Personal Growth — August 13, 2016

Do You Have to Be a Psychopath to Be a Great Athlete?

Psychologist Kevin Dutton points out that psychopathic traits are not only common among great athletes, they may be required.

Katie Ledecky shows how it's done. (IAN MACNICOL/GETTY IMAGES)

Robby Berman

Everybody knows you don’t want to be a psychopath, except when you do. Wait, what? Psychologist Kevin Dutton has spent a lot of time studying psychopaths, and he suggests there are places in which psychopathic traits actually come in handy, and may even be required. Like the Olympics.

So here are the traits according to Dutton. See if they don’t sound like a great athlete:

Ruthlessness

Fearlessness

Mental toughness

Coolness under pressure

Ability to focus remorselessly on a goal

Hm. Gold medals seem almost inevitable. As long as there’s no issue with aggressiveness and you’re smart enough to use these super-powers for good, that is.

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The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

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More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

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7 min

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with

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