Strange answers to the psychopath test | Jon Ronson | TED

24,528,286 views ・ 2012-08-15

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:00
Translator: Timothy Covell Reviewer: Morton Bast
0
0
7000
00:16
The story starts: I was at a friend's house,
1
16207
3371
00:19
and she had on her shelf a copy of the DSM manual,
2
19602
4038
00:23
which is the manual of mental disorders.
3
23664
2212
00:25
It lists every known mental disorder.
4
25900
3270
00:29
And it used to be, back in the '50s, a very slim pamphlet.
5
29194
3033
00:32
And then it got bigger and bigger and bigger,
6
32251
2625
00:34
and now it's 886 pages long.
7
34900
3082
00:38
And it lists currently 374 mental disorders.
8
38006
4344
00:42
So I was leafing through it,
9
42708
1384
00:44
wondering if I had any mental disorders,
10
44116
2917
00:47
and it turns out I've got 12.
11
47057
1661
00:48
(Laughter)
12
48742
1151
00:49
I've got generalized anxiety disorder,
13
49917
2698
00:52
which is a given.
14
52639
1246
00:53
I've got nightmare disorder,
15
53909
2016
00:55
which is categorized
16
55949
1365
00:57
if you have recurrent dreams of being pursued or declared a failure,
17
57338
4040
01:01
and all my dreams involve people chasing me down the street
18
61402
3675
01:05
going, "You're a failure!"
19
65101
1624
01:06
(Laughter)
20
66749
1783
01:08
I've got parent-child relational problems,
21
68556
3102
01:11
which I blame my parents for.
22
71682
1945
01:13
(Laughter)
23
73651
1895
01:15
I'm kidding. I'm not kidding.
24
75570
2358
01:17
I'm kidding.
25
77952
1150
01:19
And I've got malingering.
26
79888
1236
01:21
And I think it's actually quite rare
27
81148
1736
01:22
to have both malingering and generalized anxiety disorder,
28
82908
3016
01:25
because malingering tends to make me feel very anxious.
29
85948
2711
01:28
Anyway, I was looking through this book,
30
88683
1988
01:30
wondering if I was much crazier than I thought I was,
31
90695
2601
01:33
or maybe it's not a good idea to diagnose yourself with a mental disorder
32
93320
3533
01:36
if you're not a trained professional,
33
96877
2126
01:39
or maybe the psychiatry profession has a kind of strange desire
34
99027
4873
01:43
to label what's essentially normal human behavior as a mental disorder.
35
103924
4366
01:48
I didn't know which of these was true, but I thought it was kind of interesting,
36
108314
3778
01:52
and I thought maybe I should meet a critic of psychiatry
37
112116
2860
01:55
to get their view,
38
115000
1384
01:56
which is how I ended up having lunch with the Scientologists.
39
116408
3338
01:59
(Laughter)
40
119770
1236
02:01
It was a man called Brian, who runs a crack team of Scientologists
41
121030
4498
02:05
who are determined to destroy psychiatry wherever it lies.
42
125552
4268
02:09
They're called the CCHR.
43
129844
1989
02:11
And I said to him, "Can you prove to me
44
131857
2951
02:14
that psychiatry is a pseudo-science that can't be trusted?"
45
134832
3477
02:18
And he said, "Yes, we can prove it to you."
46
138912
2187
02:21
And I said, "How?"
47
141123
1413
02:22
And he said, "We're going to introduce you to Tony."
48
142560
2785
02:26
And I said, "Who's Tony?"
49
146353
1251
02:28
And he said, "Tony's in Broadmoor."
50
148234
3309
02:31
Now, Broadmoor is Broadmoor Hospital.
51
151567
2310
02:33
It used to be known as the Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane.
52
153901
4634
02:38
It's where they send the serial killers,
53
158559
2436
02:41
and the people who can't help themselves.
54
161019
2056
02:43
And I said to Brian, "Well, what did Tony do?"
55
163099
3157
02:46
And he said, "Hardly anything.
56
166280
2449
02:49
He beat someone up or something,
57
169428
2938
02:52
and he decided to fake madness to get out of a prison sentence.
58
172390
5095
02:57
But he faked it too well, and now he's stuck in Broadmoor
59
177509
4513
03:02
and nobody will believe he's sane.
