Jon Ronson and Psychopathy
So Jon Ronson is now being quoted as a source on psychopathic personalities? The very, very first thing to know about psychopaths is that someone could exhibit all of the behaviours and qualities and attitudes of "the very first thing to know...according to Jon Ronson" and not be psychopathic. The second of them is that there are not actually that many of them around (your boss might be a controlling, manipulative little ****, but he's unlikely to be a controlling, manipulative, psychopathic little ****). A 2009 British study found that in the prison population, where we would expect to see higher numbers of psychopaths than in the general population, only 7.7% of men, and 1.9% of women could be categorically diagnosed with psychopathy. Jon Ronson's book is about as useful in understanding and identifying psychopaths as a Cosmo 20 question personality test would be. Posted by an ex-psychiatric nurse.
