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Which professions have the most psychopaths?
The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success, by Kevin Dutton, has this side-by-side list of professions with the highest percentage of psychopaths (CEO tops the list) and lowest percentage (Care Aide has the fewest psychopaths).
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psychologists/psychiatrists
ted c on January 1, 2013 at 11:23 AM
Professional bloggers and their commenters.
JimLennon on January 1, 2013 at 11:26 AM
Why are politicians left off the list? I’m convinced most of them are psychotic.
HotAirian on January 1, 2013 at 11:26 AM
No doubt politicians are tops for psychopaths.
ButterflyDragon on January 1, 2013 at 11:28 AM
This retired mail carrier says postal union members are the most psycho workers.
itsnotaboutme on January 1, 2013 at 11:30 AM
Color me skeptical. Sounds like a political ax to grind. I’ve seen and heard of plenty of uncaring, unfeeling Care Aides. We had the “angel of death” in Cincinnati, a male nurse: “Donald Harvey (born in Butler County, Ohio, April 15, 1952) is an American serial killer who claims to have murdered 87 people.”
CEOs often have to make hard decisions, like a surgeon amputating a leg to save the patient. That’s not being a psychopath.
I smell a liberal bent in the author’s attitude.
Paul-Cincy on January 1, 2013 at 11:40 AM
Well over a third of members of Congress are lawyers so I’d consider they’re well represented on the list. I think a listing of sociopaths would be more to the point – there are some distinction between the two.
Drained Brain on January 1, 2013 at 11:40 AM
Yeah, I’m trying to remember the last CEO we all saw being put into a police car or ambulance after some mass killing.
ddrintn on January 1, 2013 at 11:43 AM
Even Mother Teresa had her darker moments…
Fallon on January 1, 2013 at 11:53 AM
The vast majority of people have no idea what a psychopath is. The term is used pejoratively which debases its meaning.
Criminal Minds may be fun, but it is not educational – ever notice how 95% of the bad guys they track are labelled ‘sexual psychopaths’?
CorporatePiggy on January 1, 2013 at 12:05 PM
Wasn’t Charles Manson the CEO of the Manson Family Commune?
albill on January 1, 2013 at 12:07 PM
And the article is obviously racist.
What race are most CEOs?
White.
Racist.
albill on January 1, 2013 at 12:08 PM
The top 10 candidates here *may* display higher than average psychopathic traits, but if they are successful they will almost certainly not be psychopaths.
If you really want to bitch about say, Murdoch, you’d be closer to the mark by saying he’s a sociopath.
Then again, you’d be abusing the term.
We ALL have psychopathic and sociopathic traits and it’s lazy to throw someone at the end of the spectrum. That laziness is usually borne of antipathy.
You know what the most common psychopathic trait is? The love of a parent for a child – it is commonly unconditional and extends to the parent being willing to trade their life for the child’s in a heartbeat.
Suck it up, y’all.
CorporatePiggy on January 1, 2013 at 12:12 PM
Na, politicians are sociopaths psychopaths.
SWalker on January 1, 2013 at 12:12 PM
Really weird . That was my thought as soon as I saw the post. Almost anyone I have known that has gone into those professions or areas of studies have had some of the most obvious inner struggles or issues.
CW on January 1, 2013 at 12:18 PM
OWS in a nutshell.
CW on January 1, 2013 at 12:19 PM
Newman agrees.
Del Dolemonte on January 1, 2013 at 12:30 PM
Politician #1 and Journalist/Media Personality #1-A
njrob on January 1, 2013 at 12:36 PM
Sigh, by those definitions media and politicians would fit sociopaths much better than mere psychopaths.
njrob on January 1, 2013 at 12:39 PM