The Wisdom of Psychopaths - Kevin Dutton

Psychopath. The word conjures up images of serial killers, rapists, suicide bombers, gangsters. But think again: you could probably benefit from being a little more psychopathic yourself.
Psychologist Kevin Dutton has made a speciality of psychopathy, and is on first-name terms with many notorious killers. But unlike those incarcerated psychopaths, and all those depicted in movies and crime fiction, most are not violent, he explains. In fact, says Prof. Dutton, they have a lot of good things going for them. Psychopaths are fearless, confident, charismatic and focused--qualities tailor-made for success in today's society.
The Wisdom of Psychopaths is an intellectual rollercoaster ride that combines lightning-hot science with unprecedented access to secret monasteries, Special Forces training camps, and high-security hospitals. In it, you will meet serial killers, war heroes, financiers, movie stars and attorneys--and discover that beneath the hype and popular characterization, psychopaths have something to teach us.

KEVIN DUTTON was born in London in 1967. He has a PhD in psychology, and is an expert on the science of social influence. He is a research fellow at the Faraday Institute, St. Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, and at the University of Western Australia, in Perth. In Split-Second Persuasion, his first book, Dr. Dutton documents time spent with some of the world's top con artists in his quest to find out whether these evil black-belts of mind control know more about persuasion than he does. Kevin is a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, and also of the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy.

"In many environments, psychopaths can prove more altruistic than the rest of us. Therein lies the tension that drives Dutton's book, and might actually help explain our strange attraction to such rebels without causes. It's also why a grown-up treatment of this incredible set of mental qualities makes for such absorbing reading." --The Daily Beast