I want you to picture someone. Maybe it's a guy
you work with. Let's call him David. David is,
well, he's perfect. Oh, the perfect ones are
always the most interesting. Right. He's always
dressed impeccably. He's got that firm handshake.
He maintains just the right amount of eye contact.
He's charming, tells great stories at the water
cooler. And the boss, I mean, the boss absolutely
loves him. He never seems stressed, I'm guessing.
Never. Never seems rattled at all. He is, by
all accounts, just the model of mental health.
Okay, I'm with you. But then... Imagine you're
at a company dinner. A waiter accidentally spills
a full glass of red wine on David's very expensive,
very white shirt. The ultimate test. And for
just a microsecond, the mask slips. David doesn't
yell. He doesn't get red in the face. He just
he looks at the waiter with eyes that are completely
dead. Ah, there it is. There's no anger. There's
no frustration. There's just a total. A total
absence of humanity. It's like looking into the
eyes of a shark. And then it's gone. Gone. Snap.
The smile is back. He's making a joke about the
dry cleaning bill. And everyone laughs, relieved.
But you, you saw it. You saw the nothingness.
That is a visceral way to open. And that nothingness,
that absolute void, that is exactly what we are
here to unpack today. Welcome back to the Deep
Dive. Today we are exploring a topic that I think...
It scares people more than ghosts or goblins
because it's real and it's walking among us.
We are talking about psychopathy. And I'll be
honest, going through the research you sent over
this massive stack of articles and the main Wikipedia
deep dive, I realized I have been using that
word wrong my entire life. You and pretty much
everyone else. It's one of those words that has
been completely hijacked by pop culture. Oh,
completely. We say, oh, my ex is a total psycho
or that driver is a psychopath. We usually just
mean they're, you know, erratic or. angry or
just difficult. Exactly. Or we picture the Hollywood
version. We picture Hannibal Lecter wearing a
face mask or Patrick Bateman chasing people with
a chainsaw in American Psycho. We think of these
monsters hiding in the dark. And that's the danger.
Because while those characters are iconic, they
focus almost exclusively on the extreme violence.
The reality of psychopathy, the clinical reality,
is so much more subtle. And more unsettling,
I think. Far more unsettling, in my opinion.
We aren't necessarily talking about the guy with
the chainsaw. We're talking about a specific
personality construct that might be your surgeon,
your CEO, or that perfect guy, David, you just
described. That's what I want to get to the bottom
of. The mask of sanity. I saw this phrase popping
up repeatedly in the notes. It comes from Hervey
Cleckley, right? Back in the 40s. 1841, yes.
Hervey Cleckley wrote a seminal book titled The
Mask of Sanity. It basically, I mean, it completely
revolutionized how we see this condition. How
so? What was the thinking before him? Well, before
Cleckley, people often confused psychopathy with
insanity or psychosis. You know, madness. The
idea that they were crazy? Exactly. But Cleckley
made this startling observation. He was treating
patients who weren't crazy in the traditional
sense. They weren't hearing voices. They weren't
hallucinating. They weren't, you know, anxious
or depressed. So they seemed... Normal. Better
than normal. Yeah. He described how they often
appeared to be the most sane people in the hospital.
Wow. They were articulate, intelligent, totally
logical. But Cleckley realized that this sanity
was a thin veneer. It was a mask. Underneath,
there was a fundamental hollowness, a profound
poverty of emotion. So they could mimic human
emotion. Perfectly. They could say the right
things, but they couldn't actually feel them.
That's the core of it. There was a quote in the
research that I think you flagged and it gave
me chills too. It said, they know the words but
not the music. Yes, that one. It's the perfect
analogy. It really is. Imagine trying to explain
the feeling of being moved by a beautiful piece
of music, you know, a symphony, to someone who
is completely tone deaf. They could read the
sheet music. They could analyze it perfectly.
They can say, ah, yes, a C sharp followed by
an E flat that's a minor third. They understand
the mechanics. But they don't get the goosebumps.
They don't feel that swell of emotion in their
chest. And that is the psychopath with, say,
love. Or guilt. Or remorse. Or empathy. They
know I love you is a phrase you say to get someone
to stay. Or to get sex. Or to get money. They
know the words. They just don't hear the music.
So our mission today is to figure out how that
machine works. We want to strip away the slang
and look at the actual mechanics. Is it genetic?
Is it something that happens to you as a kid?
And the big paradox, the one that I think fascinates
everyone. The one I'm obsessed with. Why do some
of these people become serial killers while others
become wildly successful business leaders? It
is the ultimate paradox of the trait. And to
get there, we have to start by clearing up the
biggest confusion of all. The difference between
psycho, as in psychotic, And psychopath. I feel
like I've used these interchangeably at parties
and probably embarrassed myself more than once.
