Apparently Donald Trump is a psychopath – but just how believable is this this ‘scientific’ study?

Anything deemed ‘scientific research’ exudes authority, but we shouldn’t be bowled over by such a study. It has one big flaw: Donald Trump did not complete it himself

Charlotte Gill
Tuesday 23 August 2016 17:06 BST
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Trump scored 171, achieving two more points than Adolf Hitler
Trump scored 171, achieving two more points than Adolf Hitler

Newspapers are having a field day after scientific research was published suggesting that Donald Trump is a psychopath. In a study to identify psychopathy in historical figures, Oxford University’s Professor Kevin Dutton found that the presidential hopeful scored higher than Hitler on traits associated with the disorder.

Trump has not had the best of weeks, after an artist installed a naked, blobby statue of him in New York’s Union Square, titled The Emperor Has No Balls. Even The Guardian has been forced to concede that the artwork wasn’t big or funny.

However, anything deemed scientific research carries significantly more weight. Despite being from the rather forgiving discipline of psychology (disclaimer: my degree), I suspect many will be concerned by this new, sinister evidence of Trump’s character.

Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton: Who has more psychopathic traits?

But we shouldn’t be bowled over by such a study, for it has one big flaw: namely that Donald Trump did not complete it himself. In fact, ‘experts’ on political events were asked to answer 56 questions about him from a psychopathic personality inventory. Trump is not the only one to have been scored on this thing; George Washington, Elizabeth I and Mahatma Gandhi have all had their turn. Even Hillary Clinton has overtaken Roman Emperor Nero on “Machiavellian egocentricity”. Oh please.

This is not a defence of the Republican candidate, but it is a defence of science. The fact is only Donald Trump will ever know if Donald Trump is a psychopath, not a group of political experts. Asking such a panel to rate someone on their personality assumes that their field knowledge translates into psychological understanding.

Some psychologists also suggest that personality is largely situational, meaning that the traits people exhibit are specific to their environment. For example, some of us may find ourselves more extraverted at a barbeque as opposed to sitting at home. The personality Donald Trump projects in the context of his campaigns is - in most probability - different to the private man. What goes on in his head, no expert will ever know.

The irony is that if Donald Trump has high quantities of psychopathic traits, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. More research, by Dutton, shows that in the right combinations, such characteristics can confer huge advantages in any competitive field - from the workplace to politics. But that’s not the point: only Trump knows if he’s a psychopath.

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