Wired magazine has a new article up on its website; Test case: is Breaking Bad's Mr White a psycho? Walter White is the former chemistry teacher who turned Meth "cook" and dealer, and in the process, murderer. The Wired story looks at Walt's evolution over five seasons and finds that indeed, Mr. White does become a psychopath, according to the criteria from psychologist Robert Hare's Psychopathy Checklist. Dr. Hare is considered the world's expert on Psychopaths.
I thought I'd take the same approach and apply it to Barack Obama AND to politicians in general and corporate execs. Keep in mind that lower-functioning psychopaths get caught and go to jail. The highest-functioning ones often reach the highest places of power. Thom Hartmann first put the idea in my head that it takes a sociopath to run a fortune 1000 corporation. More recently, I interviewed a psychopath who wrote the book, Confessions of a Sociopath. I asked her about people she thought might be a sociopath and she mentioned Obama. I had my doubts, but the Wired article gave a way to apply the question to Obama and the other groups.
Wired used a checklist created by Dr. Robert Hare, author Snakes In Suits and Without Conscience. There are 20 items. If a person scores 18 or over, he or she fits the profile of a psychopath. Dr. Hare licenses the assessment tool for formal use to psychologists, prisons, parole boards. It is the curse of death, or extended time in jail if a person up for parole is assessed as a psychopath using the Hare assessment tool. The exercise I am engaging is not professional by any means. It's a rough attempt to think about leaders using Dr. Hare's model.
Here's how the questions are scored.
0 = no; 1 = maybe; 2 = yes. The highest possible score on the screening version of the full Psychopathy Checklist is 24. The average non-criminal non-psychopath receives a score between 0 and 4. A criminal psychopath is defined as anyone with a score of 18 or more.
To see the list, with descriptions of each of the items, click here.
I'm marking my score for for each group displayed as follows:
Obama/Politicians/Corporate Execs
Hare's Checklist
1. GLIB and SUPERFICIAL CHARM --
2/2/2
2. GRANDIOSE SELF-WORTH --
2/2/2
3. NEED FOR STIMULATION or PRONENESS TO BOREDOM --
1/1/2
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4
3
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