The inspiration for this topic is an article entitled Is Your Boss a Psychopath? It presents results of some studies by Dr. Robert Hare, a professor of criminal psychology from the University of British Columbia. This fellow had developed a set of psychological tests to determine the degree of psychopathy in criminals. Simply put, a psychopath is somebody lacking a conscience, who has no empathy for the sufferings of others. It should not surprise anybody that a great many criminals are psychopathic.

Now, psychopathy is not an all-or-nothing trait; Dr. Hare's test evaluates people on a scale from 0 to 40. The average jailbird scores about 23.3 on this test. About 1% of the population scores 30 or higher, which means "highly psychopathic" -- downright dangerous. Most normal people score about a 3 or 4.

The surprise came when an industrial psychologist, Paul Babiak, used Hare's test on a sample of business executives. He found an appallingly high average score for psychopathy among business executives, much higher than the general population. If you think about such people as Leona Helmsley, or Sam Waksal or the execs at Enron, you start to think that there might be something to this. And in fact further analysis has demonstrated that moderate psychopaths do rather well in the American business environment. This is not good for American capitalism; it should send shivers down the spine of anybody thinking that trillions of dollars might be under the control of psychopaths. I think that middle class investors would be particularly concerned about the possibility of such people being trusted with their money.

One possible solution would be for the SEC to require any executive at any publicly traded company to obtain a license to practice business, and that license requires nothing more than a basic character test to insure that the executive is not psychopathic. We require all sorts of professionals to be licensed to practice their profession, as part of the general goal of protecting the public. Inasmuch as a psychopath is normally not discovered until after the damage is done, it seems reasonable to require business executives to meet minimum standards of emotional criteria. The question for debate is:

Should the SEC require business executives at publicly traded companies to obtain a license requiring them to pass a test for psychopathy?

I leave you with a relevant quote:

Interesting topic. I actually read the article awhile ago and thought along the same lines. I'd agree that such a test would be a good idea. Oddly enough, I "took" the test for George W. Bush and well, the outcome was kind of scary . I'd say we should make politicians take the test as well!

Should the SEC require business executives at publicly traded companies to obtain a license requiring them to pass a test for psychopathy?

I tend to agree that licensing would be a good idea. At least it would give us something we can take away from those caught in ethics violations.

However, do we test for psychopathy when it comes to any other license? I have worked several places where personality tests was a requirement before you were hired, but other then possibly going for a higher security clearance, or applying for a specific government job I am not aware of any such tests done by licensing agencies. I have held a firearms license, as well as a Private Investigators License, both in one of the stricter states (New Jersey) and I did not have to take any sort of psychological testing for these (thankfully ).

Also, are not all professional licenses handled at the state level? Could this be a states rights issue, having the SEC grant such licensing (not really sure personally)? If left at the state level then it would outside of the control of the SEC, and could easily result in a huge variation of standards applied.

What about privacy rights? Is there anything more private then our thoughts and our minds? If someone has done nothing criminal, why do we have a right to delve into their thought processes?



I could not find an online source to take this test anywhere. Could you provide a link to it (I wound not mind taking it myself)? I would be curious to know which test you took, the PCL, PCL-R, PCL:SV, PCL:YV, P-SCAN? Also, if you did not find this test online then I applaud your dedication. With the tests running anywhere from $50.00 to $250.00 (depending on which version of the test, and which kit you used), it seems to be a rather large expense to undertake, especially when you consider that your results would be rather unscientific, being that you would be having to answer how President Bush might feel about or think about things in regards to various situations.

Whoa, Whoa, Whoa! Just an FYI, I'm a computer programmer and thus, inherently lazy, I wouldn't go to all the trouble unless I had to! I actually had the hard copy of the magazine that Erasmussimo is talking about and they had a test you could take. Obviously not scientific or applicable at all but it did get me thinking. Sorry if my claims came across as "official". Regardless, I still stand by the idea of making those who hold office take the test.

Ouch! Good point! I know that the SEC has total control over publicly traded corporations and can impose all sorts of requirements, but the actual license might not be possible to do at the federal level. Perhaps it could require a license from the state in which the corporation is incorporated, which would make Maryland the dominant state in this regard. I agree, forcing it to the state level would seriously erode the protectons offered by such a license.


I think we're on safer ground here. The test results would never be made public. The only thing that matters would be whether the executive passed the test.

Darn it! I really wanted to take this test to see just how many points I ended up with. Anyone out there know of a link to it? Preferably for free as I am a member of the working poor you know.



I have as many issues with making politicians, or more to the point, prospective politicians take this test, as I do with executives. If someone has committed no crime, then how do we have the right to invade their mind?



First problem I see here is, who determines what is passing? Would you have to be within the national average? What about a few points above? Another problem might be the test itself. Could it be that the majority of business leaders have type A or Driver personalities, and the test tends to reflect negatively on them as a result? The last problem is of course the biggest one. Political operatives have been known to make public things that are not meant to be made public. For example, FBI records, transcripts from sealed court proceedings, etc. If the FBI and the Judicial system can't prevent this what chances does the SEC have?


Edited to ad:



Thinking about it, we could possibly invoke the interstate commerce clause and have federal licensing for companies with multiple locations in multiple states.

