to me that's an exceedingly important question both scientifically and pragmatically. But we don't really know much other than to say that one thing we can be confident of is that psychopathy, whatever it is, is not solely or simply a product of western culture -- we see it in other cultures too. Certainly we see it in...outside of America, we see it in Europe, we see it in Australia, we see it in South America, we see it in Asia as well, but we've also seen it in cultures like the ones Murphy had studied -- she also found that in some areas of Nigeria that it had almost no contact at all with western culture.
Evolutionarily I'm always a little....you asked about evolutionary models -- I'm always a little skeptical about evolutionary models of psychopathy partly because I see psychopathy, although you may have some guests that disagree with me on this...again, I see it as a configuration of multiple traits, at least 3, that come together in a particular way. So I'm not so sure that there's going to be one evolutionary explanation for psychopathy. There may be evolutionary explanations for the component traits, but again I might be wrong on that and not everyone agrees with my take on that. I think that we don't know if there is an evolutionary basis of psychopathy, I'm not sure there is one to the full disorder. I think there's certainly ones to the component traits...I don't think we know what it is -- it could be something as simple and as psychologically uninteresting as the fact that they reproduce more. So that could...that's sort of the simplest explanation -- whether that's true or not, we don't know, but there's some evidence suggesting that people with these traits, not surprisingly, have more offspring. And people with these traits, because they are bold, because they're daring, because they're charming, and most of all, because they're sexually promiscuous, they are probably better at getting their genes into the next generation than we are so even though they may die off more quickly, their genes are actually doing a better job of getting out there. That's one possibility.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
