Inability to compassion, unscrupulousness and cunning – these qualities can manifest themselves not only in criminals, but also in leaders in business and politics. Who are they – successful psychopaths, and how do they manage to rise so high?
“Not all psychopaths are in prison, some of them sit on boards of directors,” said Robert Hare, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia.
His opinion is shared by many researchers who provide evidence that there are many psychopaths among political and business leaders who have learned to mimic the general “norm”.
And many people who are far from psychology have seen from their own experience that money and power often end up in the hands of people who are not burdened with such a human property as empathy.
Who are psychopaths?
“The word “psychopathy” has long been associated with serial maniacs and murderers. Now in psychiatry this term has been replaced with “personality disorder”, and you need to understand that there are quite a few variants of such disorders,” comments psychiatrist Maria Leibovich. “In fact, in business and in all kinds of adventures and scams, people with either antisocial or narcissistic, well, and partly hysterical disorders are often successful.”
As a rule, these are deep traumas. Having experienced violence or other difficult experiences, they are unable to build close, trusting relationships. They have a defense mechanism against inner emptiness and inferiority – a special charm and the ability to be in the spotlight, so they are very charming.
These people do not suffer from anxiety and neuroticism, they do not have remorse, shame. In principle, they ignore the rights and interests of other people, they are prone to lies. Striving for their own benefit, they can sacrifice the safety of personal and others – this looks like fearlessness and the ability to make risky decisions.
Unable to build relationships with others in a different way, they are masters of manipulation and know how to exploit people – as they say, “walk over corpses.” In popular literature, media, and cinema, such people are collectively referred to as psychopaths.
The art of mimicry
How do unbalanced, empathic and guiltless children, prone to bouts of uncontrollable anger, grow up and occupy high positions in business and politics? Social psychologists at Virginia Commonwealth University recently conducted research on “successful” psychopaths.
Based on a survey of 1000 teenagers convicted of serious criminal offenses, scientists tried to predict which of them would repeat something similar. The observation went on for several years and showed that some teenagers with indicators of psychopathy gradually improved their social behavior skills. They learned to stop their impulsive reactions and outbursts of anger, but their mental characteristics remained the same.
They still had antisocial personality disorders, but thanks to the acquired skills of self-control, they became successful. According to Dr. David Chester, co-author of the study, teaching teenagers self-control may reduce juvenile delinquency, but “allows psychopaths to make their aggression more insidious – for example, from simple theft to the creation of financial pyramids.”
“Tell me, what’s his name?”
It is believed that both Roosevelts, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and even Bill Clinton, at least had the traits of psychopathy. Another famous example is Steve Jobs, who can be called a narcissist with paranoid traits.
He experienced trauma in childhood – his mother gave him to a foster family. He often quoted Picasso: “Good artists copy, great ones steal” – and did not hesitate to openly steal other people’s ideas. You can remember the story with Xerox and the poaching of key employees from more successful projects.
Everything that he managed to get, he carried to the altar of his idea: to make a revolution in the IT industry. Allegedly, he deceived his best friend – Steve Woznoz, who was probably the author of the developments. There are other points as well. For example, Apple is an “icon” of protection against viruses and piracy, the personification of total mistrust. It is also known that Jobs made an offer to his wife and forgot about it, having gone into work with his head.
Many more examples can be found. This topic is now very popular, a lot of research and publications are devoted to it. The book has been translated into Russian: “The Art of Office Intrigues. How to Build a Successful Career in a World of Lies, Fraud and Dirty Play by clinical psychologist Oliver James.
In English, you can read Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Paul Babiak and Robert Hare. They describe such people with “sassy charm”, manipulative skills, cynicism and self-confidence.