You're not alone. But the distinction is absolutely
crucial. Psychosis or being psychotic is a break
from reality. Okay. That is what you see in something
like schizophrenia, for example. If you are psychotic,
you might have delusions. You might believe the
government is beaming thoughts into your head
through the toaster. Right. You might hear voices
telling you to do things. You are suffering.
Because your mind has separated from the real
world. Okay, so the psychotic person thinks the
toaster is talking to them. Right. The psychopath,
on the other hand, knows the toaster is just
a toaster. They are grounded firmly in reality.
They are rational. They are logical. Often they
are colder and more rational than you or I because
they aren't clouded by all that messy emotion.
So the psychotic person is mad in the classic
sense. The psychopath is what? Bad. That's the
simplified way to look at it, I suppose. The
psychotic person is often a victim of their own
broken mind. They are suffering. The word pathos
means suffering after all. But the psychopath,
they don't suffer. They cause suffering. They're
the engine of chaos. Exactly. For everyone else,
while they remain perfectly calm at the center
of the storm. So if I suspect my neighbor is
a psychopath, I can't just look up psychopathy
in the big book of mental disorders, right? I
tried to find it in the notes about the DSM,
a diagnostic and statistical manual, and it's
not there. It's not. And this drives criminologists
and many forensic psychologists absolutely crazy.
Why not? It seems like such a well -known concept.
It is, but... The DSM, for various reasons, doesn't
have a standalone diagnosis called psychopathy.
The closest thing you'll find is something called
antisocial personality disorder, or ASPD. But
they aren't the same thing. They overlap, like
a Venn diagram, but they are absolutely not synonyms.
ASPD is very, very behavior -based. It's focused
on what you do. Like a checklist of bad actions.
A total checklist of trouble. If you look at
the criteria for ASPD, it's things like, do you
consistently break laws? Do you lie repeatedly?
Are you impulsive? Do you get into physical fights?
Do you show a reckless disregard for the safety
of others? Okay, so it's basically the criminality
disorder. Roughly, yes. It's very good at catching
the people who act out, who end up in the criminal
justice system. But here is the catch, and it's
a big one. Go on. You can be a psychopath and
never get arrested. You can be a psychopath and
never get into a fistfight. You might destroy
people psychologically or bankrupt a company
or emotionally scar your children for life. But
you do it within the letter of the law. Or just
smart enough to not get caught. Those people,
the so -called successful psychopaths, would
likely not get diagnosed with ASPD because they
aren't antisocial in that. crude legal sense.
They're too smart for that. Or too controlled.
So researchers, especially in the forensic world,
knew they needed a better tool. They needed a
way to measure the personality, not just the
rap sheet. The stuff going on underneath the
surface. The hollowness, the lack of empathy.
And that brings us to the gold standard, the
PCLR. The psychopathy checklist revised. This
was developed by Dr. Robert Hare. i want to spend
some time here because i feel like this is where
we really see the ingredients of the mask it's
a scoring system right it is it's a 20 item checklist
for each of those 20 items a trained clinician
and they have to be trained reviews a person's
entire life history interviews police records
family interviews everything this isn't a quiz
you take online absolutely not and for each item
the clinician gives a score zero means doesn't
apply at all one means apply somewhat and two
means That's a perfect description of this person.
And the max score is 40, a perfect two on all
20 items. Max is 40, yes. Okay, let's play a
game. I want to really understand these traits.
I'm going to invent a character. Let's call him
Gary. Gary is a guy I used to know loosely based
on a real person, but I won't name names. I like
it. Let's do it. I'm going to describe Gary,
and you tell me how we'd score him on some of
these key PCLR items. All right, let's diagnose
Gary. Fire away. Okay, item one. glibness, and
superficial charm. Gary was the life of the party.
He always had a funny story. He could talk to
anyone about anything, but... It always felt
a little rehearsed, like he was performing a
script he'd memorized. And if you tried to get
deep with him, ask him about his feelings, he'd
just deflect with a joke and that perfect dazzling
smile. That's a classic two points. That's the
mask. Yeah. It's the ability to be entertaining
and engaging, but it's all on a very surface
level. It's described as slick, but without any
real warmth or substance behind it. Slick is
the perfect word. Okay. Two points for Gary.
Next item. Grandiose sense of self -worth. Gary
didn't just think he was smart. He thought he
was a god among men. He'd say things like, I'm
the only one in this company who actually has
a brain. He genuinely believed rules were for
little people, not for him. Another solid two.
This isn't just confidence. Confidence is, I
think I can do this job well. Grandiosity is,
I am inherently superior to you, and the laws
of physics, society, and basic decency shouldn't
apply to me. He's racking up the points. What
about pathological lying? Gary lied about everything.
He lied about where he went to college. He lied
about how much money he made. He even lied about
what he had for lunch for no reason. And that's
the key. For no reason. That's why it's pathological.
