The Jobs With The Most Psychopaths

AOL Jobs ^ | January 2, 2013 | Dan Fastenberg

[2ndDivisionVet]

Have you ever experienced the feeling at work that everyone around you is unstable? That you're the only level-headed worker in a workplace populated by colleagues whose fits and outbursts are unpredictable, or even psychopathic?

The experience might be common to many workers, but according to a recent book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success, certain fields are more likely to attract actual psychopaths than others. The book by Oxford psychologist Kevin Dutton argues that "a number of psychopathic attributes [are] actually more common in business leaders than in so-called disturbed criminals -- attributes such as superficial charm, egocentricity, persuasiveness, lack of empathy, independence, and focus."

In a post about the book, author and Huffington Post blogger Eric Barker says that professions with high rates of psychopaths "offer power and many require an ability to make objective, clinical decisions divorced from feelings." Conversely, those fields with relatively few psychopaths "require human connection, dealing with feelings and most of them don't offer much power."

So what were the kinds of jobs most likely to attract psychopaths, and those least likely?

Highest Rates of Psychopathy:

1. CEO
2. Lawyer
3. Media (Television/Radio)
4. Salesperson
5. Surgeon
6. Journalist
7. Police Officer
8. Clergy person
9. Chef
10. Civil Servant...

[MortMan]

Santa Claus: Jolly old elf or CIA spook? ;-P

[SaraJohnson]

Any list of patholigists what omits Universities VP’s, Presidents and professors, is wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s an amoral criminal insane asylum.

[FeliciaCat]

So THATS why the Cop and Lawyer Boyfriends didnt work out....;)

[x]

So "media person" has high rates of psychopaths and "creative artist" has low rates?

Maybe if they're using "creative artist" to mean something like "craftperson" which is already on the list, but I'd assume writers and actors had high rates of psychopathy.

And surgeons are on the high list and doctors on the low list? Where does this come from? The Lovenstein Institute?

And what do they mean by "therapist"? A physical therapist (not so different from a nurse or care aide when it comes down to it) or a psychotherapist? Plenty of psychiatrists are pretty crazy.

[RegulatorCountry]

Creative artist is also on the lowest rates list. I strongly disagree with that one.

There are all kinds of crazy. Power-mad control freak isn't really a chart topper with creatives. A hum-dinger when it does occur, though.

[skinkinthegrass]

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