You probably heard a few weeks ago that at least 10% of the people working in the financial sector are psychopaths. You were probably not surprised by that. In fact, if you’re anything like me, you were probably a little surprised that there weren’t more Patrick Batemans running around Wall Street feeding cats to ATM machines.
Just in case that statistic didn’t adequately alarm you, however, James Silver drops an optimism bomb in The Atlantic today. Using the rigid diagnostic criteria of the Psychopathy Checklist, about 1% of the population in the United States are certified assholes psychopaths. So if you have 400 Facebook friends now you know that at least four of them are genuinely batshit crazy–and it might not even be your ex (admit it, you’re biased).
But Silver and his colleague Ronald Schouten contend that there is something called an “Almost Psychopath.” While everyone scores a few points on the psychopathy scale, the formal psychopaths score in the upper twenty-five percent. What about the people who score in the upper thirty or forty percent? Do they not have a large amount of terrifying qualities (such as “a lack of empathy, an increased willingness to take risks,” lack of empathy or remorse, arrogance, irresponsibility)? These particular qualities seem to be pervasive in Wall Street culture and quite necessary for success in the financial sector. Remember when that Goldman Sachs dude pulled a Don Draper in the New York Times?
Should we accept Silver’s “Almost Psychopaths” idea as valid?
Research studies suggest that as much as 15 percent of the general population (that’s about 45 million Americans) can be characterized as almost psychopaths. If Wall Street does, in fact, select for people who display certain characteristics of psychopathy, it is safe to assume that at least 15 percent of people in the financial services industry are almost psychopaths (and, therefore, more prone to acts of fraud, deceit, and self-serving manipulation).
In case you think that it’s only the financial sector we should worry about, a study from the University of Surrey found that “compared to criminal psychiatric patients, senior business managers were more likely to have one of three personality disorders (histrionic, narcissistic, and obsessive-compulsive).” The high-powered financial and corporate environment has a higher density of insane people, you say? I had no idea! I mean, it’s not like I lived through the George W. Bush presidency.
At the end of the article, Silver tries to backtrack a little by turning our attention to the psychopaths closer to our homes: “They are husbands, wives, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and store clerks.” It’s a valid point but at least my supermarket bagger didn’t nearly collapse the world economy.
