Psychopaths in business: Why sex matters
18 October, 2018
A recently published meta-analysis investigates whether people with psychopathic traits are more successful in business. The researchers conclude that, when it comes to the sexes, the playing field is most definitely not even.
According to some media outlets, individuals who are successful in corporations are highly likely to have psychopathic traits.
Specifically, they are thought to assert dominance over others, act impulsively, and lack empathy.
In reality, studies that have looked into the relationship between psychopathy and success have reached less firm conclusions. There is no consensus of scientific opinion, and the debate continues.
Recently, scientists from The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, AL, and Iowa State University in Ames, IA, decided to re-analyze existing data to get a clearer understanding of psychopathy in the workplace. Do people in corporate leadership positions display more psychopathic traits?
The success of a psychopath
The authors of the current study were particularly interested in understanding "the association between psychopathic personality characteristics and leadership emergence, leadership effectiveness, and transformational leadership."
In short, they wanted to know whether psychopathic traits help an individual to emerge as a leader and whether these traits make a successful leader.
For the study, they re-analyzed data from 92 existing datasets and published their findings in the Journal of Applied Psychology under the title: "Shall we serve the dark lords? A meta-analytic review of psychopathy and leadership."
At first glance, the results were relatively inconclusive, but in the expected direction. The authors explain that, although correlations were weak, people with psychopathic tendencies were more likely to emerge as leaders, but that people with these traits were slightly less likely to be effective leaders.
"Overall, although there is no positive or negative relation to a company's bottom line when psychopathic tendencies are present in organizational leaders, their subordinates will still hate them."
-Study author, Dr. Peter Harms
He continues, "So we can probably assume they behave in a manner that is noxious and whatever threats they make to 'motivate' workers don't really pay off."
When the researchers dug into the data a little deeper, they unearthed some interesting differences between the sexes.
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