Are You a Psychopath?

According to Oxford psychologist Kevin Dutton, author of The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success, lawyers, CEOs, and media personalities top the list for professions chosen by psychopaths. Conversely, care aides, nurses, and therapists are the least psychopathic professions. Check out the list below for the top 10 for each category:

The word "psychopath" generally conjures up thoughts of Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, or fictional character Hannibal Lecter, but actually, as Dutton explores in his book, being psychopathic doesn’t necessarily make you a serial killer. “A psychopath is someone with a distinct cluster of personality traits, including narcissism, persuasiveness and a lack of conscience,” he says. Perhaps unsurprisingly these traits can often be found in successful business figures. A 2011 study suggested one in 25 CEOs make it to the top because of their inherent ‘psychopathic’ traits, such as an ability to manipulate any situation. Having supported enough CEOs and attorneys in my 25 years in the business world, I can concur that these traits fit many of them to a T, particularly the CEOs.

“Psychopathy lies on a spectrum,” adds Dutton. “Some of us may score higher on some traits than on others.” But accordingly, unless you score high on all of them (and are naturally inclined to be violent), you’re not likely to find yourself the subject of Quentin Tarantino's next movie.

The natural question that comes up when viewing this list is: Why these specific professions? The obvious answer is that for the most part the careers on the left offer up much more of a feeling of power than the ones on the right do. In addition, while some of the jobs on the left certainly provide the potential for human connections, the jobs in the right-hand column stress empathy on a day-to-day basis. Indeed, a requirement for being a good nurse or therapist is the capacity to empathize with one's fellow human beings. Of course, there are outliers with everything, like serial killing nurses and compassionate caring CEOs (i.e., Australia's Ken Grenda, CEO and Owner of Grenda Corp.).

It's interesting that surgeons are considered psychopaths and doctors are not. Maybe it's the whole "I'm a god when doing surgery" thought process that makes the difference. Also strangely, chefs are on the psychopath list. So perhaps anyone who wields a knife has the capacity to be a psychopath. What's that say about my favorite television chef, Gordon Ramsay, or my brother who has been a chef for 30+ years? Hmmmm...

If you're wondering where you fit on the list, you can take Dutton's Psychopath Challenge on his website. Thankfully I scored low on the psychopath scale -- a mere 12 out of 33. I guess I'm safe... or rather others are safe from me.