A normal person lies to avoid trouble or despair
someone's feelings. No, honey, those genes don't
make you look fat. A social lubricant. Right.
A psychopath lies for the thrill of it or just
to control the narrative. Yeah. There's a term
for it. Duping delight. They get a little kick,
a little jolt of pleasure out of successfully
tricking you. Duping delight. That is incredibly
creepy. OK, here's a big one. Lack of remorse
or guilt. Gary cheated on his wife, got caught.
And when she was crying, screaming, his reaction
wasn't, I'm so sorry. It was, why are you making
such a big deal out of this? You're being hysterical.
Quintessential, too. It's the externalization
of blame. I didn't hurt you. Your reaction is
the problem. There is no internal mechanism that
says, I caused another human being pain and that
makes me feel bad. That entire circuit is missing.
So if Gary keeps going like this across all 20
items, getting twos on cunning, manipulative,
parasitic lifestyle, impulsivity, callousness.
If he scores above a 30, that's the cutoff in
the U .S. and Canada. He is clinically labeled
a psychopath. The UK is a bit more conservative.
They use a cutoff of 25. A 30. To give you some
context, what would an average person score?
The average person walking down the street scores
a 4 or a 5, maybe? A 4. I feel like I'd score
a four just on a Monday morning when I haven't
had coffee yet. We all have traits, right? Yeah.
Maybe you're a little impulsive sometimes. That's
a one. Maybe you're a bit irresponsible in your
20s. That's another one. But you are not hitting
30 unless you have a profound and pervasive deficit
in your personality structure. Okay. What about
a criminal? A non -psychopathic criminal? Great
question. Your average violent prisoner, a guy
in jail for assault or robbery, scores about
a 22. Wait, wait. So a guy in prison for beating
someone up is a 22, but a psychopath is a 30.
Exactly. The psychopath is in a completely different
league. They are the apex predators of the prison
yard. That puts it in perspective. There was
another framework in the notes that I found a
bit easier to visualize than the 20 -point checklist.
The triarchic model. Yes, from Christopher Patrick.
It describes psychopathy as a three -legged stool.
I found this really helpful. It's a more modern
way to look at it, and it helps explain why they
can be so contradictory, why they can be so charming
one minute and so cruel the next. It breaks it
down into three core components. Okay. Break
down the three legs for us. Leg one is boldness.
It's the part that actually looks kind of cool.
It's low fear, high stress tolerance, social
assertiveness. The James Bond trait. Exactly.
Or a fighter pilot or an ER surgeon. They stay
calm when the building is on fire. We admire
this trait. So boldness on its own isn't bad.
In fact, it's often a leadership trait. It is.
We vote for boldness. We promote boldness. But
then you add leg two, disinhibition. Which is?
Which is poor impulse control. Yeah. The inability
to plan for the long term. A constant demand
for immediate gratification. It's the toddler
brain. I want it and I want it now. So you have
a fearless guy who acts like a toddler. That's
already a bad combo. A very bad combo. And then
you add leg three, which is the darkest leg of
the stool. Meanness. That's a very blunt term
for a scientific model. It's exactly what it
says on the tin. It's an act of cruelty. A lack
of empathy. A willingness to exploit others.
To use them as objects to build yourself up.
So if you mix those three ingredients, a fearless,
impulsive person who enjoys cruelty. You get
the perfect predator. Boldness means they aren't
afraid to hunt you. Meanness means they don't
care if they hurt you. And disinhibition means
they're going to strike the moment they see an
opportunity without thinking about the consequences.
That is a terrifying cocktail, but... Before
we leave the definition phase, I have to ask
the question that I know listeners are screaming
at their speakers right now. Psychopath versus
sociopath. Is there a difference or is it just
semantics? It's a bit of a debate in the field,
to be honest. Some researchers use them interchangeably.
But for those who do make a distinction, like
Robert Hare, the general consensus is born versus
made. Okay, elaborate on that. Nature versus
nurture. Exactly. Leading researchers tend to
view psychopathy as a nature problem. You were
born with a wiring. It's genetic. It's biological.
We'll talk about the brain scans in a minute.
But the hardware is fundamentally different from
the start. So the psychopath arrives that way.
The blueprint is there from birth. Roughly, yes.
The potential is there. Sociopathy, on the other
hand, is often seen as a result of nurture. It's
environmental. So you're not born a sociopath.
You become one. That's the idea. Maybe you grew
up in a terrible, abusive home or a war -torn
neighborhood, or you were initiated into a gang.
You learned to be antisocial to survive. Your
environment beat the empathy out of you. So a
sociopath might have a conscience. It's just
buried or broken. Or it's selective. A sociopath
might rob a bank and shoot a guard, but they
would never, ever rat out their friends. They
might have a deep loyalty to their gang or their
family. They have a code. It's a twisted code,
but it's there. It's there. A psychopath. They
have no code. They have no loyalty to anyone
but themselves. They would throw their own mother
under a bus if it got them better concert tickets.
