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Is Your Boss a Psychopath?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the phb-for-a-better-tomorrow dept.

Dogers writes "Robert Hare, creator of the Psychopathy Checklist, has recently been applying his test 'Is your boss a psychopath' to businessmen and has found some disturbing results. From the article: 'Why wouldn't we want to screen them? We screen police officers, teachers. Why not people who are going to handle billions of dollars?'. Citing Enron and Worldcom management as an example, it seems a reasonable argument. The same source also has a quiz (magazine produced it seems) which allows you to test your own boss, too!"

6 of 878 comments (clear)

  1. Re:easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    You're fired you insignificant sack of crotch-sniffing feces!

  2. The political animal by ESR · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    That quiz reads like an implicit description of ex-president Bill Clinton, the most consummate political animal of modern times. It's all there, the lying and manipulativelessness and obsessive self-reinvention and evasion of responsibility.

    I've been saying for years that the reason criminals as a population are so stupid is that the intelligent sociopaths go into politics, where the identical same behaviors are rewarded and encouraged. This quiz pretty much confirms that.

    --
    >>esr>>
  3. Bzzzt! by blackpaw · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Clinton had empathy. Perhaps he was the narcissist described in the article, but the US was better off for his presidency

    Whereas Bush - he's the poster child for psychopathy.

  4. thank you thank you thank you by circletimessquare · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    libertarianism is nothing more than the same concept as selfishness dressed up in the trappings of philosophy, which i guess is supposed to make it respectable

    it doesn't

    it's still a cheap whore in an expensive dress

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  5. Bill Clinton Perfectly Described by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    Psychopaths succeed in conventional society in large measure because few of us grasp that they are fundamentally different from ourselves. We assume that they, too, care about other people's feelings. This makes it easier for them to "play" us. Although they lack empathy, they develop an actor's expertise in evoking ours. While they don't care about us, "they have an element of emotional intelligence, of being able to see our emotions very clearly and manipulate them," says Michael Maccoby, a psychotherapist who has consulted for major corporations.

    Psychopaths are typically very likable. They make us believe that they reciprocate our loyalty and friendship. When we realize that they were conning us all along, we feel betrayed and foolish.

    Can anyone come up with a more perfect description of ex-President Bill Clinton? I can't.

    Reporters in the mainstream media seems particularly prone to fall for these scoundrels, hence my adage, "Don't trust anyone the MSM likes."

    Right now that's Hillary Clinton, who's closer to the corporate CEO sort of "coldly use people" psychopath than her hubby's classic and warmer-seeming con man variety. The fact that the two share so much in common is perhaps why they stay in what is otherwise a grossly disfunctional marriage. Bill gives her a route to power. She gives him the bimbos he craves. Both use the other but aren't bothered by it, since both benefit.

    There's also Senator John McCain, who isn't as much hostile toward political free speech as he is indifferent to it. He has no ability to "feel" the average person's desire to voice their opinions. For him the only feelings that matter are those of powerful people like himself--hence the news media exemption in his campaign "reform" legislation. Placed on a scale next to his own vain desire not to be criticized, free speech comes up short. For McCain (like both Clintons) only the powerful have rights.

    --Mike Perry, Seattle, Dachau Liberated

  6. Re:Are your government leaders psychopaths? by revscat · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Your claim that Bush is a psychopath is unconvincing. He may be to a certian extent, the question of how severe a psychopath he is remains unanswered.

    Left side of mouth: "He's not a psychopath." Right side of mouth: "He is a little bit of a psychopath."

    Umm... Ok.

    And by the way: not only did Clinton apologize, but he apologized ON NATIONAL TELEVISION for his mistake. Nor did Clinton start wars based on lies and propaganda. And etc., etc. I don't think Bush has apologized for anything, ever, including sending thousands of our soldiers to die in some godforsaken ME country for no fucking reason whatsoever.