Psychopaths Chapter Four

In this chapter, Dutton talks about his past with his friend, Johnny. He said Johnny is a psychopath and explains why. He begins in preschool when Johnny was able to remove a puzzle piece that didn't go where it was jammed into. Jump forward to high school, Johnny asked Dutton to borrow his paper that was due next period so he could make one up that looked similar. However, Johnny took his paper and handed it in as his own. He told Dutton that his was behind the school somewhere, but Johnny didn't let him go get it because it was pouring rain out. Dutton said that Johnny truly felt as though he was helping out Dutton, even though he just stole his paper. Johnny is a very persuasive person.
From this story that Kevin Dutton told, I can make one connection to the business world. Psychopaths can be very persuasive, according to Dutton, and a good salesperson must be very persuasive as well. If you can convince people that your product is a great one and that they need it in their lives, they will most likely buy it, even though they may not need it.
Johnny was able to convince Kevin's mother, even when he wasn't able. On New Years, they wanted to stay up until midnight, but his mother was not letting them. He begged and whined to let them stay up, but she just wouldn't budge. Then Johnny butt in a said, "You don't want us running around at the crack of dawn while you have a hangover, do you?" And because of that, Kevin and Johnny stayed up until three AM.
You must say the right things in order to persuade someone to do something. This is the same in the business world. You can't just give a stupid reason as to why someone may need your product. They will be less likely to buy it than if you make a good point that leaves the person thinking. In this case, Johnny used something that he knew Kevin's mother would not like (having them up really early being loud while she has a hangover) to get what he wants, which is to stay up late.
I am beginning to see some connections between psychopaths and business people, however, this may just be some of the qualities of Johnny and not the general psychopath population. I am hoping to discover more and more relationships between psychopaths and business people as I continue to read this book.

Psychopaths Chapter 3

Dutton begins chapter three of this very obscure book by telling a story of a ship sinking. The first mate didn't help the longboat that needed assistance and instead went to Nova Scotia and left the longboat and those on it to die. Those on the longboat were found and saved, putting Alexander Holmes on trial for murder, since he was the only passenger found from the other ship that had left. Dutton wanted to see if the PPI scores of those on the jury had anything to do with them saying whether or not Holmes was guilty or not. Twenty scored low on the test, and only one of those twenty reached a verdict within the given time- Holmes walked free. Dutton then presents a similar story that kind of reflects the Holmes' case. He speaks about conformity and how people usually do the right thing as to fit in with others. You tend to form to the opinions and attitudes of others.
Dutton presents more and examples, stories, and even starts to discuss the evolution of psychopathy. He speaks about a scenario in which there is someone in the road and you have to either choose to swerve out of the way (the non-psychopathic thing to do) or to keep your foot on the gas (the psychopathic thing to do). Dutton makes a chart and even starts to get into the mathematics surrounding these issues.
More charts are made in relation to confessing to crimes. Dutton goes on and on with examples and different scenarios of psychopaths and whatever else.
I do like this book, but I don't see how psychopaths have anything to do with business. And I understand that I have said that about every blog post while reading this book, but there has been no mention of business whatsoever throughout the book. Am I missing something or a connection that Dutton is trying to make?

Psychopaths.. Chapter 2

In the second chapter of this book, Kevin Dutton begins with a scenario. A woman is at her mother's funeral, meets the man of her dreams, but forgets to get his phone number. A few days later, the woman kills her sister. Apparently this test is to see if you think like a psychopath- what could have made the woman want to kill her sister? A psychopath's answer would be because she was hoping that the man would turn up at her sister's funeral, while most people would think the woman killed her sister out of jealousy.
Dutton continues by talking about personality and the history of it, like how it began in ancient Greece with Hippocrates. Hippocrates split up different emotions into a chart that is half negative and half positive, but also half energetic and half low energy. Each of the four sections is labeled either choleric, sanguine, melancholic, or phlegmatic. This is also known as Hippocrates' four temperaments. Dutton presents other charts like these for a part of the chapter.
A question Dutton asks is that what happens when personality goes wrong? There are so many different types of personality disorders, and they only affect about fourteen percent of the population.
Dutton gives a story as an example to show that anyone can have a personality disorder and be a psychopath. A man named Joe had a very high IQ and was very attractive, but still felt the need to beat a girl and rape her. Dutton adds that he actually met Joe and posed a conundrum to him- a doctor has five patients that are all desperately in need of transplants, but there is no where to get these transplants. All of a sudden, a young man comes into the doctor's office and has healthy organs that could save all five of those people. What would you do? Joe stated that it was a no brainer and he would kill that one man to save all five of those other people.
Throughout the rest of the chapter, Dutton poses more and more examples of psychopaths, but it is still unclear as to what makes a psychopath the way they are. Once again, I am not entirely sure about how this relates to the business world. I am really excited to see how Dutton relates this to business, but like I had stated in my last blog post, I think it might have something to do with not being so emotional towards other people. Someone who is very sympathetic and feels bad for people easily I feel cannot make very good business men/women (in general).

The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers can Teach Us About Success Chapter One

This chapter opens up with a story about a frog and a scorpion. The scorpion asks the frog for a ride across the river, but the frog at first refuses, claiming that it is in the nature of the scorpion to sting the frog (or anything for that matter). However, the scorpion promises to not sting the frog, but then halfway across the river, he does sting the frog, causing them to both die in the water. From this story, the author jumps to a serial killer named John Wayne Gacy who had murdered and raped 33 men all around the age of 18. Gacy was executed by lethal injection in 1994. Dr. Morrison, who is an expert on serial killers, took Gacy's brain to assist an autopsy to see if there was anything unusual about his brain to cause him to perform such crimes. The autopsy revealed nothing unusual in his brain.
A study was conducted where the EEG responses of psychopaths and non-psychopaths were recorded when they were shown strings of letters and had to identify if they could be put into a word. Normal people were able to identify words easily, but with psychopaths, their EEG readings were so abnormal. Hare, who conducted this experiment, stated that "language, for psychopaths, is only word deep. There's no emotional contouring behind it. A psychopath may something like 'I love you,' but in reality, it means about as much to him as if he said 'I'll have a cup of coffee," (Page 6). This statement is actually very scary, and makes me really wonder how people like this relates to business. Rossi, a man who used to be a window cleaner but now a killer, speaks about how psychopaths are on one hand normal, but at the same time are beyond crazy.
As the chapter continues, Kevin Dutton gives more and more examples about psychopaths and experiments conducted. Later on in the chapter, a question comes up that I have seen numerous times- the trolley question... Would you flip the switch and save the five people stuck on the track, but kill another person? Or would you not do anything at all and have the train kill the five people. There are also many different variations of this question, but that is just the basic one. It is about your morals. For the most part, many people will say that they would flip the switch, saving five people but killing one, and it is stated that most psychopaths would choose the same option. The only difference is that psychopaths would commit the crime without even thinking or caring for that matter. For non-psychopaths, much time is put into thinking what the best decision is to be made.
What I am getting from this chapter is that psychopaths are very cold people filled with empty and meaningless words. And that may be what is a good quality to have in becoming successful. I feel as though you can't really care about everyone very much and are quick to make decisions (whatever you feel is right). Hopefully Dutton will discuss more about how this all relates to business in future chapters.