60
182046
2461
03:04
Do you want us to try and get you into Broadmoor to meet Tony?"
61
184531
3737
03:08
So I said, "Yes, please."
62
188292
1212
03:10
So I got the train to Broadmoor.
63
190646
1524
03:12
I began to yawn uncontrollably around Kempton Park,
64
192194
4095
03:16
which apparently is what dogs also do when anxious,
65
196313
2382
03:18
they yawn uncontrollably.
66
198719
2253
03:20
And we got to Broadmoor.
67
200996
1276
03:22
And I got taken through gate after gate after gate after gate
68
202718
4453
03:27
into the wellness center, which is where you get to meet the patients.
69
207195
3497
03:30
It looks like a giant Hampton Inn.
70
210716
3438
03:34
It's all peach and pine and calming colors.
71
214178
3911
03:38
And the only bold colors are the reds of the panic buttons.
72
218113
5192
03:44
And the patients started drifting in.
73
224327
1847
03:47
And they were quite overweight and wearing sweatpants,
74
227408
3581
03:51
and quite docile-looking.
75
231013
1659
03:52
And Brian the Scientologist whispered to me,
76
232696
2739
03:55
"They're medicated,"
77
235459
1910
03:57
which, to the Scientologists, is like the worst evil in the world,
78
237393
3219
04:00
but I'm thinking it's probably a good idea.
79
240636
2581
04:03
(Laughter)
80
243241
1596
04:05
And then Brian said, "Here's Tony."
81
245356
2064
04:08
And a man was walking in.
82
248419
1519
04:10
And he wasn't overweight, he was in very good physical shape.
83
250425
3104
04:13
And he wasn't wearing sweatpants,
84
253553
2303
04:15
he was wearing a pinstripe suit.
85
255880
2390
04:18
And he had his arm outstretched
86
258294
1996
04:20
like someone out of The Apprentice.
87
260314
2060
04:22
He looked like a man who wanted to wear an outfit
88
262398
3282
04:25
that would convince me that he was very sane.
89
265704
3771
04:30
And he sat down.
90
270263
1151
04:31
And I said, "So is it true that you faked your way in here?"
91
271438
2905
04:34
And he said, "Yep. Yep. Absolutely. I beat someone up when I was 17.
92
274763
3444
04:38
And I was in prison awaiting trial,
93
278231
2082
04:40
and my cellmate said to me,
94
280337
1315
04:41
'You know what you have to do?
95
281676
1484
04:43
Fake madness.
96
283184
1375
04:45
Tell them you're mad, you'll get sent to some cushy hospital.
97
285172
3611
04:48
Nurses will bring you pizzas, you'll have your own PlayStation.'"
98
288807
3831
04:52
I said, "Well, how did you do it?"
99
292662
1692
04:54
He said, "Well, I asked to see the prison psychiatrist.
100
294378
2743
04:57
And I'd just seen a film called 'Crash,'
101
297145
2287
04:59
in which people get sexual pleasure from crashing cars into walls.
102
299456
4103
05:03
So I said to the psychiatrist,
103
303583
1949
05:05
'I get sexual pleasure from crashing cars into walls.'"
104
305556
3765
05:09
And I said, "What else?"
105
309345
1425
05:10
He said, "Oh, yeah. I told the psychiatrist
106
310794
2653
05:13
that I wanted to watch women as they died,
107
313471
3284
05:16
because it would make me feel more normal."
108
316779
2165
05:18
I said, "Where'd you get that from?"
109
318968
1722
05:20
He said, "Oh, from a biography of Ted Bundy that they had
110
320714
2784
05:23
at the prison library."
111
323522
1193
05:25
Anyway, he faked madness too well, he said.
112
325749
3227
05:29
And they didn't send him to some cushy hospital.
113
329000
2470
05:31
They sent him to Broadmoor.
114
331494
1581
05:33
And the minute he got there,
115
333799
1337
05:35
said he took one look at the place, asked to see the psychiatrist,
116
335160
3106
05:38
said, "There's been a terrible misunderstanding.
117
338290
2518
05:40
I'm not mentally ill."
118
340832
1409
05:43
I said, "How long have you been here for?"
