Again and again science has found that being in charge not only attracts terrifying douchebags, but creates them as well. And with that, here's the scariest article you'll read this month:

A study of personality types once found that as a group, serial killers scored highest in "superficial charm, an exaggerated sense of self-worth, glibness, lying, lack of remorse and manipulation of others." The other highest-scoring group for these undesirable traits? Politicians .

5 Power and Self-Absorption Go Hand in Hand

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Try something for us. Write the word "ASS" on your forehead with a marker. If you refuse to do that, just picture yourself writing it, but really imagine you have the letters up there.

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Hold that thought.

Science says there is a very logical reason that those in power don't actually give a damn about you: They are too busy thinking about themselves. There are several reasons for this, according to research.

First, researchers found that in leaderless situations, those with high opinions of themselves will take charge, for better or for worse. Well, that makes sense -- they think they're awesome, so of course they think they should be in charge. The problem, though, is that this same, often unwarranted, confidence also persuades the followers to follow them. And so they climb through the ranks by basically being the biggest loudmouth braggarts in the room.



"Kanye West" is a position of power, right?

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The other problem is that the narcissistic types can manage to lead effectively -- for the short term. They're great at convincing everyone they have all the answers, but at the end of the day they can't take their eyes off their own self-interest long enough to focus on long-term goals such as "not losing all of our money." Actually being in power only makes it worse, which brings us back to the ASS on your forehead.

When you drew the imaginary letters, where did the letter "A" wind up? On your left, so that the word reads normally if you look in a mirror? That's how a lot of people would do it -- after all, that's the way you write things. Left to right.