And they'd do it without a second thought. That
distinction, the nature aspect of psychopathy,
really sets us up for the next section. Because
if they're born this way, if the hardware is
different, that means we should be able to see
it. We should. We should be able to look under
the hood and see the broken parts. And we can.
This is where the science gets really, really
interesting and frankly, a little scary. Let's
talk about that biology, the fearless biology.
There was an experiment mentioned in the text
involving electric shocks that I found just stunning.
The countdown experiment. It's a classic pioneered
by a researcher named Lichen. So imagine I bring
you into a lab. I hook you up to sensors that
measure your skin conductance. Basically, a fancy
way of saying how much your palms are sweating.
I'm already nervous just thinking about it. Exactly.
And your sweat glands show it. I tell you, in
10 seconds, I'm going to give you a painful but
not harmful electric shock. And I start a clock
on a big screen. 10, 9, 8. What is your body
doing? My heart is pounding. I'm sweating. I'm
clenching my teeth. I'm bracing for impact. My
whole body is screaming, danger. That's the anticipatory
anxiety. Your brain is predicting pain and flooding
your system with stress hormones to prepare.
Now, we bring in a high -scoring psychopath.
We tell them the same thing. Ten, nine, eight.
Red, flat line. The needle on the skin conductance
machine barely moves. No sweat, no heart rate
spike. But they know it's coming. They understand
the words. Oh, perfectly. They know the shock
is coming. They know what will hurt. But their
body simply does not produce the fear response.
It's like the message gets lost in the mail.
That's alien. It's hard to even comprehend. Think
about what that means for how we learn. How did
you learn not to steal cookies from the cookie
jar when you were a kid? Well, my mom would catch
me and yell or get a timeout. And I'd feel that
awful pit in my stomach, that shame, that fear
of getting in trouble again. Exactly. We learn
it through aversive conditioning. We associate
the bad behavior with the bad feeling of fear
or shame or anxiety. But if you are physically
incapable of feeling that fear, Punishments don't
work. They don't land. The threat of prison.
It doesn't register emotionally. The threat of
your wife leaving you. It's just information,
not a gut punch. The threat of getting fired.
An inconvenience. So the entire teaching mechanism
of society is broken for them. Completely. And
it's broken because of specific structures in
the brain. The biggest culprit is a little almond
-shaped structure deep in the temporal lobe.
The amygdala. The amygdala. I always think of
that as the brain's panic button. It's the security
guard. It's constantly scanning the environment
for threats. Is that a snake? Is that an angry
face? Is that a sad face that I caused? In psychopaths,
the amygdala is often physically smaller. Some
studies show up to 18 % smaller and significantly
less active, especially in response to fearful
or sad expressions. 18 % is a huge chunk of brain
real estate to be missing or underperforming.
It is a massive deficit. Yeah. So the security
guard is asleep on the job. But it's not just
the guard. It's the communication lines between
the different departments of the brain. The wiring.
Yes. There's a specific tract of white matter
called the uncinate fasciculus. It's a mouthful,
but think of it as the high -speed fiber optic
cable connecting two critical parts of the brain.
Which two parts? It connects the amygdala, which
we said is the emotion and fear center, to the
ventromedial prefrontal cortex, or the VMPFC.
And what does the VMPFC do? That's the manager.
That's the CEO of the brain. It's the part right
behind your forehead that makes decisions, considers
consequences, processes guilt, and applies moral
reasoning. Okay, so a security guard sees a threat,
calls the manager to decide what to do. That's
how it's supposed to work. The security guard,
amygdala, sees a sad face on a person you just
insulted. It sends an urgent signal down that
fiber optic cable to the manager. And the manager
says, oh, I caused that person pain. That violates
our moral code. I should apologize and feel guilt.
But in a psychopath. The cable is frayed. Studies
on the uncinate fasciculus in psychopaths show
it's disorganized, degraded. The signal just
doesn't get through with any clarity. I love
that analogy. It's like a dropped call. The manager
is making decisions. I'm going to steal that
person's wallet. And the security guard is in
the basement screaming, bad idea, moral violation.
They'll be sad. But the line is dead. The manager
never gets the memo. Precisely. The manager is
operating on pure, cold, unadulterated logic
and self -interest, completely unburdened by
emotional feedback. This explains the crucial
difference between cognitive empathy and emotional
empathy. Break that down for us. I think people
often use empathy as one single thing. They're
very different. Cognitive empathy is knowing
what someone feels. It's the ability to read
social cues. I see your brow is furrowed and
your fists are clenched. I deduce that you are
angry. It's an intellectual exercise. Exactly.
And so psychopaths are often brilliant at this.
They use it to manipulate you. They are expert
people readers. They know exactly what to say
to make you trust them or fear them or pity them.