119
343032
2266
05:45
He said, "Well, if I'd just done my time in prison
120
345322
2346
05:47
for the original crime, I'd have got five years.
121
347692
2703
05:50
I've been in Broadmoor for 12 years."
122
350832
2455
05:56
Tony said that it's a lot harder to convince people you're sane
123
356171
4029
06:00
than it is to convince them you're crazy.
124
360224
2484
06:02
He said, "I thought the best way to seem normal
125
362732
2223
06:04
would be to talk to people normally about normal things
126
364979
2620
06:07
like football or what's on TV.
127
367623
1878
06:09
I subscribe to New Scientist,
128
369525
1738
06:11
and recently they had an article
129
371287
1667
06:12
about how the U.S. Army was training bumblebees to sniff out explosives.
130
372978
4360
06:17
So I said to a nurse,
131
377362
1419
06:18
'Did you know that the U.S. Army is training bumblebees
132
378805
2599
06:21
to sniff out explosives?'
133
381428
1328
06:23
When I read my medical notes, I saw they'd written:
134
383847
2455
06:26
'Believes bees can sniff out explosives.'"
135
386646
3012
06:29
(Laughter)
136
389682
1554
06:31
He said, "You know, they're always looking out for nonverbal clues
137
391260
3107
06:34
to my mental state.
138
394391
1740
06:36
But how do you sit in a sane way?
139
396155
2637
06:38
How do you cross your legs in a sane way?
140
398816
2272
06:41
It's just impossible."
141
401112
1508
06:42
When Tony said that to me,
142
402936
1257
06:44
I thought to myself, "Am I sitting like a journalist?
143
404217
3509
06:48
Am I crossing my legs like a journalist?"
144
408107
2309
06:51
He said, "You know, I've got the Stockwell Strangler on one side of me,
145
411332
5072
06:56
and I've got the 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips' rapist
146
416428
2389
06:58
on the other side of me.
147
418841
1367
07:00
So I tend to stay in my room a lot because I find them quite frightening.
148
420232
3449
07:03
And they take that as a sign of madness.
149
423705
2261
07:05
They say it proves that I'm aloof and grandiose."
150
425990
3515
07:09
So, only in Broadmoor would not wanting to hang out with serial killers
151
429953
3796
07:13
be a sign of madness.
152
433773
1587
07:15
Anyway, he seemed completely normal to me, but what did I know?
153
435384
3076
07:19
And when I got home I emailed his clinician, Anthony Maden.
154
439174
2820
07:22
I said, "What's the story?"
155
442018
1574
07:23
And he said, "Yep. We accept that Tony faked madness
156
443616
3511
07:27
to get out of a prison sentence, because his hallucinations --
157
447151
3766
07:30
that had seemed quite cliche to begin with --
158
450941
2151
07:33
just vanished the minute he got to Broadmoor.
159
453116
2618
07:35
However, we have assessed him,
160
455758
2205
07:37
and we've determined that what he is
161
457987
2413
07:40
is a psychopath."
162
460424
1388
07:42
And in fact, faking madness
163
462243
1808
07:44
is exactly the kind of cunning and manipulative act of a psychopath.
164
464075
4366
07:48
It's on the checklist: cunning, manipulative.
165
468465
2418
07:51
So, faking your brain going wrong
166
471410
1577
07:53
is evidence that your brain has gone wrong.
167
473011
3232
07:56
And I spoke to other experts,
168
476267
1572
07:57
and they said the pinstripe suit -- classic psychopath --
169
477863
3939
08:01
speaks to items one and two on the checklist:
170
481826
2278
08:04
glibness, superficial charm and grandiose sense of self-worth.
171
484128
3344
08:07
And I said, "Well, but why didn't he hang out with the other patients?"
172
487969
3612
08:11
Classic psychopath -- it speaks to grandiosity and also lack of empathy.
173
491605
3930
08:15
So all the things that had seemed most normal about Tony
174
495978
3464
08:19
was evidence, according to his clinician,
175
499466
3025
08:22
that he was mad in this new way.
176
502515
1824
08:24
He was a psychopath.
177
504690
1403
08:26
And his clinician said to me, "If you want to know more about psychopaths,
178
506117
3525
08:29
you can go on a psychopath-spotting course
179
509666
3205
08:32
run by Robert Hare, who invented the psychopath checklist."
