- How well do you know your colleagues' personalities?
Researchers warn some of them may have psychopathic traits.
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- But they say this is nothing to be worried about.
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- They will not be violent, but their psychopathic traits
will allow them to climb the career ladder, New Scientist magazine reports.
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- Professor Robert Hare, of the University of British Columbia
says "corporate psychopaths'" arrogance and focus helps them
succeed.
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- They may also be superficially charming, prone to fly
into rages and likely to take credit for colleague's achievements.
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- Professor Hare estimates that around one per cent of
the population of North America could be described as psychopaths.
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- 'Focussed'
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- He has developed the 'Business Scan 360' test, along
with New York industrial organisational psychologist Paul Babiak in order
to detect them.
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- The test involves interviewing people working with the
person concerned to get a '360 degree' assessment of their personality.
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- They are currently interviewing 100 people convicted
of fraud or embezzlement - who will serve as a benchmark of the ultimately
undesirable employee.
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- They will then interview a "normal" population
of managers, and a group of high flyers to see if they can distinguish
exactly which traits lead to career success and which have less desirable
consequences.
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- Mr Babiak said: "If you imagine the conscientious
employee at one end of the continuum and a prototypical 'corporate psychopath'
at the other end, the test attempts to gauge where the individual is."
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- Paul Corry, of the mental health charity Rethink, told
BBC News Online: "It shows that mental health is an issue all around
us."
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- He added: "Being psychotic is one extreme of a range
of personality traits. Everyone has different types of these traits.
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- "There's lots of evidence that people who are highly
motivated, highly successful - particularly in finance and business - have
some of these psychotic traits.
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- "These are people who are extremely focussed on
achieving their goals, and who are not too concerned about other people's
feelings.
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- "There are other people who have very narcissistic
traits; they want to be centre-stage and their needs have to be put first."
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- He added: "People do say that you're a psychopath
if you're violent and a successful businessman if you're not."
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- © BBC MMIV
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3579402.stm
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