“ Bob Hare was spending the night at the Heathrow Airport Hilton. He e-mailed me to ask how things had gone with Al Dunlap. I replied that I’d tell him in person. I met him in the hotel bar. He was more in demand than ever, he said, now that a big study he’d coauthored, “Corporate Psychopathy,” had just been published.
In it, 203 “corporate professionals” were assessed with his checklist — “including CEOs, directors, supervisors,” Bob said — and the results showed that while the majority weren’t at all psychopathic, “3.9% had a score of at least 30, which is extremely high, even for a prison population, at least 4 or 5 times the prevalence in the general population.”
Bob clarified that we don’t have a lot of empirical data for how many psychopaths are walking around in the general population, but the assumption is that it’s a little less than 1 percent. And so, his study showed, it is four or five times more likely that some corporate bigwig is a very high-scoring psychopath than someone just trying to earn an okay living for their family.
Over a glass of red wine I briefed him on my Al Dunlap visit. I told him how Al had pretty much confessed to a great many of the psychopathic traits, seeing them as business positives, and Bob nodded, unsurprised. “Psychopaths say there are predators and prey,” Bob said. “When they say that, take it as factual.” “It’s funny you should mention predators,” I said. “Try and guess what his house was filled with.” “Eagles,” said Bob. “Bears . . .” “Yes!” I said. “Panthers. Tigers. A whole menagerie. Not stuffed. Statues. How would you know that?” “I have a few insights here,” he said, pointing at his skull. “I’m a researcher but I have clinical insights.” Then I frowned. “But he did tell me he cried when his dog died,” I said. “Yeah?” said Bob. “Yes,” I said. “We had just had a conversation about Shallow Affect.
He said he didn’t allow himself to be weighed down by nonsense emotions.
But then I was admiring an oil painting of his dog Brit and he said he cried his eyes out when it died. He said he cried and cried and cried and that meant he couldn’t be a psychopath.”
I realised I was admitting this to Bob in an almost apologetic manner, as if it was sort of my fault, like I was a casting agent who had put forward an imperfect actor for a job.
“Oh, that’s quite common,” said Bob.
“Really?” I said, brightening.
“Dogs are a possession,” Bob explained. “Dogs — if you have the right dog — are extremely loyal. They’re like a slave, right?
They do everything you want them to.
So, yeah, he cried his eyes out when his dog died.
Would he cry his eyes out if his cat died?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t think he has a cat,” I said, nodding slowly.
“He’d probably cry his eyes out if he got a dent in his car,” said Bob. “If he had a Ferrari or a Porsche—and he probably does — and someone scratched it and kicked it, he’d probably go out of his mind and want to kill the guy.
So, yeah, The Psychopath might cry when his dog dies and you think that’s misplaced because he doesn’t cry when his daughter dies.”
I was about to say, “Al Dunlap doesn’t have a daughter,” but Bob was continuing.
“When my daughter was dying, it was killing me inside. She was dying of MS.
I put myself inside her skin so many times and tried to experience what she was going through.
And many times I said to my wife, ‘Boy, what an advantage to be a psychopath.’
A psychopath would look at his daughter and say, ‘This is really bad luck,’ and then go out and gamble and . . .”
Bob trailed off. We ordered coffee.
“With corporate psychopathy, it’s a mistake to look at them as neurologically impaired,” he said. “It’s a lot easier to look at them from a Darwinian slant.
It all makes sense from the evolutionary perspective. The strategy is to pass on the gene pool for the next generation.
Now, they don’t consciously think that. They don’t think, ‘I’m going to go out and impregnate as many women as I can,’ but that’s the genetic imperative. So what do they do? They’ve got to attract women. They like women a lot. So they’ve got to misrepresent their resources. They’ve got to manipulate and con and deceive and be ready to move on as soon as things get hot.”
“Ah,” I said, frowning again. “With Al Dunlap that really doesn’t hold up. He’s been married for forty-one years. There’s no evidence of affairs. None at all. He’s been a loyal husband. And a lot of journalists have dug around —”
“It doesn’t matter,” interrupted Bob. “We’re talking in generalities. There are lots of exceptions.
What happens outside the marriage?
Do you know? Do you have any idea?”
“Um,” I said.
“Does his wife have any idea what goes on outside the marriage?” Bob said. “A lot of these serial killers are married to the same person for thirty years. They have no idea what goes on outside The Marriage.” ”