They know the password to get into your head.
But emotional empathy, that's feeling what you
feel. It's that mirror neuron response where
if I see you smash your thumb with a hammer.
I physically wince in pain with you. Psychopaths
don't wince. They watch you cry with the same
emotional detachment as watching paint dry. It's
just data to them. It's the difference between
reading a manual on how pain works and actually
getting punched in the face. A perfect way to
put it. And it's not just the brain structure.
It's the biochemical cocktails sloshing around
inside. The hormones and neurotransmitters. Yes.
They often show high levels of testosterone,
which is linked to approach behavior and reward
sensitivity. They also have low levels of cortisol,
the stress hormone. So they're always seeking
rewards and never feel stress. And you add in
dysregulation of serotonin, which is linked to
impulsivity, and you have a perfect storm. High
drive, high impulsivity, no fear, no stress.
It creates a biological machine built for aggressive,
dominant behavior without any of the natural
breaks that fear or guilt provide. Which brings
us back to the ultimate nature nurture question.
Because if you have this brain, this small amygdala,
this frayed wiring, this hormonal cocktail, are
you doomed? Are you destined to be a monster
from day one? That is the million dollar question.
And for a long time, the answer was thought to
be a very pessimistic yes. we see that the core
callous unemotional traits are highly heritable,
over 60 % in some studies. More than 60%. That's
huge. It's one of the more heritable psychological
traits. We also hear a lot about the MAOA enzyme,
the so -called warrior gene. Right. I've seen
that in headlines. It's a gene involved in breaking
down neurotransmitters like serotonin. If you
have the low activity version of this gene, you're
predisposed to be more aggressive when provoked.
So if I get a 23 cyclone result that says I have
the warrior gene, am I a psychopath? No. And
this is the most hopeful part of the research,
and it's a huge but. Genes are the loaded gun,
but the environment is what pulls the trigger.
Okay. There's a famous neuroscientist, Dr. James
Fallon. He was studying the brain scans of convicted
serial killers. He had a whole stack of them
on his desk, and he knew what the psychopathic
brain looked like. A dark, inactive amygdala.
and vmpfc he was an expert in seeing the pattern
right and as a control for his study he had scanned
himself and his entire family one day he's looking
through a pile of scans and he finds one that
looks clearly terrifyingly psychopathic a textbook
case and whose scan was it it was his own no
way you're kidding it's a true story he looked
at his own brain and realized he had the biology
of psychopath He later got his genes tested.
He had the high -risk warrior gene and a bunch
of other markers for violence and aggression.
Well, he's not a killer. No. He's a successful,
happily married scientist with kids. So he asked
himself, why am I not in prison? How did he answer
that? Because he had an incredibly loving, supportive,
and stable childhood. His parents nurtured him.
He was never abused. He was raised in a way that
taught him to channel those traits. The boldness,
the lack of fear, the intense focus into pro
-social things like science and ambition rather
than violence and manipulation. So if you take
that same brain, James Fallon's brain, and you
put it in a chaotic, abusive, neglectful home.
Then you have a disaster. A ticking time bomb.
The research shows a very strong correlation.
Physical abuse and neglect in childhood correlates
with the disinhibition leg of the stool, the
impulsivity. Sexual abuse correlates with the
meanness leg, the cruelty. It's a tragedy. You
take a brain that is already struggling to process
emotion and you subject it to trauma that forces
it to shut down emotion even further just to
survive. Just pouring gasoline on a fire. This
leads to the early warning signs. We hear about
the classic triad, bedwetting, fire starting.
The McDonald triad. Bedwetting, past a certain
age, arson, and cruelty to animals. The animal
cruelty thing is the one that always gets me.
It feels like such a pure indicator of something
wrong. It's the reddest of red flags. A normal
child might pull a cat's tail and get scratched,
and they learn. They feel scared, they feel bad.
If a child tortures or kills a small animal and
feels no remorse, or even feels a sense of power
or curiosity, that is a profound sign that the
empathy circuit is not firing. In the DSM -5,
for kids, it's called conduct disorder with callous
unemotional traits. Exactly. They added that
specifier, the callous unemotional part, to distinguish
these kids from regular troublemakers. These
are the kids who lack guilt, who have a shallow
affect, who use others for their own ends. But
parents listening shouldn't panic if their toddler
bites a friend, right? No. Good grief, no. Toddlers
are natural sociopaths. They haven't developed
empathy yet. Their prefrontal cortex is still
under construction. We're talking about older
children and a persistent, pervasive pattern
of cruelty and lack of connection. And even then,
there is hope. There is. Brains are plastic,
especially when you're young. One longitudinal
study tracked high -risk 13 -year -olds who scored
high on these traits. By age 24, less than a
third of them were still classified as psychopathic.