180
512895
2887
08:35
So I did.
181
515806
1160
08:36
I went on a psychopath-spotting course,
182
516990
2043
08:39
and I am now a certified --
183
519057
4177
08:43
and I have to say, extremely adept -- psychopath spotter.
184
523258
4259
08:48
So, here's the statistics:
185
528194
3245
08:51
One in a hundred regular people is a psychopath.
186
531463
4122
08:56
So there's 1,500 people in his room.
187
536255
3833
09:00
Fifteen of you are psychopaths.
188
540112
3043
09:05
Although that figure rises to four percent of CEOs and business leaders,
189
545091
4982
09:10
so I think there's a very good chance
190
550097
2735
09:12
there's about 30 or 40 psychopaths in this room.
191
552856
5114
09:17
It could be carnage by the end of the night.
192
557994
2434
09:20
(Laughter)
193
560452
4456
09:24
Hare said the reason why is because capitalism at its most ruthless
194
564932
4896
09:29
rewards psychopathic behavior --
195
569852
2644
09:32
the lack of empathy, the glibness,
196
572520
4937
09:37
cunning, manipulative.
197
577481
2358
09:39
In fact, capitalism, perhaps at its most remorseless,
198
579863
2965
09:42
is a physical manifestation of psychopathy.
199
582852
3779
09:47
It's like a form of psychopathy that's come down to affect us all.
200
587377
4853
09:52
Hare said, "You know what? Forget about some guy at Broadmoor
201
592567
2871
09:55
who may or may not have faked madness.
202
595462
1815
09:57
Who cares? That's not a big story.
203
597301
1621
09:58
The big story," he said, "is corporate psychopathy.
204
598946
2893
10:01
You want to go and interview yourself some corporate psychopaths."
205
601863
3831
10:06
So I gave it a try. I wrote to the Enron people.
206
606216
3183
10:09
I said, "Could I come and interview you in prison,
207
609423
2346
10:11
to find out it you're psychopaths?"
208
611793
1770
10:13
(Laughter)
209
613587
1230
10:14
And they didn't reply.
210
614841
1276
10:16
(Laughter)
211
616141
1550
10:17
So I changed tack.
212
617715
1897
10:19
I emailed "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap,
213
619636
3276
10:22
the asset stripper from the 1990s.
214
622936
3539
10:26
He would come into failing businesses
215
626499
2207
10:28
and close down 30 percent of the workforce,
216
628730
2035
10:30
just turn American towns into ghost towns.
217
630789
3144
10:33
And I emailed him and I said,
218
633957
1453
10:35
"I believe you may have a very special brain anomaly
219
635434
2794
10:38
that makes you ... special,
220
638252
2011
10:40
and interested in the predatory spirit, and fearless.
221
640287
4361
10:44
Can I come and interview you about your special brain anomaly?"
222
644672
3452
10:48
And he said, "Come on over!"
223
648148
1818
10:49
(Laughter)
224
649990
1361
10:51
So I went to Al Dunlap's grand Florida mansion.
225
651375
3052
10:54
It was filled with sculptures of predatory animals.
226
654451
4708
10:59
There were lions and tigers -- he was taking me through the garden --
227
659522
3639
11:03
there were falcons and eagles,
228
663185
2692
11:05
he was saying, "Over there you've got sharks and --"
229
665901
2504
11:08
he was saying this in a less effeminate way --
230
668429
2213
11:10
"You've got more sharks and you've got tigers."
231
670666
4202
11:16
It was like Narnia.
232
676366
1700
11:18
(Laughter)
233
678090
3478
11:21
And then we went into his kitchen.
234
681592
1646
11:24
Now, Al Dunlap would be brought in to save failing companies,
235
684032
4152
11:28
he'd close down 30 percent of the workforce.
236
688208
2423
11:30
And he'd quite often fire people with a joke.
237
690655
3179
11:33
Like, for instance, one famous story about him,
238
693858
2345
11:36
somebody came up to him and said, "I've just bought myself a new car."
239
696227
3452
11:39
And he said, "Well, you may have a new car,
240
699703
2008
11:41
but I'll tell you what you don't have -- a job."
