Lack of guilt, fearlessness and interpersonal dominance -- that may sound like a description of a high-powered executive or politician, but it's actually a list of traits commonly found in psychopaths.
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A team of researchers at Emory University in Atlanta recently found that the fearless dominance associated with psychopathy may predict presidential performance. The study was published in the September 2012 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
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The researchers compiled personality assessments of the 42 previous U.S. presidents -- up to and including George W. Bush -- using data from about 100 historical experts, such as biographers, journalists, and political scholars. Those personalities were compared with each president's performance, and links began to emerge.
Out of all the former presidents tested in the Emory study, Theodore Roosevelt ranked the highest for fearless dominance, according to the researchers. He was followed by John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Rutherford Hayes, Zachary Taylor, Bill Clinton, Martin Van Buren, Andrew Jackson and George W. Bush.
"Politicians are more likely than people in the general population to be sociopaths," clinical psychologist and author Dr. Martha Stout...I think you would find no expert in the field of sociopathy/psychopathy/antisocial personality disorder who would dispute this. That a small minority of human beings literally have no conscience was and is a bitter pill for our society to swallow -- but it does explain a great many things, shamelessly deceitful political behavior being one."
FearlessDominance.
Boy, that really rings true with me. JFK, for instance--"shameless," utterly shameless. And reckless: He brought the world to a one-in-three chance of nuclear holocaust over Cuba where there was no qualitative change in the strategic situation--which he later admitted. Soviet installation of missiles in Cuba represented, he later conceded, a "psychological" advantage for the Soviets. Kennedy had been bullied by Khrushchev in Vienna. He showed up at the door of James Reston and admitted that Khrushchev had made him his bitch. He took the first opportunity to show Khrushchev who was boss. Shockingly reckless.
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For comparison, here is the bottom of the rankings for fearless dominance starting with the lowest scorer, William H. Taft, in other words he was the most fearful and least dominant US president:
William H. Taft
John Q. Adams
Calvin Coolidge
William McKinley
James Buchanan
John Adams
Herbert Hoover
Andrew Johnson
Harry S. Truman
James Garfield
FearfulSubmissiveness.
A team of researchers at Emory University in Atlanta recently found that the fearless dominance associated with psychopathy may predict presidential performance. The study was published in the September 2012 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
...
The researchers compiled personality assessments of the 42 previous U.S. presidents -- up to and including George W. Bush -- using data from about 100 historical experts, such as biographers, journalists, and political scholars. Those personalities were compared with each president's performance, and links began to emerge.
Out of all the former presidents tested in the Emory study, Theodore Roosevelt ranked the highest for fearless dominance, according to the researchers. He was followed by John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Rutherford Hayes, Zachary Taylor, Bill Clinton, Martin Van Buren, Andrew Jackson and George W. Bush.
"Politicians are more likely than people in the general population to be sociopaths," clinical psychologist and author Dr. Martha Stout...I think you would find no expert in the field of sociopathy/psychopathy/antisocial personality disorder who would dispute this. That a small minority of human beings literally have no conscience was and is a bitter pill for our society to swallow -- but it does explain a great many things, shamelessly deceitful political behavior being one."
FearlessDominance.
Boy, that really rings true with me. JFK, for instance--"shameless," utterly shameless. And reckless: He brought the world to a one-in-three chance of nuclear holocaust over Cuba where there was no qualitative change in the strategic situation--which he later admitted. Soviet installation of missiles in Cuba represented, he later conceded, a "psychological" advantage for the Soviets. Kennedy had been bullied by Khrushchev in Vienna. He showed up at the door of James Reston and admitted that Khrushchev had made him his bitch. He took the first opportunity to show Khrushchev who was boss. Shockingly reckless.
____________________________________
For comparison, here is the bottom of the rankings for fearless dominance starting with the lowest scorer, William H. Taft, in other words he was the most fearful and least dominant US president:
William H. Taft
John Q. Adams
Calvin Coolidge
William McKinley
James Buchanan
John Adams
Herbert Hoover
Andrew Johnson
Harry S. Truman
James Garfield
FearfulSubmissiveness.