So two -thirds grew out of it. Or learned to
manage it. They matured. Their frontal lobes
came online. They found a different path. So
biology isn't destiny. Not always. But for some,
it is. And let's talk about the ones who don't
grow out of it. They become adults. And they
don't all become criminals. In fact, a lot of
them put on a suit and tie and get a corner office.
Section four, the corporate psychopath. Ah, yes.
The boardroom predator. The snakes in suits.
The stats here just blew my mind. In the general
population, the rate of psychopathy is about
1%, 1 in 100 people. Which is already a lot more
than people think. It is. But in senior management
positions, CEOs, executives. It shoots way up.
The most cited studies put it at 3 % to 4%. But
some researchers who study high stakes fields
like finance or politics think it could be much,
much higher. So you are potentially four times
more likely to find a psychopath in the C -suite
than in the mailroom. Why? What is it about that
environment that attracts them or helps them
succeed? Think about the typical job description
of a CEO, especially during a crisis. You need
someone who can make hard decisions. You need
someone who can fire 5 ,000 people to save the
stock price and then go home and sleep like a
baby. You need someone with low emotional empathy.
You need someone with that boldness trait. You
need someone who doesn't feel the stress of the
shareholders yelling at them. The core psychopathic
traits, fearlessness, dominance, charisma, coolness
under pressure, they perfectly mimic. our cultural
image of a strong leader. We mistake their lack
of anxiety for strength. We do, time and time
again. We see their ruthlessness and call it
decisive. We see their charm and call it visionary.
It's the kiss -up -kick -down dynamic that I
read about. That is their signature move. I want
you to imagine a big meeting, a corporate psychopath,
let's call him Boss Axe. is in a room with his
superiors, the board of directors. He is charming.
He's visionary. He's promising the moon. He is
mirroring exactly what they want to hear. He's
their golden boy. The mask is firmly on. Bolted
on. But the moment the superiors leave, and it's
just Boss X and his team of subordinates, the
mask drops. He's bullying. He's taking credit
for their work. He's pitting them against each
other, creating chaos just for fun, just to watch
the show. To maintain control. Exactly. There
was a fascinating study from the University of
Notre Dame that found that people with high psychopathic
traits actually thrive under abusive supervision.
What does that even mean? They like being yelled
at. It means that in a toxic, shouting, high
-pressure culture, normal people crumble. They
get stressed. Their performance suffers. They
burn out. They quit. The psychopath. They love
it. It's their natural habitat. It's their playground.
They don't get their feelings hurt by an abusive
boss. They see the chaos as a ladder. So in a
truly toxic company, over time, the psychopaths
are the only ones left standing. They're the
last ones to turn out the lights. They're like
the cockroaches of the corporate world. They
can survive the nuclear fallout that kills everyone
else. And then they rise to the top. But the
cost to the company is massive. They are organizational
parasites. They might boost profits in the short
term by cutting ethical corners or slashing staff.
But they rot the culture from the inside out.
Fraud increases. Employee turnover skyrocket.
It's the Enron scenario. Precisely. A group of
very smart, very charming guys at the top who
didn't care who got hurt as long as the stock
number went up. But not every psychopath is satisfied
with just destroying a company. Some destroy
lives. Physically. We have to talk about... The
link to violence. We mentioned earlier that not
all psychopaths are violent, but when they are,
it's different. It is profoundly different. Criminologists
make a vital distinction between reactive aggression
and instrumental aggression. Reactive is the
bar fight. Right. Hot blooded. Right. You spill
my drink. I feel disrespected. My emotions flare
up and I punch you. That's hot aggression. It's
an emotional outburst. Psychopaths can certainly
do this, but so can lots of normal people with
a temper. But instrumental aggression. That is
cold. That is predatory. I'm not hitting you
because I'm angry. I'm hitting you because you
have something I want. Maybe it's your wallet.
Maybe it's your car. Maybe it's just the feeling
of power from seeing you in pain. Violence is
a tool. It's a screwdriver you use to get a job
done. And the stat here was staggering. Something
like 93 % of homicides committed by psychopaths
were instrumental. 93 .3%, to be exact, compared
to less than half 48 .4 % for non -psychopathic
murderers. That's... single statistic chills
me to the bone every time I read it. Because
it means it was planned. It was planned. It was
goal -oriented. Yeah. And it was executed without
a raised heart rate. It's the difference between
a crime of passion and an assassination. And
this creates a complete nightmare for the legal
system. Because if you catch them and you put
them in prison... They often don't stay there.
The infamous revolving door. This is a paradox
that frustrates every parole board member in
the country. The data is crystal clear. Psychopaths
are significantly more likely to re -offend and
re -offend violently than other criminals. They
are the highest risk category. Okay, so they're
the most dangerous. By far. Yeah. But they are
2 .5 times more likely to be granted parole than
other inmates. That makes absolutely no sense.
If they are the most dangerous, why on earth
are we letting them out? Because of the mask.