241
701735
3505
11:46
So in his kitchen --
242
706802
1156
11:47
he was in there with his wife, Judy, and his bodyguard, Sean --
243
707982
2958
11:50
and I said, "You know how I said in my email
244
710964
2056
11:53
that you might have a special brain anomaly that makes you special?"
245
713044
3636
11:56
He said, "Yeah, it's an amazing theory, it's like Star Trek.
246
716704
2902
11:59
You're going where no man has gone before."
247
719630
2212
12:01
And I said, "Well --" (Clears throat)
248
721866
3104
12:04
(Laughter)
249
724994
1329
12:06
Some psychologists might say
250
726347
3163
12:09
that this makes you --" (Mumbles)
251
729534
2678
12:12
(Laughter)
252
732236
1627
12:13
And he said, "What?"
253
733887
1474
12:16
And I said, "A psychopath."
254
736101
1304
12:17
And I said, "I've got a list of psychopathic traits in my pocket.
255
737429
4379
12:21
Can I go through them with you?"
256
741832
2159
12:24
And he looked intrigued despite himself,
257
744653
2093
12:26
and he said, "Okay, go on."
258
746770
1375
12:28
And I said, "Okay. Grandiose sense of self-worth."
259
748169
3383
12:31
Which I have to say, would have been hard for him to deny,
260
751576
2776
12:34
because he was standing under a giant oil painting of himself.
261
754376
3384
12:37
(Laughter)
262
757784
4151
12:41
He said, "Well, you've got to believe in you!"
263
761959
3033
12:45
And I said, "Manipulative."
264
765016
2888
12:47
He said, "That's leadership."
265
767928
1693
12:49
(Laughter)
266
769645
1001
12:50
And I said, "Shallow affect,
267
770670
2406
12:53
an inability to experience a range of emotions."
268
773100
2272
12:55
He said, "Who wants to be weighed down by some nonsense emotions?"
269
775396
3606
12:59
So he was going down the psychopath checklist,
270
779026
2171
13:01
basically turning it into "Who Moved My Cheese?"
271
781221
3201
13:04
(Laughter)
272
784446
3092
13:07
But I did notice something happening to me the day I was with Al Dunlap.
273
787562
3420
13:11
Whenever he said anything to me that was kind of normal --
274
791006
2897
13:13
like he said "no" to juvenile delinquency,
275
793927
2943
13:16
he said he got accepted into West Point,
276
796894
1906
13:18
and they don't let delinquents in West Point.
277
798824
2855
13:21
He said "no" to many short-term marital relationships.
278
801703
2716
13:24
He's only ever been married twice.
279
804443
1660
13:26
Admittedly, his first wife cited in her divorce papers
280
806127
2947
13:29
that he once threatened her with a knife
281
809098
2440
13:31
and said he always wondered what human flesh tasted like,
282
811562
2717
13:34
but people say stupid things to each other
283
814303
2042
13:36
in bad marriages in the heat of an argument,
284
816369
2055
13:38
and his second marriage has lasted 41 years.
285
818448
3021
13:41
So whenever he said anything to me that just seemed kind of non-psychopathic,
286
821493
3698
13:45
I thought to myself, well I'm not going to put that in my book.
287
825215
3143
13:48
And then I realized that becoming a psychopath spotter
288
828868
3304
13:52
had kind of turned me a little bit psychopathic.
289
832196
3476
13:55
Because I was desperate to shove him in a box marked "Psychopath."
290
835696
4944
14:00
I was desperate to define him by his maddest edges.
291
840664
4710
14:05
And I realized, my God --
292
845398
1202
14:06
this is what I've been doing for 20 years.
293
846624
2003
14:08
It's what all journalists do.
294
848651
1622
14:10
We travel across the world with our notepads in our hands,
295
850297
3460
14:13
and we wait for the gems.
296
853781
1795
14:16
And the gems are always the outermost aspects
297
856242
4333
14:20
of our interviewee's personality.
298
860599
1629
14:22
And we stitch them together like medieval monks,
299
862252
3474
14:25
and we leave the normal stuff on the floor.
300
865750
3527
14:30
And you know, this is a country that over-diagnoses
301
870187
3019
14:33
certain mental disorders hugely.
