Recent discussions here on Dean’s World led the Fabulous Gi to send me an interesting article, which notes that recent study has concluded that about 1 out of 25, or 4%, of high-level company managers are psychopaths, which is about 4 times the number of psychopaths in the general population.
I would like to get ahold of the original study–I rarely trust mainstream news sources to report on science correctly–but I am willing to accept at face value that this number is reasonably close to correct. Intuitively, the number sounds about right. Having been a manager, and having worked at, or with, multiple companies from very small all the way up to the Fortune 500 level, I’m quite certain I’ve encountered these people. They aren’t everybody (not even close) but they’re clearly almost always there. In fact I’m pretty sure most anyone who’s worked in corporate America has encountered them; the very traits that make a psychopath would allow many of them to be tremendously successful on a personal level, although I would expect them to wreak all sorts of damage on whatever organization they’re attached to in the long run. I would also expect most of them to eventually fail personally as the very traits that made them successful would often wind up destroying them.
Although the study probably did not look at this question, I am fairly certain a similar percentage of psychopaths are to be found among politicians. Some might say the number is higher in politics, but I’m not inclined to think so. Despite my admitted cynicism about politicians, I believe most people who enter politics do so out of a genuine desire to improve their city, state, country, etc.
This leads to the natural question of “what is a psychopath? And can it be defined objectively?” The answer there is yes; it has been defined fairly well by psychiatric researchers for decades. The shorthand definition is a person who is incapable of feeling empathy, guilt, or remorse. Although it’s controversial to say so, it appears to be a brain-wiring issue; they literally lack this capacity. Having no capacity for guilt, remorse, or empathy would lead to all sorts of things, but not necessarily the Hollywood stereotype of the psychopathic killer. Being unable to feel guilt would not make you automatically sadistic, for example, although if you had sadistic impulses you would have little to hold you back from acting on them (except maybe wishing to avoid being caught). It would not make you prone to commit murder, but if you did commit a murder, or even an accidental killing, you would not feel bad about it. It would not lead you to steal, but you wouldn’t feel bad about it if you did.
If you had this lack of any ability to feel guilt or remorse, and you also had a tendency toward violence, theft, vandalism, etc. then you would probably be more likely to commit those acts. Thus the psychopath is not necessarily dangerous, but what you would expect is for psychopaths to make up a large percentage of the population of criminals. But you would also find them in higher numbers in any endeavor–military positions, politics, business, etc.–where being utterly without a conscience might serve you well. If killing people doesn’t bug you a bit, then bombing a city into oblivion wouldn’t even make you flinch. If screwing someone over in a business deal wouldn’t bother you, you’d be willing to do anything to get ahead. If you just wanted sex, you’d have no problem lying to someone to make them think you loved them just so you could get them into bed. And so on and so forth.
Dr. Robert Hare appears to be the researcher who has done the most to define what psychopathy is, and is not, in clinical terms. And he’s expressed many concerns over the use of his work, since it can be misapplied in many ways. For example, while psychological tests can indicate with a high degree of reliability whether or not someone is psychopathic (and again, their percentage in the pgeneral opulation appears to be about 1%), the questions about what to do with that information are huge. For example, as already stated, most psychopaths are not violent and do not commit criminal acts. We just know they’re more likely to do so, since their lack of empathy, pity, or remorse makes them more impulsive and less prone to give a damn what anyone thinks of them. They instinctively tend to like themselves and be narcissistic–but, although most psychopaths will be narcissists, all narcissists will not be psychopaths.
Furthermore, what do you do if through testing you can nail down with high certainty that a person is a psychopath? Do you incarcerate them or place them under constant observation, just on the theory that they might do something wrong? Do you immediately remove them from any position of power, on the theory that they might do damage? Such questions are not theoretical; in some countries such laws have been proposed, and apparently, in criminal cases, someone testing positive for psychopathic traits has been used in trials against accused criminals, or in sentencing them. Is that even ethical? And what about misuse of these tests by unqualified individuals?
Then there’s the really hot-button issue: psychological treatment to help criminals identify their own dysfunctional behavior may help them be less likely to repeat their offenses and become better people–but with a psychopath (which, again, is specifically defined as a person incapable of empathy or remorse), such treatment may only make them more likely to offend, as they learn the buzz words and tricks necessary to make them look rehabilitated when all you’ve done is make them more clever at disguising their misbehavior.
Dr. Hare maintains his own web site here, and it includes a fascinating article on all these matters here.
Although you probably want to read all of the above first, a fascinating documentary is available about a genuine self-admitted psychopath who is willing to talk about it. He hasn’t killed anyone, but he’s been a ruthless businessman who’s gained and lost several fortunes, and now makes money promoting himself and his views on psychopathy. It’s fascinating stuff and while I haven’t watched it all yet, I’ve watched a good chunk and intend to watch the rest: I, Psychopath, a film about self-admitted psychopath Sam Vaknin.