Imagine you're on the parole board. A normal
prisoner comes in. They might be sullen. They
might be anxious, avoid eye contact because they're
ashamed. They might struggle to articulate their
remorse. To the board, they look shifty or unreformed.
And then the psychopath comes in. The psychopath
puts on an Oscar -worthy performance. I've learned
so much during my time here, Your Honor. I've
found God. I see the error of my ways. I want
to dedicate my life to helping youth avoid the
mistakes I made. They say everything the board
wants to hear. Perfectly. They make perfect eye
contact. They seem sincere. They are charming.
They've manipulated the prison psychologist.
They have charmed the guards. They hacked the
interview. So the system designed to detect risk
is the most vulnerable to their specific brand
of manipulation. It's their superpower. And then
they get out and do it all again. This brings
up a deep philosophical question. The Damasio
experiment you mentioned. With the airplane scenario.
Can we walk through that? This is a variation
of the famous trolley problem. Dr. Antonio Damasio
studied patients with damage to that VMPFC area,
the manager part of the brain, the same area
that's dysfunctional in psychopaths. So these
are people with acquired sociopathy from a brain
injury. Exactly. He gave him a scenario. A passenger
plane has been hijacked. It's heading for a major
city. If you do nothing, thousands will die.
Your only option is to shoot it down. If you
shoot it down, you will kill the 200 innocent
passengers on board, but you will save the city.
It's the ultimate utilitarian choice. The cold
math says shoot the plane to save more lives.
Right. And most people, when posed this dilemma,
will eventually land on that answer. But for
a normal person, it's an agonizing decision.
The thought of actively killing 200 innocent
people creates a visceral, painful, emotional
reaction. Takes them time to decide. They sweat.
They feel awful. And the patients with the brain
damage. Immediate answer. Shoot it down. No hesitation.
No anguish. None. They look at the researcher
like, why is this a hard question? To them, it's
just math. 200 is less than 2 ,000. Next problem.
And that is the crux of the legal issue. If their
brain physically cannot process the anguish of
the decision, are they fully responsible? If
I was colorblind and I ran a red light because
I couldn't see the color, you'd say, well, his
eyes don't work. If a psychopath has a morally
blind brain, can we truly blame them? The law,
as it stands, says yes. Emphatically yes. Why?
Because they know the rules. They are not psychotic.
They understand that society says murder is wrong.
They just don't care. Right. And legal systems,
by and large, have decided that indifference
isn't a valid excuse. So we hold them responsible.
But it's an uncomfortable reality to sit with.
So if we lock them up, can we fix them? Is there
a cure for this? This is, I think, the bleakest
part of the entire deep dive. The short answer
is no. And worse, trying to fix them with traditional
methods can make things much, much worse. Oh,
I thought therapy was good for everyone. Therapy
relies on two fundamental things. One, you have
to believe you have a problem. And two, you have
to have a desire to change. Psychopaths don't
think they have a problem. They think we are
the ones with the problem. They think we're weak
for having feelings. Exactly. They see themselves
as evolved, as superior beings, unburdened by
useless emotions like guilt or love. They have
zero personal distress, so why would they change?
So they just sit there in the therapy session
and roll their eyes. Worse. They take notes.
There's a well -documented phenomenon called
the training risk or the finishing school effect.
Finishing school, like for etiquette and manners.
Exactly. If you put a psychopath in group therapy,
they don't engage with the material to get better.
They sit back and watch other people. They listen
intently as vulnerable inmates describe their
pain, their trauma, their moments of regret.
They're gathering data. They're building a library
of emotional scripts. They think, aha. So when
your mother dies, your voice is supposed to crack
like that. And you're supposed to look down at
your hands. Interesting. They learn the vocabulary
of emotion. They learn to mimic empathy better.
My God. They come out of therapy more dangerous
than when they went in because now they have
a better disguise. They are more effective manipulators.
That is straight out of a horror movie. You send
them to a doctor to get better and they come
out a better predator. Which is why most. Modern
treatment programs for psychopaths have abandoned
empathy training entirely. It just doesn't stick.
So what do you do? Just lock them away forever
and throw away the key? If they are violent,
in many cases, yes, that's the only safe option.
But for management or for those who aren't violent,
you have to appeal to the only thing they understand,
self -interest. You don't try to make them care
about others. You don't say, don't hit Gary.
because it hurts him and makes him sad. You say,
don't hit Gary, because if you do, you lose your
Xbox privileges for a month. You make it a pure
transaction. Everything is a transaction to them.
So you have to rig the game so that pro -social
behavior, being good, is the most profitable
and rewarding move for them personally. It's
cynical, but it's the only thing that seems to
have even a modest effect. Before we wrap up,
I want to touch on something we haven't mentioned.
Gender. We've been saying he and him this whole
time. Are there female psychopaths? Absolutely.
