Screening for Psychopaths in the Workplace

Canadian criminal psychologist Robert Hare came up with the Psycopathy Checklist evaluation that is the standard tool in determining whether a person falls into the one percent of all people who lack any sort of conscience.

He said that the recent corporate scandals could have been prevented if CEOs were screened for psychopathic behavior. "Why wouldn't we want to screen them?" he asked. "We screen police officers, teachers. Why not people who are going to handle billions of dollars?"

The very interesting article describes psychopathic behavior this way:

Psychopaths have a profound lack of empathy. They use other people callously and remorselessly for their own ends. They seduce victims with a hypnotic charm that masks their true nature as pathological liars, master con artists, and heartless manipulators. Easily bored, they crave constant stimulation, so they seek thrills from real-life "games" they can win -- and take pleasure from their power over other people.

Though the article is about corporate psychopathy, after the reading the above, I couldn't help but think that any future presidential aspirants here in the US might also be screened. Imagine what we could have spared the world had a screening mechanism been in place prior to the 2000 election.

(toth: the Sideshow)