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Could Testing Block Psychopaths From Senior Management?

Posted by timothy on from the self-aggrandizing-liars-with-golden-parachutes dept.

Freshly Exhumed writes "Dr. Clive Boddy believes that increasingly fluid corporate career paths have helped psychopaths conceal their disruptive workplace behavior and ascend to previously unattainable levels of authority. Boddy points out psychopaths are primarily attracted to money, status and power, currently found in unparalleled abundance in the global banking sector. As if to prove the point, many of the world's money traders self identify as the "masters of the universe." Solution? Screening with psychological tests. Who would pay for it? The insurance industry." The tech world has plenty of company heads who've been called psychopaths, too — but would you want to actually change that?

2 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Just another way to bash someone's success by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hell yes, this is a problem. Watch The Corporation. It basically shows that most corporations are psychopathic, and I believe that most governments are too. This is fundamentally at odds with our basic notion that people in charge should have some sort of human decency. If the majority of us have empathy but are ruled by psychopaths without empathy, this is a very very serious problem...especially when many people will go ahead and assume that the people in authority have empathy.

    Basically the people who have the most say on how this world operates (including whether to wage war, take people's money, pollute the environment or not) are often (or mostly, depending on your point of view) behaving like psychopaths. This is nuts and it really goes a long way towards explaining the current state of affairs.

  2. Re:Just another way to bash someone's success by Johann+Lau · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The more empathic someone is, the more difficult it will be for them to consciously allow a certain number of probable deaths or injuries.

    No, the easier it will be for them to "feel for" ALL affected. This includes the positively affected. If a decision saves the lives of 1000 while killing 1, empathy doesn't mean "feel for the 1, ignore the 1000".

    Also, how is selfishness more rational? How would a sociopath do ANY calculation other than "does it give me what I want, fuck everyone else" --- ?

    Someone has to decide whose suffering to alleviate, and whose to ignore. People who are too empathic can't; at best, they'll make decisions based on whichever crisis is most heart-touching to them

    Bullshit. There's plenty of strong people who just happen to have empathy, too. You just don't know em. Just like there's plenty of weak-ass sociopaths. You just don't recognize em. How does that quote go? "Gentleness can only be expected from the strong."? I think you have it exactly upside down, and good luck with that.