Psychopathy is not limited to serial killers. Psychopathy is prevalent in about 1 in 100. If 1/100 people were serial killers, we'd have a big problem on our hands.
In reality, psychopaths blend into society very well. You likely know a few and wouldn't even suspect them unless you know what to look for. They find their way into positions that are highly competitive, where their lack of empathy serves them well. Psychopaths are overrepresented as surgeons, lawyers, bankers, law enforcement (you'll find a lot of psychopaths behind bars, but you'll also find a lot keeping them there), politicians, and yes CEOs.
The vast majority of psychopaths are not criminals. A total disregard for the thoughts of others, a lack of empathy, can be an advantage. Bankers, lawyers, politicians, even some doctors display aspects of psychopathy.
When you are in hospital after a bad car crash you don't want to be treated by a Doctor who 'feels your pain'. You want that cold and calculating mind to take decisions based on facts rather than emotion. Most psychopaths find their niches.
Psychopaths aren't a problem until they start killing people. Yes they have a certain psychological profile but if you take away the serial killer part, nobody cares.
Because they are more likely to have psychopathic traits than the general population, but much less so than criminals. But not really enough to worry about. The vast majority of psychopaths are in prison and regular jobs. And the vast majority of CEOs display no psychopathic tendencies.
"Roughly 4% to as high as 12% of CEOs exhibit psychopathic traits, according to some expert estimates, many times more than the 1% rate found in the general population and more in line with the 15% rate found in prisons. "
The key aspect of CEOs that make for success is aligning people with vision and some measure of bravery to eschew "traditional" and "safe" to pursue that vision. That can be either because you are a master manipulator and driven by ego-mania, or because you are genuine and compelling and understand your industry, or both.
Physiologically, you should try to be tall, good looking, outgoing, confident, somewhat narcissistic, and infected with Toxoplasmosis.
I imagine we do hear about more such cases because there simply are more of them compared to other groups we hear about.
There's been some notable studies by now that concluded the amount of psychopaths is way higher among CEO's than the average population and that it isn't that exceptionally rare among this subgroup as you said.
There is rigorous empirical research showing that psychopaths are more prevalent among the successful.
"Studies conducted by forensic psychologist Robert Hare indicate that about 1 percent of the general population can be categorized as psychopathic, but the prevalence rate in the financial services industry is 10 percent.
These "financial psychopaths" generally lack empathy and interest in what other people feel or think. At the same time, they display an abundance of charm, charisma, intelligence, credentials, an unparalleled capacity for lying, fabrication, and manipulation, and a drive for thrill seeking.
A financial psychopath can present as a perfect well-rounded job candidate, CEO, manager, co-worker, and team member because their destructive characteristics are practically invisible."
Both estimates suggest that psychopaths are far more prevalent in corporate management than in the general population — about 3.5 to 12 times more. And they may be even more common in the top office, with one analysis finding that one in five CEOs could be a corporate psychopath.
Psychopaths are very much over-represented amongst the richest (didn't get caught) and poorest (did get caught.) There aren't too many who took a middle path and ended up with middling results.
I see the "psychopathy 1200% over represented in CEOs" quite a lot. Not sure of the veracity of that claim, but a quick Google reveals this:
"Roughly 4% to as high as 12% of CEOs exhibit psychopathic traits, according to some expert estimates, many times more than the 1% rate found in the general population and more in line with the 15% rate found in prisons."
About one in one hundred people are probably psychopath in the general population. When you look at some sub-populations you find higher representations of psychopaths, or of tendencies associated with pyschopathy. One clear example given in the article is in the prison population. Other examples include high-level businessmen and politicians. Obviously saying "there's an over-representation of psychopaths among politicians" is not the same as a simplistic "all politicians are psychopaths".
Better quality research is needed, and pop-psychology books are pretty frustrating.
There is absolutely no reason to think psychopaths were excluded from society. Chances are, they were very successful and run even more unchecked then now.
Psychopathy is defined as scoring a 30/40 or higher on the standard psychometric for it, the Hare psychopathy checklist.
Psychopathy is characterized by a number of traits that are sometimes adaptable and sometimes maladaptive, depending on the context. Those traits include impulsivity, irresponsibility, and a lack of empathy.
There are far more psychopaths in prisons than there are in board rooms. Successful psychopathy seems rare, even among psychopaths. But, being a CEO is rare anyway, and since we can agree that many CEO's share a certain personality type, it's not a stretch to think that the personality type they share is trending towards a personality disorder, namely psychopathy.
Where do you remember reading that? I'd like to vet the reliability of the source before I make inferences on it.
In reality, psychopaths blend into society very well. You likely know a few and wouldn't even suspect them unless you know what to look for. They find their way into positions that are highly competitive, where their lack of empathy serves them well. Psychopaths are overrepresented as surgeons, lawyers, bankers, law enforcement (you'll find a lot of psychopaths behind bars, but you'll also find a lot keeping them there), politicians, and yes CEOs.
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