Psycho Killer: Qu’est-ce que c’est ?
Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test 
investigates not only psychopaths, but the people who study them. The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) developed by Dr. Robert Hare is the standard diagnostic test commonly used to identify psychopaths. Studying its application, Ronson discovers something rather unsettling:
Society is simply teeming with psychopaths.
Ronson, a Welsh journalist and documentary filmmaker, who looks like a cross between John Lennon and Harry Potter, has a knack for insinuating himself with and gaining the trust of some very scary people. The author of The Men Who Stare at Goats and Them: Adventures With Extremists, Ronson examines psychos of various stripes: including those who get their hands dirty (so to speak) and white-collar psychopaths.
Check out Ronson's book trailer. Read an extract of his book in the Guardian UK. Read reviews in the Globe and Mail, and the New York Times.
Further reading:
- Without Conscience: the Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among Us by Robert D. Hare
- Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Paul Babiak
- The Psychopath: Emotion and the Brain by James Blair
- The Sociopath Next Door: the Ruthless vs the Rest of Us by Martha Stout
Dr. Hare cautions that his test cannot be administered outside of a clinical setting – there is no 'home edition.' However, there are tons of "psychopath quizzes" with zero medical validity floating around the Internet:
Here's one:
While at her mother's funeral, a woman meets a man whom she does not know. She falls in love with him immediately. However, she fails to ask his name and cannot find anyone who knows him. A few days later the woman kills her own sister. Why?
Listen to the Talking Heads Psycho Killer while you think about it.
3 thoughts on “Psycho Killer: Qu’est-ce que c’est ?”
I’m reading the Ronson book now and enjoying it tremendously. Who could have predicted that a book about psychopaths would be so funny?
I saw him interviewed – and he is witty. There is a fascination with psychopaths – look at the popularity of Dexter.
If you’re interested, you can hear Ronson read an excerpt from it discussing the potential of corporate leaders (particularly the ruthless job-cutting kind) as psychopaths on This American Life. The podcast available for free here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/436/the-psychopath-test
The rest of the podcast is pretty interesting too. The first part of the podcast tells the story of a man who scored high on the psychopath test mostly due to his troubled youth. As a result he is unable to get parole. They also interview Bob Hare, the psychologist who created the test. He says he never intended it to be used outside of a research setting and worries about its misuse in the criminal justice system. Definitely worth a listen!