http://www.wnd.com/2013/01/top-10-jobs-that-attract-most-psychopaths/

The one occupation I don't yet see is chef- and I would figure psychologist should have made the list like many comments also noted.

those lists would explain why I went from healthcare into sales...

Surgeon would be an excellent job for a psychopath. You'd want to have someone who is steady, confident and not the lest bit distracted or rattled. Just all about business, able to separate themselves from their work, go home and sleep at night.

Well, considering the list was created by "Psychologist Kevin Dutton"... I'm not particularly surprised to see no entry for psychologist in the "most psychopaths" list...

Considering that the list is from the World Nut Daily, I wouldn't be surprised about anything that appears on it. For instance I'm not surprised at the picture of Obama that appears in an article that mentions neither the presidency or Obama. I know the mentality of this site. The fact that the list mentioned "civil servants" is the only reason they even bothered essentially lifting the interview off of the Smithsonian site, because it gave them an excuse to do that.

It's a poorly written copy at that which changes the conveyed meaning of the quotes. Not seemingly intentionally, but considering that they just copied an interview from another source they could have at least copied it properly. The sixth and seventh paragraphs are poorly broken up, it seems to imply that all sociopaths are violent and stupid, whereas the intent was to stress the exact opposite.

Anyway, it seems to be a stretch to say that surgeon is likely to be a psychopath because he has to be steady and confident. Here's the ten cent wikipedia summary of sociopathy (the term I'm more accustomed to seeing used):

"characterized by enduring dissocial or antisocial behavior, a diminished capacity for empathy or remorse, and poor behavioral controls or fearless dominance."

You would seriously assign "anti social behavior" to someone who has dedicated his or her life to learning to perform an exceptionally difficult task that requires a great deal of discipline in order to save and improve the lives of others? Discipline is not a symptom of sociopathy, and it's in contradiction of the "poor behavioral controls". I'm willing to debate the empathy and remorse point, I'm too empathic and would have difficulty cutting into someone because I couldn't stop thinking about what I was doing and how much it would hurt if it was being done to me without anesthetic. But to say that being willing to perform an operation with a known risk of failure because the benefit/risk ratio is considered worth it means you are lacking in remorse if it goes poorly seems to be missing the point.

And if you're down to trying to rely on one word in a simplistic profile of a pathological psychology, you're really not talking about that pathology anymore anyway. Much of the rest of the sociopath attributes conflict with what a surgeon would need. There's a checklist that wikipedia shows, it includes things like juvenile delinquency, parasitic lifestyle, pathological lying, and lack of realistic long term goals. It's true that one racks up a veritable mountain of debt going through medical school, but I'm not sure the qualifies as being a parasite. As to the long term goal thing, becoming a doctor or a surgeon is a tremendously long term goal that requires an ability to plan far ahead and stick to the plan over a long period.

Oh I've seen examples of sociopathic doctors and surgeons, there was a story about a surgeon that got people falsely diagnosed as having cancer in order to perform unnecessary surgeries on them. But I've not seen any indication that that's indicative of a trend.


CEO doesn't surprise me in the least (helloooo parasitic lifestyle), it's commonly suggested that modern capitalism has basically been defined by sociopaths.

The "clergy person" item makes sense, and it fits in with police officer. In both professions you get a mix of people who are in it for the power and those who are in it to help people. Journalist was a surprise, but maybe it makes sense to a point with the way you have to treat people in that line of work. You sometimes have to be a little callous.

The thing I can't get over is the dichotomy between doctor and surgeon. I view surgeons as a kind of specialized doctor. But this guy seems to feel that they're polar opposites, and that seems difficult to understand.

The article is paraphrasing other sources- the article itself is not the source. You have to read this Dutton's book to understand how he generated his list. The other point that the article mentions from Dutton



It's not saying that all surgeons are psychopaths, but it's saying that it could be an attractive job for a psychopath. My guess is that it might even be desirable from the point of view that you would want a surgeon who is not squeamish or anything like that. Could do the job with technical proficiency and preciseness without emotional involvement. And there are cases of medical professionals doing things that are considered anti-social, a dentist for example taking advantage of patients when they have been anesthetized. Those may have been psychopaths.

