Author: Jon Ronson
I previously read Ronson’s book called ‘So, you’ve been shamed,’ which I used in some classes. I then purchased The Psychopath Test and some other books he wrote but never read them until now. The reason for reading this now probably lies in the fact I just finished binging two different Dexter series on Dexter Morgan, a forensic analyst and a vigilante serial killer who kills criminals who managed to fall through the cracks of the justice system.
What is interesting about Dexter and his story is that he says he was born in blood because as a toddler he witnessed his mother being murdered. She was a police informant and got chopped with a chainsaw. Dexter lived in the storage with her body and in her blood for days before he was found. Later, his wife gets killed by another serial killer and his son also ends up sitting in his mother’s blood. As a result, Dexter kills people with a knife but then chops them up and puts them in bags and then into the ocean whilst his son – who saw his mother being killed with a razor – killed people with a razor.
Therefore, after binging Dexter, I remembered the Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson and got interested in reading it. This is not surprising given my general interest in the impact of early socialization on behavioural, communication, and leadership styles. So, obviously, I was interested in the Dexter series, and I was interested in The Psychopath Test.
The Psychopath Test book is again, as with the one on shaming, based on journalistic interviews as well as thorough research of academic literature. In the case of the Psychopath Test, Ronson spoke with lots of different people – psychiatrists, psychologists, but also Scientologists who campaign against psychiatry and their methods, protesting particularly the DSM book that outlines all questionnaires and checklists a psychiatrist can use to diagnose a mental health condition. Ronson also spoke with many business leaders due to being particularly interested in the claim by Bob Hare – a father of the Hare psychopathy checklist – that psychopaths form the minority in the population but that a lot of them are politicians and business leaders. Bob Hare authored two books about this, Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work and Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us. It goes without saying I ordered both of these books and will be reading them with interest.
Ronson writes like a journalist and applies admirable levels of journalistic impartiality. He talks to all sides, Scientologists, psychiatrists, and psychologists, and even with a guy who is incarcerated in a high-security mental hospital because he is diagnosed as a psychopath. However, as a behavioural sociologist and a social scientist, it goes without saying that I am with Hare on the diagnosis being possible with a checklist. There are lots of arguments against this, and Ronson correctly emphasizes it is left-wing activists and academics who do not like labels and categorizations, but if anything, my research has convinced me that people are not that individualistic and different, and most can be classified and categorized if the research sample is large enough. There are exceptions, I am not disputing that, but most of the time this is minor. So, I got very interested in Hare’s checklist and his work. What also got me very interested is that when there was a consideration in the American Psychiatrical Association on including Hare’s checklist in the DSM book, there was opposition from a sociologist, Lee Robins who insisted psychiatrists cannot clinically measure empathy, so Hare’s checklist was not included, and instead APA identified Antisocial Personality Disorder, directly following from Robins’ research, which focused on identifying both genetic and environmental factors that can cause this disorder.
The Psychopath Test is basically a book documenting how definitions emerged, who psychopaths are, and how to recognize them. Ronson uses Bob Hare’s checklist to analyze people he talks to and to recognize psychopaths, but he also narrates – based on research and interviews – the history of defining mental health illness and psychopathy, which is accompanied by stories of psychopaths he interviewed and various other people, thus the book being popular and very compelling. But plenty of sources are mentioned here, and it is possible to continue reading from this book. I was particularly interested in Hare’s statement that instead of studying psychopaths in prisons, he should have studied them at the stock exchange. When Ronson asked whether the stock exchange ones are less dangerous because they are not serial killers, Hare replied that killers destroy families whereas psychopaths at the stock exchange destroy societies. I thought this was poignant as well as Ronson’s question whether the only difference between psychopaths is that some psychopaths were born to stable, rich families whereas others were born to dysfunctional families, so they committed crimes. I agree with Hare that we need a measurement to diagnose someone, and all his measures seem reasonable, but equally, I agree with Robins that we too need to look into environmental factors.
A lot of food for thought in this book and a lot of further reading. Highly recommended for everyone who wants to learn more about this topic.
Thank you for reading.