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Authors: Kevin Dutton
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president? At first one might think, maybe not. But in 2010, Scott Lilienfeld teamed up with forensic psychologist Steven Rubenzer and Thomas Faschingbauer, professor of psychology at the Foundation for the Study of Personality in History, in Houston, Texas, and helped them analyze some rather interesting data.Back in 2000, Rubenzer and Faschingbauer had sent out the NEO Personality Inventory to the biographers of every U.S. president in history. 3 It included questions such as “You should take advantage of others before they do it to you.” And “I never feel guilty over hurting people.” In total, there were 240 of these items. Plus a catch. It wasn’t the biographers who were being tested. But their subjects. The biographers, based on their knowledge, had to answer on their subjects’ behalf.
The results made interesting reading. A number of U.S. presidents exhibited distinct psychopathic traits, with John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton leading the charge. 4 Not only that, but just look at how the Roosevelts fare. Some of history’s golden boys are up there in the mix.
So should we be overly worried? Should it be cause for concern when the head of the most powerful nation on earth shares, as Jim Kouri noted, a significant proportion of his core personality traits with serial killers? Maybe. But to see where Lilienfeld, Rubenzer, and Faschingbauer are coming from with their political personality profiles, we need to dig deeper into precisely what it means to be a psychopath.
When Personality Goes Wrong
You need to be very careful when talking about personality disorder. Because everyone’s got one, right? So let’s get it straight from the start: personality disorders are not the preserve of those who piss you off (a common misconception among narcissists). Instead, as the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
5 defines them, they are “an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the culture of the individual who exhibits it.”
The key word here is
enduring
. A personality disorder is not just for Christmas (though Christmas does, admittedly, bring out the best in them). No, personality disorders are characterized by deeply ingrained, inflexible patterns of thinking, feeling, or relating to others, or by the inability to control or regulate impulses that cause distressor impaired functioning. They may not be exclusive to those who piss you off. But if someone’s got one, they will.
DSM classifies personality disorders into three distinct clusters. 6 There’s odd/eccentric, dramatic/erratic, and anxious/inhibited. And, believe you me, they’re all there. The cat-infested, crystal-gazing aunt with the tea-cozy hat and the big, dangly earrings, who thinks her bedroom is teeming with “presences” and that the pair across the road are aliens (schizotypal); the bling-toting, permatanned pool attendant, who’s had so much Botox he makes even Mickey Rourke look normal (narcissistic); and the cleaning lady I once hired, who, after three excruciating hours, was still working on the damn bath, for Christ’s sake (obsessive-compulsive). (I was paying her by the hour. So who was the crazy one there? I wonder.)
But personality disorders don’t just cause trouble in everyday life. They draw a good deal of fire within clinical psychology, too. One bone of contention revolves around the word “disorder.” With an estimated 14 percent of the general population diagnosed with one, the question arises as to whether, in fact, we should be calling them “disorders” at all. Might not, in reality, “personalities” be a better description? Well, maybe. But perhaps we should ask what personality disorders are, exactly. Do they, for instance, comprise a separate archipelago of pathology, epidemiologically adrift off the coast of mainland personality? Or do they, in contrast, form part of the Big Five peninsula: remote outposts of temperament at its
The results made interesting reading. A number of U.S. presidents exhibited distinct psychopathic traits, with John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton leading the charge. 4 Not only that, but just look at how the Roosevelts fare. Some of history’s golden boys are up there in the mix.
So should we be overly worried? Should it be cause for concern when the head of the most powerful nation on earth shares, as Jim Kouri noted, a significant proportion of his core personality traits with serial killers? Maybe. But to see where Lilienfeld, Rubenzer, and Faschingbauer are coming from with their political personality profiles, we need to dig deeper into precisely what it means to be a psychopath.
When Personality Goes Wrong
You need to be very careful when talking about personality disorder. Because everyone’s got one, right? So let’s get it straight from the start: personality disorders are not the preserve of those who piss you off (a common misconception among narcissists). Instead, as the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
5 defines them, they are “an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the culture of the individual who exhibits it.”
The key word here is
enduring
. A personality disorder is not just for Christmas (though Christmas does, admittedly, bring out the best in them). No, personality disorders are characterized by deeply ingrained, inflexible patterns of thinking, feeling, or relating to others, or by the inability to control or regulate impulses that cause distressor impaired functioning. They may not be exclusive to those who piss you off. But if someone’s got one, they will.
DSM classifies personality disorders into three distinct clusters. 6 There’s odd/eccentric, dramatic/erratic, and anxious/inhibited. And, believe you me, they’re all there. The cat-infested, crystal-gazing aunt with the tea-cozy hat and the big, dangly earrings, who thinks her bedroom is teeming with “presences” and that the pair across the road are aliens (schizotypal); the bling-toting, permatanned pool attendant, who’s had so much Botox he makes even Mickey Rourke look normal (narcissistic); and the cleaning lady I once hired, who, after three excruciating hours, was still working on the damn bath, for Christ’s sake (obsessive-compulsive). (I was paying her by the hour. So who was the crazy one there? I wonder.)
But personality disorders don’t just cause trouble in everyday life. They draw a good deal of fire within clinical psychology, too. One bone of contention revolves around the word “disorder.” With an estimated 14 percent of the general population diagnosed with one, the question arises as to whether, in fact, we should be calling them “disorders” at all. Might not, in reality, “personalities” be a better description? Well, maybe. But perhaps we should ask what personality disorders are, exactly. Do they, for instance, comprise a separate archipelago of pathology, epidemiologically adrift off the coast of mainland personality? Or do they, in contrast, form part of the Big Five peninsula: remote outposts of temperament at its
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