Basically psychopathy is now thought of as occurring along a spectrum. All people have certain elements of psychopathy at some time or another, with a few individuals scoring extremely high at all times. All of this comes from one source, the person who basically invented the psychopathy checklist and is responsible for inventing the study of psychopathy, which are considered the standard- Robert Hare. Every researcher bases their work off of Robert Hare. There's almost nothing that anyone adds that is new in this subject, no new book that's written basically adds any new profound insight that Hare hasn't already established.

The popular notion of psychopath is that they are all serial killers or thugs that can just do anything at any time, or that they are crazy is wrong.

The majority of psychopaths are not these things, they just score very low on empathy for others, and tend to score very high on their own sense of entitlement. They view others as instrumental things, as a means to an end rather than ends in themselves. But they know what they are, and they know that breaking laws or physically harming others can get them in trouble, that's why they aren't crazy and they generally can blend in society and even occupy high positions. If the law permits a certain ruthlessness, so be it, they can be good at exploiting that. If not, then they are lucid and rational, they can follow the law in order to preserve themselves.

OJ Simpson is a psychopath- he is not crazy, that he murdered people has little to do with being a psychopath. He's just a 'dumb' psychopath who cannot learn from his mistakes, including getting in trouble even after he dodged a bullet in his murder trial. A smarter person would accept they got lucky and settle down, but he's impulsive like a dumb psychopath and he can't. Can't learn from mistakes, can't absorb blame, it's other people's fault he gets in trouble. But he was otherwise a successful guy in his chosen occupation up until then. Everything about him is outwardly charming, but that's a veil covering some monstrous turmoil underneath that.

The fictional character James Bond has attributes of a psychopath. Emotionally indifferent, fearless, charming, abides by a certain personal code rather than necessarily an outside one, or if so, just because it's expedient to do that. He could probably kill someone, including his love interests and feel nothing about it, just a passing fancy. Oh Pushey, too bad, Pushey.

Charles Manson is a psychopath, but he's one of the actual few crazy ones. Apparently manipulative and charismatic that he could get others to do his work and believe his crap, but he also has something wrong with his coconut, paranoid and delusional and that sort of thing.

Some very cogent observations which were well conveyed. I'm impressed.

lol at your "something wrong with his coconut" comment. My late favorite uncle used to say that all the time. My uncle had the coolest job ever. He used to restore WW 2 aircraft to mint condition for the Confederate Air Force's flying museum here in Texas. RIP Tio.
pescador

Look closer ... that came in at No. 9!

Then I would also ponder the point ... Should Chef's (as per this article) be considered Psychopaths or Psychotic??

Mmmmm .... Would you like Eggs Benedict with that?

What I mean is that I don't see the connection to chef- unless someone has any ideas why they think a chef is an attractive option for psychopaths.

Psychopaths are often status seeking types of people as they tend to have narcissistic, controlling personality traits. So thinking about it now I could understand why a renowned head chef who runs the kitchen like a tyrant might be the reason, if the business is very competitive and cutthroat it would make sense, I don't know enough about chefs (I might be about to date a chef, however, so we'll see) to really understand it.

On the other hand, psychopaths generally aren't creative types, they aren't usually innovative or anything like that. As intelligent as some are, their lack of emotional depth is probably a significant barrier for creative type of minds. They may be able to steal ideas, they may be able to imitate but not really create. They are more likely to get into careers that are more more driven by social dynamics, such as positions of authority (they can come from all walks of life, from bricklayers to CEOs, it just seems that Jack Nicholson's homicidal artist as Joker portrayal is probably not expected of them).

I think psychologist should seriously be considered for any list, while this may seem cliche, psychopaths themselves are psychologists of sorts, they understand psychopathy, they often have excellent ability to charm and manipulate people, they figure out what makes their intended target tick in order to do that; they don't have a developed sense of guilt or conscience that gets in the way of that, no shame, no embarrassment, no timidity. They are natural psychologists from the standpoint that they don't have psychological hangups, they can be chameleons and change their persona on a whim- they don't really have personalities as such, just many personas that they can sort through on the fly, as the situation calls for it. If you need someone to lend an ear and who you can tell your troubles to, a psychopath will do that- they can read you and pretend to be the father or mother figure you want in life, once they figure that out, then you're a victim. They'll give you what you want, but this is merely to gain your acceptance, you are a target for them when they figure that out and they are waiting to take something from you.