302
873230
3277
14:36
Childhood bipolar --
303
876531
1342
14:37
children as young as four are being labeled bipolar
304
877897
3555
14:41
because they have temper tantrums,
305
881476
2430
14:43
which scores them high on the bipolar checklist.
306
883930
3714
14:48
When I got back to London, Tony phoned me.
307
888533
2963
14:52
He said, "Why haven't you been returning my calls?"
308
892697
2773
14:55
I said, "Well, they say that you're a psychopath."
309
895494
3349
14:58
And he said, "I'm not a psychopath."
310
898867
1954
15:00
He said, "You know what?
311
900845
1159
15:02
One of the items on the checklist is lack of remorse,
312
902028
2672
15:04
but another item on the checklist is cunning, manipulative.
313
904724
2861
15:07
So when you say you feel remorse for your crime,
314
907609
2366
15:09
they say, 'Typical of the psychopath
315
909999
1740
15:11
to cunningly say he feels remorse when he doesn't.'
316
911763
3377
15:15
It's like witchcraft, they turn everything upside-down."
317
915164
3068
15:19
He said, "I've got a tribunal coming up.
318
919581
2235
15:21
Will you come to it?"
319
921840
1240
15:24
So I said okay.
320
924000
1157
15:25
So I went to his tribunal.
321
925783
1484
15:28
And after 14 years in Broadmoor, they let him go.
322
928195
3848
15:33
They decided that he shouldn't be held indefinitely
323
933101
2805
15:35
because he scores high on a checklist that might mean
324
935930
3690
15:39
that he would have a greater than average chance of recidivism.
325
939644
4531
15:44
So they let him go.
326
944900
1490
15:46
And outside in the corridor he said to me,
327
946414
2021
15:48
"You know what, Jon?
328
948459
1155
15:50
Everyone's a bit psychopathic."
329
950101
1963
15:52
He said, "You are, I am. Well, obviously I am."
330
952880
3267
15:57
I said, "What are you going to do now?"
331
957276
2012
15:59
He said, "I'm going to go to Belgium.
332
959312
2183
16:01
There's a woman there that I fancy.
333
961519
1678
16:03
But she's married, so I'm going to have to get her split up from her husband."
334
963221
3955
16:07
(Laughter)
335
967200
3757
16:11
Anyway, that was two years ago,
336
971335
3033
16:14
and that's where my book ended.
337
974392
1578
16:15
And for the last 20 months, everything was fine.
338
975994
4562
16:21
Nothing bad happened.
339
981260
1361
16:22
He was living with a girl outside London.
340
982645
2139
16:24
He was, according to Brian the Scientologist,
341
984808
2098
16:26
making up for lost time, which I know sounds ominous,
342
986930
3026
16:29
but isn't necessarily ominous.
343
989980
1556
16:32
Unfortunately, after 20 months,
344
992222
1897
16:34
he did go back to jail for a month.
345
994143
2710
16:36
He got into a "fracas" in a bar, he called it.
346
996877
4156
16:41
Ended up going to jail for a month, which I know is bad,
347
1001364
2641
16:44
but at least a month implies that whatever the fracas was,
348
1004029
3888
16:47
it wasn't too bad.
349
1007941
1605
16:50
And then he phoned me.
350
1010329
1561
16:53
And you know what, I think it's right that Tony is out.
351
1013062
4236
16:58
Because you shouldn't define people by their maddest edges.
352
1018158
3155
17:01
And what Tony is, is he's a semi-psychopath.
353
1021337
3836
17:05
He's a gray area in a world that doesn't like gray areas.
354
1025592
4730
17:11
But the gray areas are where you find the complexity.
355
1031056
3997
17:16
It's where you find the humanity,
356
1036052
2421
17:18
and it's where you find the truth.
357
1038497
1874
17:21
And Tony said to me,
358
1041381
2108
17:23
"Jon, could I buy you a drink in a bar?
359
1043513
3872
17:27
I just want to thank you for everything you've done for me."
360
1047409
3300
17:30
And I didn't go.
361
1050733
1291
17:32
What would you have done?
362
1052934
1820
17:35
Thank you.
363
1055761
1352
17:37
(Applause)
364
1057137
6647
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7