Understanding The Wisdom Of Psychopaths - Dr Kevin Dutton

Imagine you've got the skillset to be a top surgeon, but you lack the ability to emotionally disengage from the people that you're operating on. You're not going to cut it, are you? Ruthlessness, fearlessness, mental toughness, self-confidence, coolness under pressure, emotional detachment, focus, charm. None of those traits is necessarily a problem in itself. In fact, all of them, dialed up at the right levels, can actually prove rather useful.

(wind blowing) Kevin Dunn, welcome to the show.

Cheers, Chris. Thanks for having me, mate. How are you?

I'm well, thank you. How do you describe what you do for work? What is your area of expertise, if there is one?

Well, I'm a psychologist. That's number one. Um, I'm talking to you, uh, from down under, mate, in, uh, in Adelaide, uh, where it's 8:30 in the morning at the moment, um, so bright and early. Uh, and I'm Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Adelaide. So that is Australia's first professor of such a thing. So I'm Australia's first Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology, which basically means that I, uh, bring psychology to the general public. Uh, so psychology is a very broad church. It's got loads of sub-disciplines and, and different areas of study, everything from forensic, to social, to developmental, to educational, to sport. Uh, all those kinds of things. And so what my job is, uh, down here is to, uh, collate the best of that kind of, uh, information and, um, make it accessible to the general public. So that's what I do for a living. That's my day job. Uh, my area of expertise, um, as most people will probably recognize me for, is psychopaths. Uh, so, um, many years ago, about 10 years ago now, I wrote a, a book called The Wisdom of Psychopaths, uh, which became very controversial. Um, and it's still, I think, the only book that, um, suggests that psychopaths aren't all bad, that, um, actually, you know, we have this stereotype of psychopaths being rapists and serial killers and what have you. But actually, if you were to look inside the realms of special forces, for example, you would also find people who are high on what I call the psychopathic spectrum. Um, so when I wrote Wisdom of Psychopaths, as I say, it became a controversial book, um, uh, became quite well-known. And it was on the basis of that, really, that I suppose, you know, if you can say this kind of thing, I kind of made my name in psychology.

So you would be the current Australian equivalent in psychology of Brian Cox for physics in the UK?

Oh, uh, well, I don't... L- listen. Don't put me down like that, mate.

(laughs)

Don't you dare. Don't you dare put me down like that. What are they knowing? They... Actually, Brian's over here doing a big tour at the moment.