Are psychopaths in the workplace on the rise and what does it mean?

Joseph Cotto
The Washington Times Communities
Mon, 03 Dec 2012 15:01 UTC

Florida - Most of us experience empathy at some level. It is one of those things that keep us human, even in the face of great adversity. Are psychopaths capable of such deep emotion?

Over the last several years, we have been hearing more and more about psychopaths wreaking havoc in the workplace. Are actual incidences of psychopathic behavior on the rise?

Furthermore, can business leaders take steps to deal with the possibility of psychopathy among their employees?

The co-author of Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work, Paul Babiak is an industrial-organizational psychologist, who has devoted much of his career to raising awareness about how mental and emotional predators have found their way into the business world.

In this second part of our discussion, he shares his views on the above-mentioned questions, explains what inspired him to write about psychopaths in the workplace, and discusses his life and career.

Joseph F. Cotto: Empathy is something that most us experience, though for very different reasons. Are most workplace psychopaths able to empathize at all?

Dr. Paul Babiak: Lack of empathy, remorse and guilt are some of the defining features of a psychopath, whether they are incarcerated, out in public or working for an organization.

So, I would say they are incapable of feeling any empathy for those they manipulate. They also do not feel any loyalty to their companies or teams, despite a persona (mask) that portrays them otherwise.

Cotto: Have incidences of psychopathy in the workplace increased over the last several years?

Dr. Babiak: It would seem so based on the increasing number of financial frauds, horrific murders and audacious crimes that are being reported in the media.

However, I need to temper that statement by saying that we have improved our ability to more accurately assess psychopathy, and serious crimes against individuals, organizations and even societies have captured more "headlines" than in the past.

In general, though, I would say that the incidence of psychopathy in the population is increasing but until more research data is available, I cannot state that definitively.

Cotto: Can business leaders take steps to deal with the possibility of psychopathy among their employees?

Dr. Babiak: Ideally, a company would not want to hire a psychopath in the first place. But this is easier said than done. My recommendations would be to strengthen the hiring, selection and placement processes to screen out anyone who could potentially have psychopathic traits. This need not be a full-on psychological assessment procedure, though.

By training hiring managers to be good interviewers, using more than one person to interview any candidate, by making sure that all interviewers meet as a team to discuss all candidates, and by following up diligently with background checks and so forth, they can minimize the risk that a psychopath will "fool" an interviewer into thinking that they will be "an ideal employee and future leader."

Any evidence of lying, misrepresentation, or "too good to be true" impressions should be investigated fully, although I would, in general, recommend a pass on those candidates.

Cotto: What inspired you to write about psychopaths in the workplace?

Dr. Babiak: I met my first psychopath while consulting for a company on a teambuilding project (many years ago now). Those in power viewed one of the individuals on the team as an up-and-comer, yet coworkers and peers saw him as a "snake." My initial impression of him, while working with the team, was quite positive. However, over time I came to see many dysfunctional behaviors (conning, lying, backstabbing, even thievery) which made me suspect.

Yet I was amazed by his ability to keep up his mask when it suited him. It was only after this project ended and I began to ponder what had gone on that I recalled psychopathy (from my graduate school studies).

I contacted Dr. Robert D. Hare who shared with me his new Psychopathy Checklist and once I did the assessment, I was convinced (as was Bob) that I had been dealing with a psychopath. Since then, I have found other psychopaths in business and now consult with executives who are trying to deal with them in their organizations. [Note: Robert D. Hare is my co-author on our book: Snakes In Suits: When Psychopaths Go To Work, HarperCollins, 2006.]

Cotto: Now that our discussion is at its end, many readers are probably wondering how you came to be such a prominent psychologist. Tell us a bit about your life and career.

Dr. Babiak: Well, I wouldn't say prominent, but I appreciate your kind words. I have a doctorate in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. My undergraduate work was in engineering and physics, but during my graduate days I took several psychology courses, which changed my career direction.

My early work was in Organization Development (training managers and executives to become better leaders, designing effective work teams and organizations, and implementing company-wide systems to improve performance). That evolved into general human resources work, and ultimately I left the corporate world to consult on psychopathy-related issues.

Reader Comments

sass · 2012-12-03T20:23:34Z

Confused..

I just don't understand how any normal feeling, soulful person could ever expect to function in anyway normally in any organisation from these last few years. I cannot help but believe that it is in fact the human amongst the group that is sniffed out and stands as the anomaly and struggles to assimilate in the organisational environment, and this can put a person into a situation where they kind of have to lie to fit in, or else they're eaten alive. My experience, and that of many of my peers. We have, and are continuing to struggle in an economically driven world where the employee these days is no longer only struggling for their time and energy, but now their own mind as well; the organisation wants out souls.

These days, the sophistication employed by the system as a whole, and thus also the organisation, to account for every move and action of the employee - or "resource", to mould the individual into a sequenced member of the "team", and the mind of that resource to be remodelled - or "educated" - via training to be useful to the hive.

