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bucolic_frolic

(53,518 posts)
Wed Nov 26, 2025, 08:10 AM Nov 26

The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Psychopath_Test

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry is a 2011 book written by British author Jon Ronson in which he explores the concept of psychopathy, along with the broader mental health "industry" including mental health professionals and the mass media. It spent the whole of 2012 on United Kingdom bestseller lists and ten weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list.[1]
Primary themes

Ronson visits purported psychopaths, as well as psychologists and psychiatrists who have studied them, particularly Canadian psychologist Robert D. Hare, the eponymous author of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, a 20‑part test administered to detect psychopathy. Ronson explores the idea that many corporate and governmental leaders are psychopaths whose actions to others can only be explained by taking that fact into account, and he privately uses the Hare test to determine if he can discern any truth to it.

He meets Toto Constant, who he speculates is a psychopath, corporate leader Albert J. Dunlap, who the magazine Fast Company speculated was a psychopath, as well as a young man detained in Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital who states he is a victim of the psychiatric industry's unfalsifiable diagnoses.

He speaks to Anthony Maden, a professor and the forensic psychiatrist in charge of the Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) unit at Broadmoor, who tells him that the controversial DSPD scheme would not have happened without Hare's checklist, adding: "Personally I don't like the way Bob Hare talks about psychopaths almost as if they are a different species" and "Even if you don't accept those criticisms of Bob Hare's work...it's obvious, if you look at his checklist, you can get a high score by being impulsive and irresponsible or by coldly planning to do something. So very different people end up with the same score."[2]

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Much more in Wikipedia, and it's a famous book that spawned societal discussions. There are TED Talks too.

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The Psychopath Test - Jon Ronson (Original Post) bucolic_frolic Nov 26 OP
This message was self-deleted by its author Shellback Squid Nov 26 #1

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