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Source: Time

By Eric Barker

Eric Barker writes Barking Up the Wrong Tree.

Experts bet you encounter a psychopath more often than you think

I know what some people are thinking: I’m never going to deal with psychopaths. This is just more sensational clickbait junk.

Wrong. The experts are betting you probably encounter a psychopath every day. In fact, a lot of what you think you know about psychopaths is very wrong.

Yes, psychopaths are more likely to be in jail than most people — but the majority of them aren’t. There’s a whole class of people who don’t have a conscience or feel empathy, and in all likelihood you deal with at least one all the time.

And they probably make your life miserable. They’re “subclinical psychopaths.” With biology, you either have tuberculosis or you don’t. Black and white. There’s no “kinda.” In psychology there’s a lot of “kinda.” People with subclinical psychological disorders are like this. Not bad enough to go to prison, but plenty bad enough to make your life awful.

The Machiavellian manipulators at work who do all kinds of nasty — but without leaving fingerprints. The bad boyfriends and girlfriends who drive you crazy — sometimes quite deliberately.

Think Frank Underwood in “House of Cards” — but without the murder. And research shows many US presidents have had psychopathic traits. Which profession has the most psychopaths? The answer is: CEOs.

Yup, studies show there are a disproportionate number of psychopaths in corporate America. (In fact, some psychopathic traits are more common in CEO’s than in mentally disturbed criminals.)

But nobody in HR tells you you might be working with some really awful people, let alone how to survive next to them. Corporations say things like, “We do not tolerate abusive or disrespectful treatment. Ruthlessness, callousness, and arrogance don’t belong here.”

That’s from Enron’s 1998 Annual Report, by the way.

Alright, we got some learnin’ to do. Let’s find out from research and experts what the real deal is with psychopaths, and what you can do to protect yourself from these very toxic people…

What Is A Psychopath?

Psychopath. Sociopath. For our purposes they’re the same. And don’t get them confused with “psychotic.” Psychotic means you’re seeing elves and unicorns. Psychopaths see the world quite clearly.

Perhaps too clearly. As Ronald Schouten, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School explains, they don’t let pesky things like conscience or empathy get in the way. Because they don’t possess either of them.

From Almost a Psychopath:

Psychopathy is a psychological condition in which the individual shows a profound lack of empathy for the feelings of others, a willingness to engage in immoral and antisocial behavior for short-term gains, and extreme egocentricity.

No, they don’t all have cold, dead eyes and wear a hockey mask. Many are witty and quite articulate. They’re narcissistic and impulsive. And because they lack empathy they see other people as objects to be used.

Just because they don’t feel empathy doesn’t mean they don’t understand it. And many get quite good at faking it. All the better to manipulate you to get what they want.

Neuroscience research shows the emotional centers of their brains don’t respond the way yours do.

From Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work:

In several functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain imaging studies, Hare and his associates found that emotional words and unpleasant pictures did not produce in psychopaths the increases in the activity of brain (limbic) regions normally associated with the processing of emotional material.

But it’s worse than that. As Ronald Schouten reports, when neuroscientists did a PET scan of psychopaths after giving them amphetamines, the nucleus accumbens section of their grey matter produced four times as much dopamine.

Translation: rewarding stuff is far, far more rewarding to them. So you consider doing something mean and your conscience slams the brakes. But psychopaths’ brake line has been cut. And stuff they want is four times as rewarding to them. So someone also put a brick on their accelerator.

Some people might think: I have done bad things. And I find some things really rewarding. Oh my god! I’m worried that I’m a psychopath!

If you’re worried that you’re a psychopath, you’re not a psychopath — because psychopaths don’t worry.

From The Psychopath Test:

…suffering from anxiety is the neurological opposite of being a psychopath when it comes to amygdala function.

So how do we make these people better? We don’t. In fact, treatment makes them worse. Teaching them about empathy doesn’t make them more empathetic. It just teaches them how to fake it better. They see treatment as “finishing school.”

Violent psychopaths given counseling were 20% more likely to re-offend.

From The Psychopath Test:

…two researchers in the early 1990s had undertaken a detailed study of the long-term recidivism rates of psychopaths who had been through Elliott’s program and been let out into society. Its publication would surely have been an extraordinary moment for Elliott and Gary and the Capsule. In regular circumstances, 60 percent of criminal psychopaths released into the outside world go on to re-offend. What percentage of their psychopaths had? As it turned out: 80 percent.

(To learn the seven-step morning ritual that will make you happy all day, click here.)