Under these conditions, how would any soulful person feel any empathy for those in a dog-eat-dog working environment, or feel loyalty to their companies or teams. Presenting a persona (mask) that portrays one of otherwise, is, increasingly in my opinion, pure survival in an environment that is designed by psychopaths via a system that's purpose seems to me about ponerising the human race as a whole, as useful slaves.

"My early work was in Organization Development (training managers and executives to become better leaders, designing effective work teams and organizations, and implementing company-wide systems to improve performance). That evolved into general human resources work, and ultimately I left the corporate world to consult on psychopathy-related issues"
This sounds so damned suss to me. Has he ever been on the receiving end of his "training" for "managers and executives to become better leaders, designing effective work teams and organizations, and implementing company-wide systems to improve performance"?

Sounds like hell to me.

For what it's worth of course.

jclimacus · 2012-12-05T12:55:13Z

It is hell. Coomaraswamy said nearly a hundred years ago, "Industry without art is brutality." He said this in the face of a monolithic industrialized takeover, driven by the capital class (i.e. psychopaths like J.P Morgan, Rockefeller, etc) of all levels of culture, which had been going on and had reached total victory at the time of his writing. He was a throwback in his own time (early half of the 20th century), and warned, like many other humans, of the loss of humanity in civilization. My own humanities professors at the university told us that their purpose was "to help make us as marketable as possible." Just stop for the moment and look at the language. Somehow the irony of them, as humanities professors, eo ipso keepers and defenders of our cultural heritage, recommending and actively encouraging the de-humanization of their students to mere "consumers" and marketable commodities to be traded in the "jobs marketplace"! It disgusted me at the time, but I noted with sadness that none of my fellow "marketable commodities," my classmates, made any note, or showed any discomfort or disagreement with what we heard. They were inured to just such language. Ideas have consequences, and to hear such reduction of human nature to the needs of the reptile brain and the belly can only harm our spirit. You hear it, again and again, and don't object, and soon, the mask they give you, reforms your face, and eventually you become the mask. We live our lives under purely ecomonic and materialistic models because it is so easy for psychopathic behavior to operate in, go unnoticed, and be accepted.

sass · 2012-12-05T17:14:53Z

Well I think the humans are now the "psychopaths". The label has already been co-opted by them themselves and we'll be watching the tables turn on us.

This guy Dr. Paul Babiak is beginning to stink.

gdpetti · 2012-12-04T11:10:58Z

Thus the beauty of this school

How much does an irritant need cause an itch to get you to scratch?
How many scratches before you get irritated and investigate the cause?

Or, how much of any substance/situation that addicts you before you say, 'Enough!'

What does it take to wake up the Sleeping Beauties?
Psychopaths make 'wonderful' kissing princes, do they not?
What's a little poison among 'friends'?
The kiss might fool you, but the poison should get your attention.
If you survive.
Survival of the fittest isn't it?
Knowledge protects like a giant prophylactic.
The problem is learning that we need it,
then finding a supply.
Seek and ye shall find, right?

ChewyBees · 2012-12-09T23:18:50Z

What motivates the psychopath?

Instead of just saying that those bad psychopaths are out there and we all need to watch out, for a moment analyze what it is that most psychopaths are after.

Isn't it ultimately validation, as they are incapable of finding validation from within? All this talk about empathy may have its place, and I have often said that psychopaths are incapable of manifesting the higher emotions of love, empathy and forgiveness, and most notably cannot love themselves for who they are as a living being, but instead must find insidious means of validating themselves through mammon and injury.

The means of validation of the psychopath are not always the same. A common thread though, is deception to gain money and power. It pervades the political apparatus of all western nations, the top level executives of nearly every publicly traded corporation, and many other organizations across the globe. The greater the level of deception, the greater level of profit, and the longer one can go without being caught is just as much a mental masturbation to a business executive as it is to a serial killer. Yes, the degree of negative action is not the same, but the cyclical loop of taking from others and getting away with it is. Every time the negative action is engaged in successfully, it is like chasing the ghost of a crack high, and it gives that little shot of validation juice to a mind that cannot find any other means.

Under these conditions, the amount of psychopaths out there can be expanded greatly. While people seeking power and profit to the detriment of others are a popular identification, in reality any person that is incapable of finding validation in just being alive is highly suspect. This includes the obese, addicted, materialistic, abusive, vain, dominating and self righteous, just to name a few. In essence it boils down to a willingness to harm life, including one's self, without any care or less care than the validation that comes from the harmful acts.

Loving ourselves, or learning to love ourselves is not easy. It ultimately requires a great deal of acceptance of liability for our self. In this PC world of liability passing to fictional governments and corporations, it's no wonder that we are in the midst of a society of collapse and failure, and the majority could give a damn as long as they get there bling thing on today.

I do believe that most psychopaths (if not all) have an occurrence or set of circumstances that flip a switch in their mind that the value of their life can only come from outside of them. Perhaps it's family driven, or a tragedy, a crime or even a peer development. The causes are probably as variable as the types and degrees of psychopaths out there.

I often wonder if the indigenous peoples had cases of psycopaths they had to deal with, or is this a problem primarily with the materialistic nature of capitalistic, communistic, monarchical and any other pyramid top-down governmental systems.