But they are harder to spot and they are diagnosed
much, much less frequently. Why is that? A few
reasons. First, the PCLR, that 20 -item checklist,
was largely developed and validated on male prison
populations. It focuses heavily on things like
physical violence, overt criminality, and a parasitic
financial lifestyle. So if the test is looking
for a fistfight, it misses the poison in the
teacup. That's a perfect way to put it. Men with
psychopathy tend to externalize. Their aggression
is obvious. Violence, theft, assault. Women with
psychopathy tend to use more relational aggression.
Manipulation, gossip, rumors. Destroying a reputation.
Turning a family against each other. Gaslighting.
A female psychopath might be the perfect mother
on the outside who systematically destroys her
child's self -esteem to keep them dependent and
under control. She might be the office manager
who orchestrates a subtle campaign to get a rival
fired without ever raising her voice. Exactly.
It's quieter, more insidious, but just as destructive.
It's a different kind of mask, and we are only
just starting to develop the tools to properly
identify it. Wow. Okay, so we've covered the
brain, the genes, the corporate climbers, the
unfixable nature of it, but I want to zoom out
for the end here to the biggest question of all,
evolution. The why. Yes. If these people are
parasites, if they destroy trust, if they kill,
if they ruin companies, why hasn't natural selection
weeded them out? Humans are social animals. We
survive by cooperation. Psychopaths are the definition
of anti -cooperation. Why are they still here
after thousands of years? There are three main
theories, and they're all fascinating. The first
is called the frequency -dependent parasitic
strategy. That sounds like a biology paper title.
Break it down. It basically means this. Being
a parasite works, but only if there aren't too
many of you. Imagine a large, trusting flock
of sheep. If there is one wolf who learns to
wear a sheepskin, he eats very well. He thrives.
But if half the flock is wolves in sheep's clothing?
The whole system collapses. There's no one left
to exploit. The strategy fails. So nature keeps
the number low around that 1 % mark, just enough
to exploit the trusting majority, but not enough
to destroy the entire species. So they're biologically
designed to be the minority. A successful but
rare strategy. Exactly. Theory two is that psychopathy
is a spandrel. A spandrel. It's an architectural
term. It's the triangular space between two arches.
It wasn't designed on purpose. It's just an accidental
byproduct of building the arches. Okay, so how
does that apply here? The idea is that we as
a species value certain traits. We need fearlessness.
We need a high sex drive. We need intense focus.
We want brave hunters and warriors to protect
the tribe. So evolution selects for those traits.
Right. But genetics is a messy roll of the dice.
Sometimes you get a role that has too much fearlessness,
too much drive, and by accident, zero empathy.
It's not that nature wanted to create a psychopath.
It's that nature wanted a brave warrior and accidentally
overshot the mark. A genetic typo. An unfortunate
byproduct of creating heroes. And the third theory.
This one is the most straightforward. Reproductive
success. Let's be blunt. Psychopaths are often
charming, confident, and promiscuous. They are
masters of the short -term mating strategy. They
are often sexually coercive. The result is they
tend to have a lot of partners and a lot of children.
They spread their DNA far and wide. And then
they often abandon those children and partners,
leaving others to raise them. It's a quantity
over quality strategy. From a cold, selfish gene
perspective, if you have 20 kids and abandon
them all, you might still pass on more of your
genes than the nice, stable guy who has two kids
and raises them perfectly. Evolution is cold.
It doesn't care about morality. It only cares
about replication. So this leaves me with a really
uncomfortable thought to end on. We've spent
this whole deep dive talking about how dangerous
they are, the empty soul, the parasite, but...
Think about that surgeon again. The one saving
your life on the operating table. Yeah. If I'm
on the table and something goes terribly wrong,
my artery bursts. Do I want the surgeon who feels
deep, overwhelming empathy? The one whose hands
start to shake because he's so worried about
me and my family? Or do you want the cold, emotionless
technician with ice in his veins? I want the
psychopath. I want the guy who just sees a plumbing
problem and fixes the pipe. If we are in a war,
do we want a general who agonizes over every
single soldier's life to the point of paralysis?
Or do we want one who can make the cold, hard
calculation to sacrifice one platoon to save
the entire army and win the war? This is the
ultimate paradox. We fear them individually.
We don't want to date them. We don't want them
as our neighbors or our bosses. But as a society,
we might actually need a sprinkle of psychopathy
to function. We need people who can do the dirty
work without losing sleep. So the question isn't
just how do we stop them? It's where do we draw
the line between a monster and a necessary evil?
It's a very fine line. And usually the only difference
is whether they're on our side or not. Well,
on that comforting note, I'm going to go analyze
my entire office with a new and frankly terrified
perspective. Just don't let them see you doing
it. Fair point. That's it for this deep dive.
Stay curious, stay safe, and maybe keep an eye
on David. See you next time.