In the book “The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success,” Kevin Dutton explains that there are jobs that can attract literal psychopaths – and also jobs that are least likely to do so.
It’s important to note that a psychopathic person isn’t necessarily one that is set out to kill others (even though you might feel as such on a Wednesday afternoon in the office.) In reality, psychopaths merely – and typically – just lack emotions and empathy, or the ability to identify with others. Dutton has said that ”a number of psychopathic attributes [are] actually more common in business leaders than in so-called disturbed criminals — attributes such as superficial charm, egocentricity, persuasiveness, lack of empathy, independence, and focus.”
This may explain why many of the jobs attractive to psychopaths – such as CEO’s, salespeople and media types – are often found in the tech industry.
So what jobs are most attractive to psychopaths? Here’s the list, originally published online by Eric Barker:
And for those looking to potentially avoid working with the least number of psychopaths, here’s the list of occupations with the lowest rates of psychopathy: