1 in 5 CEOs are psychopaths

Many people already intuited that to be a high position in an organization you have to be made of a special wood, but there is always research on the subject that can surprise us.

There is a very recent one, in particular, that is totally shocking, since it indicates that among CEOs the proportion of psychopaths it is around 21%, almost the same that can be found among inmates in American prisons.

An investigation into psychopaths at the helm

The study, conducted by a team of researchers led by Bond University forensic psychologist Nathan Brooks, used for its analysis a group of 261 senior American managers who work today in companies of different sectors. These senior profiles included CEOs, presidents, and CEOs, which allowed for the opportunity to study the psychological characteristics of people with high decision-making power in organizations.

It is in this group of people that it has been estimated that 1 in 5 presents the characteristics that define psychopathy, something that is even more curious considering that, when we talk about the number of psychopaths in the general population, the proportion drops to approximately 1%.

When success and power is everything

The Telegraph collects the statements of Nathan brooks Regarding how it is possible that such a proportion of people with psychopathic traits has been detected among high positions. According to him, this is due to a flaw in the style of personnel selection: the members of Human Resources They tend to value work and academic experience more than data related to the personality of candidates, which makes successful psychopaths able to access positions of high responsibility manipulating, harming possible competitors in the search for promotions and making the events that occur in the company play to their favor.

However, there is another possible explanation for this fact: that the activities that must be done when occupying a senior positions of responsibility of a large company fit well with the way of being of people with features psychopathic. In a competitive market and in which self-interest prevails, the little or no capacity to empathize and the ability to manipulate psychopaths can be an advantage that helps to access good salaries and to stay in important positions.

After all, psychopaths, unlike sociopaths, are able to hide their disinterest in the rules and feelings of others and make these characteristics useful to them without getting into trouble, or they directly comply with more social norms. basic not to conflict with the law and they go about their life without harming others to a greater extent than the rest of their fellow citizens. This makes it possible for them to win the sympathy of others and build a positive public image.

There are precedents

Of course, these results can be questioned with total legitimacy; after all, in psychology a single study is not useful to find a universal and unquestionable truth, and it is necessary to contrast this information with other investigations.

However, this study, which will be published soon in the journal European Journal of Psychology, is not the first to suggest that among the groups that run medium-sized and large companies, the The relative number of psychopaths is much greater than that found in the population in general. In an investigation carried out in 2010, for example, the results indicated that the number of psychopaths that can be find between corporate positions is 4%, that is, 4 times more than what is normal in the total of the population.