There could be increased numbers of psychopaths in senior managerial positions, high levels of business: a paper in Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology has demonstrated that smart psychopaths are hard to detect as psychopaths. The authors tested participants for psychopathic tendencies using a psychological scale, and then tested their arousal levels through galvanic skin response while showing normal or upsetting images. The interesting finding was that only lower IQ participants showed the expected responses (lowered startle when viewing aversive images in psychopaths): smarter participants seemed to be able to control their emotions.

The lead author, Carolyn Bate, said:

“Perhaps businesses do need people who have the same characteristics as psychopaths, such as ruthlessness. But I suspect that some form of screening does need to take place, mainly so businesses are aware of what sort of people they are hiring.”

Should we screen people at hiring for psychopathy?

There is no question that psychopaths can be destructive. They tend to be deceitful and manipulative, lack empathy and remorse, and behave in irresponsible or impulsive ways. There is an association with criminal behaviour, and they can hurt corporate culture through bullying, stress, conflict and indirect effects on staff turnover, absenteeism and productivity. There is also some evidence that psychopaths are more common than average at higher levels: the combination of boldness, manipulation and ruthlessness can further the career of a smart psychopath.

Lack of empathy is not always bad: somebody needs to do the downsizing, and surgeons famously tend to score higher on psychopathy inventories. In fact, there seem to be a clear selection for (and against) certain professions (although the methodology can be discussed). Lack of fear, staying cool under pressure, heightened ability to detect and exploit other’s emotions: there are may roles where these traits are actively useful. The problem is that human minds are package deals: getting the charming and fearless CEO will also get the ruthlessness, amorality and impulsiveness.

The problem with screening people for psychopathy is obvious from Bate’s own paper: smart psychopaths are not going to be as easy to find as dumb ones. Maybe it is reasonable to discriminate against less intelligent psychopaths for employment in many organisations (discrimination is OK as long as the difference matters for the ability to do the job well: the double whammy of lower intelligence and psychopathy probably does matter). We might be concerned about these people being kept out of the job market: they are vulnerable and potentially (self) destructive – and few disability rights or neurodiversity advocates are likely to stand up for them.

But suppose we could test psychopathy in a way intelligence cannot influence (in fact, this is an implicit assumption about the scale used in the paper – it is not entirely clear to me why we should trust the self-assessment more than the galvanic skin response!) Now the smart psychopath would point out that he indeed has psychopathic traits… but since he is smart, he is keeping the bad traits under control. This is not entirely implausible: intelligence acts as a protective factor in schizophrenia, and many personality disorders seem associated with low IQ. There may simply be a cognitive reserve in high IQ people that allow them to work around their mental problems. Similarly the smart psychopath would also be able to avoid some of the pitfalls of their personality. Yes, he is impulsive, so he has trained himself not to rush in too fast. Yes, he might not care deeply about other people: that is why he is applying for a finance job rather than at the HR department.

What should we make of this? The problem seems to be that we conflate an identity as a psychopath with the detected traits of psychopathy. The person has certain personality traits but might not act on them: many people let their higher order goals and moral overrule desires and impulses. That your coworker scores high on a psychopathy score does not mean he will back-stab you… except that the probability is higher than if he had scored low. The problem with a psychopath test is that it would be tempting to use it as a form of “pre-crime” judgement against people who have so far done nothing. Sometimes disturbing minds live mundane lives.

What matters morally is more whether the smart psychopath actually has good control over their impulses, and whether their goals align with the organisation. Maybe we should focus more on how to test for this than what the core personality is (no matter how fascinating insights we gain from studying psychopaths). After all, knowing that our employee, surgeon or MP is reliably going to use their personality traits and abilities in a way that works for your shared goals, is what we actually want.