Presidential psychopath

This is an ok Time Magazine article about a study looking at psychopathic traits in U.S. presidents, paritcularly fearless dominance, which, not surprisingly, can either be seen as courage or folly depending on the situation:


“An easy way to think about it is as a combination of physical and social fearlessness,” says Scott Lilienfeld, lead author of the study and professor of psychology at Emory University. “People high in boldness don’t have a lot of apprehension about either physical or social things that would scare the rest of us.”

He adds, “It’s often a kind of resilience because you don’t show lot of anxiety or frustration in the face of everyday life challenges.” While that sounds like a necessity for dealing with the daily crises that face the White House, from hurricanes to threats from rogue nuclear nations, the same trait in psychopaths is also associated with callousness, indifference to negative consequences and impulsive antisocial behavior.


It talks a lot about how presidents are not actually likely to be psychopaths because they have to delay gratification so much. But perhaps the most interesting part of the article was this:

“My mentor, David Lykken, argued that psychopaths and heroes are ‘twigs off of the same branch.’ It may be that the fearless dominance or boldness that sometimes gives rise to psychopathy might also sometimes give rise to heroism,” says Lilienfeld.