Psychopathy

While many people believe that psychopathy is more prevalent among CEOs and Wall Street bankers, this is a myth not supported by any research. While on the surface it may seem that many of the symptoms and traits of psychopathy might lend themselves to positions of greater power, the two are not synonymous.

One of the problems is that psychopaths tend to be pretty quickly "outed" for their antisocial behaviors, because the charm is purely superficial and easily detected over time with greater exposure to the psychopath.

11: You answered this quiz consistent with people who would not generally be considered a psychopath by research methods currently used to quickly screen for psychopathy in the population.

14: You answered this quiz consistent with people who have moderately elevated scores on measures of psychopathy and psychopathic behavior. This may suggest a tendency for some psychopathic behaviors, especially when such behaviors result in your personal gain.


"Superficial charm and good intelligence; absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking; absence of ìrvousnessîr psychoneurotic manifestations; unreliability; untruthfulness and insincerity, lack of remorse or shame; inadequately motivated antisocial behaviour; poor judgement and failure to learn from experience, pathological egocentricity and incapacity for love; general poverty in major affective reactions; specific loss of insight; unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations; fantastic and uninviting behaviour with alcohol (and sometimes without); suicide rarely carried out; sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated; and failure to follow any life plan (Cleckley, 1941:1988, p.337-338)."