The Mafia Boss Yesterday and Today: Psychological Characteristics and Research Data

Abstract

This article describes Cosa Nostra bosses’ psychological characteristics starting from research data collected over almost twenty years (1994–2013). Through the use of fragments of interviews to justice collaborators and their wives, children, and sisters-in-law, we analyze the boss’ role and relational context. This article also reports the results of a recent research on the relationship between boss and white-collar workers, carried out through the analysis of environmental tapping recorded at a famous Sicilian Mafia boss’ house: Giuseppe Guttadauro. This research highlights the psychological diversity the relationship between boss and white-collar worker is based on. The analysis of environmental tapping transcriptions has also allowed discovery of the main relational modalities used by the boss and white-collar worker in their conversations.

KEYWORDS:

• Boss
• Mafia
• Mafia family
• psychology
• white-collar workers

Notes

¹English translation: “Because after a murder, I went to Church and asked for God's forgiveness.”

²For further information, we refer the reader to the article published in Narrare i gruppi [Narrating Groups]: C. Giordano and M. Di Blasi, “Identità e omofobia in Cosa Nostra. Un approfondimento gruppoanalitico oggettuale” [Identity and Homophobia. An Objectual Thourough Study from the Perspective of Group-Analysis], 7(1) (May 2012), website: www.narrareigruppi.it

³English translation: “He didn't know what to do (what to offer to me).”

⁴English translation: “Try this, try that, take them with you, I’ll put them in your car …”

⁵English translation: “He has to manage them all if he wants to become President of the Region, otherwise he cannot become President of the Region…”