Okay, but this sounds extreme. And it is. You probably don’t know any full blown psychopaths, impulsively going after whatever they want with no conscience to reign them in…

But you probably do know a “subclinical” psychopath or two…

Read more: How To Get People To Like You: 7 Ways From An FBI Behavior Expert

Subclinical Psychopaths

So what happens when you dial down the psychopathy a bit, turn off the impulsiveness and add in a little conscientiousness so they can graduate law school or business school?

You get a psychopath who blends in at work just fine. And they chase their rewards, ignore morality and are quite good at covering their tracks.

Robert Hare, the criminal psychologist who developed the test used to evaluate psychopaths explains:

…many psychopaths never go to prison or any other facility. They appear to function reasonably well— as lawyers, doctors, psychiatrists, academics, mercenaries, police officers, cult leaders, military personnel, businesspeople, writers, artists, entertainers, and so forth— without breaking the law, or at least without being caught and convicted. These individuals are every bit as egocentric, callous, and manipulative as the average criminal psychopath; however, their intelligence, family background, social skills, and circumstances permit them to construct a facade of normalcy and to get what they want with relative impunity.

And how many people like this are running around? Now full-blown psychopaths are about 1% of the population. So that’s 3 million in the US alone. But subclinical psychopaths? Schouten says they’re more like 5-15%.

From Almost a Psychopath:

Studies that examined the prevalence of subclinical psychopathy in student populations in the United States and Sweden showed rates in the range of 5 to 15 percent… 5 to 15 percent of the population means that for every twenty people, up to three of them may fall within the almost psychopath range.

(To learn how to deal with a narcissist, click here.)

So subclinical psychopaths aren’t chopping people up with an axe. But they are ruthlessly going after what they want without any concern for those around them. How do they do it? If they’re breaking hearts and infesting corporations, how do they not get caught?

Read more: New Neuroscience Reveals 4 Rituals That Will Make You Happy

How Do Psychopaths Get What They Want?

Hare says that whether subclinical psychopaths are screwing up your love life or your workplace, they usually follow a three step process:

1. They assess the utility, weaknesses and defenses of those around them,
2. They manipulate others to bond with them and get what they want,
3. They abandon their targets and move on… Or, in a corporate environment, often move up.

From Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work:

First, they assess the value of individuals to their needs, and identify their psychological strengths and weaknesses. Second, they manipulate the individuals (now potential victims) by feeding them carefully crafted messages, while constantly using feedback from them to build and maintain control. Not only is this an effective approach to take with most people, it also allows psychopaths to talk their way around and out of any difficulty quickly and effectively if confronted or challenged. Third, they leave the drained and bewildered victims when they are bored or otherwise through with them.

If they invade your personal life, they turn on that artificial empathy and charm. They listen to hear what you think of yourself and reinforce that. The message? I like who you are. Then they pretend they share similar qualities. Message? I am just like you.

It’s not much different at the office. They get to know everyone and use that fake empathy to make a good first impression and quickly figure out who has the power.

From Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work:

Once they join the company, psychopaths try to meet as many people in the company as they can, spreading positive first impressions and collecting as much information as possible. While meeting and greeting organization members, they study their coworkers’ organizational roles and almost instinctively assess their short-and long-range utility or value. A person’s value is based on where he or she fits into the organizational hierarchy (sometimes referred to as position power), technical abilities (expert power), access to information (knowledge power), and whether he or she controls staff, money, and other assets (resource power).

Turns out it’s quite easy for them. Their thrill seeking nature is mistaken for prized employee qualities like “high energy” and being “action oriented.” And their lack of feelings? Oh, in the business world we call that “ability to make tough decisions.” Or someone who is “cool under fire.” You know… the stuff leaders are made of.

And then they go to work making sure they look good, their rivals look bad and that all the evidence is well hidden.

From Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work:

Specifically, their game plans involved manipulating communication networks to enhance their own reputation, to disparage others, and to create conflicts and rivalries among organization members, thereby keeping them from sharing information that might uncover the deceit. They also spread disinformation in the interest of protecting their scam and furthering their own careers. Being exceedingly clever and secretive, they were able to cloak their association with the disinformation, leading others to believe that they were innocent of manipulation.

If they’ve invaded your personal life, they use that bonding to start getting what they want from you. In the workplace they quickly distinguish between “pawns” and “patrons.”

Pawns are the co-workers and subordinates they manipulate like chess pieces. Patrons are upper management who they get close to for help climbing the corporate ladder.

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