by Maureen Steele
August 22, 2025 - Not long ago, a research psychologist at Oxford named Kevin Dutton posed a provocative question: What if some of our most celebrated political leaders - those with composure under pressure, charm in public and ruthless decisiveness behind closed doors - exhibit not accidental charisma but measured psychopathy? The question may seem inflammatory until you consider the data, which increasingly suggest that individuals with certain psychopathic traits are not just surviving but thriving in high levels of government.
In the public imagination, “psychopath” conjures images of serial killers and sociopaths. But psychologists use the term more clinically. Psychopathy is a personality profile marked by shallow emotional responses, reduced empathy, social dominance, fearless behavior and a tendency to manipulate others. While the extreme end of the spectrum includes violent criminals, many individuals who exhibit psychopathic traits - often dubbed “functional” or “high-functioning psychopaths” - exist seamlessly within society. In fact, they are often promoted.
Dutton’s research, most notably his analysis of American presidents using the Psychopathic Personality Inventory, found that many of the most effective leaders in U.S. history scored high in what is known as “fearless dominance” - a cluster of traits that includes social charm, emotional resilience and risk tolerance. His results, summarized in a University of Oxford study, placed Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton near the top in terms of psychopathic traits, though notably not in the destructive forms associated with criminality. Instead, they possessed what Dutton refers to as the characteristics of the “good psychopath” - a person capable of decisive action, unencumbered by paralyzing empathy or fear.
The results raised eyebrows when Dutton extended his methodology to modern figures. Donald Trump, he concluded, scored higher than Adolf Hitler on several psychopathy metrics, including fearlessness and impulsivity. The findings, published in 2016 and covered in outlets such as the Economic Times, were not necessarily designed to condemn, but to interrogate what kind of personalities political systems tend to reward.