Do you like to kill people? Check A for Yes, B for No an C for Maybe... －人を殺すのが好きですか？A：はい、B：いいえ、C：もしかしたら・・・－

I recently finished reading a book by British humorist Jon Ronson called “The Psychopath Test”.  It has been making me think about types of personality and the reasons why some people are more prone to violence than others, and why some people are more successful in life than others. 

If you don’t know what the word “psychopath” means, then you might start by thinking of the Alfred Hitchcock film, “Psycho”.  In that film, a disturbed young man dressed up as his own dead mother and murdered pretty girls who stayed at his hotel.

At least this gives you somewhere to start, suggesting that a psychopath is mentally disordered and that there is a connection with violence.

But in other important ways, this starting point is misleading.  A psychopath doesn’t have to be violent.  Not all mental health professionals agree on how to define a psychopath.  But according to one important test, psychopaths are characterised by a “selfish, callous and remorseless use of others” and by having an unstable, anti-social lifestyle.  Put very simply, they don’t feel guilty about hurting other people and act in a way that can be very damaging to the society around them.

Obviously, if this is correct, then such people are much more likely than average to commit criminal or anti-social offenses.  So if there were a simple test which could be performed on people to see if they were psychopaths or not, it could be very useful...  If someone committed a crime and was found not to be a psychopath, he might be released after being punished in the hope that he would not reoffend.  If someone committed exactly the same crime but was found also to be a psychopath, he might not be released because the chance of him reoffending would be higher.

Jon Ronson’s book, “The Psychopath Test” – do you still remember the book? – talks about how this test is actually used in the real world.  People tested are asked a number of questions in 20 categories and are given a score of 0, 1 or 2 in each category.  If their total score is then 25 or above (or sometimes 30 or above) then they are classified as a psychopath.

One interesting claim made by the man who devised the test is that less than 1 per cent of the general population are psychopaths, but that 20 per cent of the people in prison are psychopaths.

An even more interesting claim was that 4 per cent of top business leaders may be psychopaths.  So, not feeling guilty about hurting other people, and using other people selfishly for your own benefit, could be an advantage in business.  Aren’t you succeeding in life like you ought to?  Maybe it’s because you are too healthy!  

Vocabulary:

a humorist – A writer who specialises in humour, or in being funny

to be prone to something – to tend towards something.  For example, drivers who are sleepy are prone to accidents.

to be disturbed – to be in a distressed or abnormal state of mind

to be disordered – to be abnormal; broken etc.

to be misleading – to lead people to make false conclusions; to cause confusion or misunderstanding

to be callous – to be unfeeling or cruel

to be remorseless – without guilt ; without feeling sorry

an offense – a crime or breach of the rules

to reoffend –  to repeat criminal behaviour; to commit a crime multiple times

to devise something – to invent something or to think of it

the general population – average people; everyone, not one group of people