Kevin Dutton

Kevin Dutton (born 1967) is a British psychologist and writer, specialising in the study of psychopathy.

Work He is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, and a member of the Oxford Centre for Emotions and Affective Neuroscience (OCEAN) research group, and says "I divide my time between lab-based research and popular writing." Before this post he was a research fellow at the Faraday Institute, St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, and Visiting Professor for the Public Engagement with Psychological Science at the University of Essex.

He heads a research group on "The Role of Personality Traits and Emotion Regulation Skills in Various Occupational Domains.", and his research looks at the role of various "personality traits and emotion regulation skills" in different occupations such as "politics, investment banking, surgery, and the military", and whether action can be taken to enhance these characteristics "to improve job performance and decision making in these occupations." He has said that he wrote The Wisdom of Psychopaths "as an attempt to figure out his dad"; his father worked on a market stall and was "ruthless, fearless and also extremely charming".

All of these careers require a strong degree of professional detachment.

Beginning in 2021, he co-hosted the podcast Psycho Schizo Espresso with Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson.

Selected publications Black and White Thinking: The burden of a binary brain in a complex world (2020, Random House, )

The Good Psychopath's Guide to Success by Kevin Dutton and Andy McNab, with cartoons by Rob Murray (2014, Bantam Press, ) The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us about Success (2012, Heinemann, ) Flipnosis: The Art of Split-Second Persuasion (2008, Heinemann, )