December 31, 2015 It is believed that one per cent of the population displays psychopathic traits, which when subtle, can help people get ahead at work. Between three and four per cent of senior positions are believed to be occupied by psychopaths. According to a survey by psychologist Kevin Dutton, people who hold certain jobs are more likely to display psychopathic traits, including CEOs, lawyers, TV personalities, salespeople, surgeons, journalists, police officers, clergymen, chefs and civil servants. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...its-look-charm-eccentricity-manipulation.html A quiz recently swept the internet that claims to tell you just how 'evil' you are. It measures Machiavellian, narcissistic and psychopathic traits to tell you whether you are 'occasionally vile' or 'decidedly dastardly' for example. The quiz was created by BBC Future and inspired by questionnaires developed by psychologists Delroy Paulhus and Daniel Jones. It measures the personality traits described as the 'dark triad.' Here is my result: Like Don Draper, you are moderately nefarious. You walk on the dark side of humanity, but your ruthless streak may just help you get ahead.
Infrequently vile You are infrequently vile – you mostly put others before yourself, though you may find occasions in which your dark side shines. I suspected I was a better person than DJ but it's good to see an internet thing confirm it. yay
"Shockingly saintly Do you ever find yourself walking on water? Because you are shockingly saintly. You are a chink of light in a dark world."
Some of these questions are poorly structured. For instance "You should wait for the right time to get back at people" assumes that "get[ting] back at people" is something that you should do, or has a proper time. Edit: Which sorta throws the survey out of whack: I ended up with the "Infrequent" option, due leaving numerous Machiavellian options at neutral because the questions were bad. Like the quiz says at the bottom, "inspired by" -- hardly strict data.
You can be Machiavellian as needed, which is cool. "kalaslevellian" might be a thing one day. Edit: My wife scored the same label as I did, but each bar was a little different.
I suspect you manipulated the poll, you evil, evil person you. Also, "Hi Everybody!" I hope people have been well. Sorry I vanished in the middle of some conversations, I've been busy. On topic: I may be "infrequently vile" but I am apparently not a psychopath. Or I assume that's what being on the "blue" side means. Now if you'll excuse me I'll go disappear again for an unspecified period of time.
Quiz isn't showing up for me, "Error 503 - Service Unavailable". Anywho, since this is kinda my area of expertise I thought I'd chime in by agreeing wholeheartedly with Dr. Dutton's analysis of psychopathic traits. In his well-known 2012 book "The Wisdom of Psychopaths", Dutton elaborates most eloquently by comparing personalities to a recording studio's mixing board. The dials represent various personality characteristics that can be adjusted higher or lower by biopsychosocial factors. If certain psychopathic traits such as manipulativeness, callousness, a lack of empathy, and superficial charm/charisma are adjusted to be high (but not too "noisy") this creates a personality structure specially tailored to success. "Psychopathy", Dutton notes in an anecdote, "is like a medicine for modern times. If you take it in moderation, it can be extremely beneficial. It can alleviate a lot of existential ailments that we would otherwise fall victim to because our fragile psychological immune systems just aren't up to the job of protecting us. But if you take too much of it, if you overdose on it, it can, as with many medicines, lead to some rather unpleasant side effects." It is also worth noting that the reason psychopaths are more often found in the aforementioned professions is because people in those types of jobs hold a great degree of power over the lives of others. As a CEO, for example, you manage a huge staff of employees that not only look up to you and respect you, but depend on you for their livelihood. With the snap of a finger, you could terminate someone's career. As a surgeon, you literally hold people's lives in your hands on a daily basis. As a clergyman, you have an entire congregation that looks to you for guidance and support; you are in almost total control over their emotional well-being. Psychopaths are drawn to such professions because they offer opportunities for frequent high risk/high reward activity. It staves off their proneness to boredom while also providing them with a lucrative career. Dutton's more recent book "The Good Psychopath's Guide to Success", which I was fortunate enough to receive as a Christmas gift this year, further expands on the notion of using psychopathic tendencies to one's advantage in the workplace. It takes the form of one of those cheesy pop-psych books from the health and wellness section of the book store, but backs up its claims with very thorough hard data on the cutting edge (lol) of psychopathy research. One particularly interesting point is made regarding the paradoxical nature of how successful psychopaths think: "On the one hand.......we have an inbuilt desire for the positive over the negative. To favor pleasurable experiences over less pleasurable ones. On the other hand, however, in order to get what we want - to obtain that pleasure and avoid that pain - we have no option but to confront that pain head on." The difference between psychopaths and the rest of us is that psychopaths are much more willing to risk the pain to obtain the pleasure. They have little to no sense of risk adversity. As a final note, I'd like to quote this section of the article for reference: "The creators warn that the test shouldn't be considered a scientific measure of a person's personality, but instead give them an insight into it." This rings true for all online personality assessments, not just this one regarding psychopathy. While it may be fun to work through these types of tests and think "yeah, I'm like that" or "hey, that guy from my office has X!" the only real way to determine if you have a personality disorder is to be examined by a professional. Most people place way too much faith in these fast and easy personality tests online, but the truth is it can take up to several months to complete a true diagnostic screening test under the careful administration of a trained psychologist, and even then there is still the possibility of misdiagnosis. Nothing is ever as it seems, especially when discussing psychopathy.