This shouldn't be too hard in itself. We set up licenses for drivers, pilots, doctors, psychiatrists, tax preparers -- in each case, somebody has to decide where to set the bar. I admit that this case is a little different -- with the other cases, you need only establish a minimum level of competence. Still, the tests are fairly reliable. Perhaps the way to set the bar is to establish the histogram for the population at large and put the cut point at the 95th percentile. In other words, if you're in the top 5% for psychopathy, then you can't run a corporation.


We get really tricky here. The problem is that there are a lot of moderate psychopaths in the business community. After all, the ruthless determination to get rich, regardless of the injury done to others, is not far from the American ideal; witness Donald Trump. I daresay that Mr. Trump might well fail the test, in which case he'd be barred from doing business in public companies. Would that be a bad thing? I don't know. There would always be room for the ruthless monsters in privately held companies -- but at least they wouldn't be able to fleece investors on the stockmarket.


Yes, I agree that this could be a problem. What if Joe Ruthless scores a 92% on the psychopathy test, passes, gets his license, and then has his test score revealed? That could hurt his career unfairly. One solution would be to lean into the wind: make revealing the test scores of the principals of the company part of every SEC filing. After all, we are moving towards ever greater transparency in public companies, and surely the character of the men running the show is a legitimate concern of the investors. In effect, the investors get to ask the question, "Is this guy a straight-up fellow, or could he be a con man?" This would give them some answers.

I'd like to point out that the character of the principals is the single greatest factor I have seen in some spectacular financial disasters. I know of one Silicon Valley startup that fleeced its investors for about $90 million. The CEO was a crook, pure and simple; he never intended to produce anything. He just wanted prototypes impressive enough to get more money out of his investors. Once he figured he had dragged it along far enough, he grabbed the money and sank the company, getting away with about $10 million for himself.

I know another case where a trio of crooks set up a company, ran it along for about five years, went public, sold their stock as fast as they could, and watched the company go belly up just after they finished selling their stock. They timed it perfectly; they had to fool the investors only just long enough to get their money out of it. All perfectly legal.


Hey, given the current Supreme Court decisions, they could apply that clause to anybody who even thinks about the possibility of doing something that might reduce the demand for a product anywhere else in the country. At last the government has found its path to complete power. Who needs the Patriot Act? Let's just nail terrorists with the interstate commerce clause!

Character seems to be the operative word here. It is also the issue I have with the above.

Is someones psychological leanings what makes up their character, their ethics, etc, or is that nearly an influence that combines with a host of other things like life experience, upbringing etc?

I admit, I honestly think I am a little off. I don't look at things the same way as many people, and I think of things that frequently "weird out" my wife.

Yet, I do not think there is anyone in my life that would have anything negative to say about my character, integrity, business dealings, etc.

I honestly do not think this test is a good judge of who would or would not be a good person to run a company.

Also, I consider it to be an example of solid character for those with various issues (like say psychopathic tendances ) who do not allow those leaning to dominate their life. However, someone like this would be equally locked out of an executive position.

I think licensing of executives in major corporations is an excellent idea. Establishing a best practices list, required ethics, etc could go a long way. An exec that chooses to act outside of accepted ethics not only risks damaging the company, and the people depending on it financially, they also risk eliminating their ability to earn a living.

I would think this would be enough. Why require psychopathy testing? Is the violation of individual privacy worth the gain? I personally don't think so.

Should the SEC require business executives at publicly traded companies to obtain a license requiring them to pass a test for psychopathy?
You can't test anyone anyone for psychopathy. Did you know that serial killer Ted Bundy had a degree in psychology. And up to the day that he got caught, he fooled everyone, including his psychology professors, into believing that he was a normal man.

Most CEOs are more street smart than the Unabomber. What we need are tests to make sure that the CEOs fully understand the laws and the expectations of the public. To enforce these laws, the investors actually need to visit their companies, look at the products, call the companies, and actually see what their companies are up. In other words, the investors need to get off their Wall Street Journals and actually run their companies.

Actually, it can be argued that investors wanta psychopath running their company. If he has no compunction and no conscience, then he'll ride roughshod over everybody and everything in pursuit of his goals. He'll stop at nothing to get his way. And, presumably, this viciousness will lead to greater profits for the investors.

But there are two gotchas. The first is, how can the investors know that this psychopath might not turn on them and treat them the same way he treats subordinates and competitors? The second is that society has a legitimate interest in insuring that corporations do not run roughshod over the interests of society. And here is where we get to the nub of the problem -- and a truly fascinating nub it is!

There has been much ink spilled (and electrons sent on wasted paths) over the issue of corporate social responsibility. The basic idea here is that corporations should make nice, plant some flowers, pat little baby harp seals on the head, and generally be good citizens. The problem here is that this is all well and good until we talk about sacrificing profit in the name of saintliness. That seems a violation of fundamental principles of capitalism.

The counterargument is that society should simply set the rules of play and let corporations do anything they want so long as they stay within the bounds. Corporations don't have to make nice, but we make laws that prevent them from being nasty.

What I am suggesting is something halfway between the two. My suggestion doesn't require anybody to be nice or sweet or uplifting. It instead adds one more layer of protection against corporations going too far. Society has already broached the principle of "preventative prohibitions". There is nothing intrinsically wrong with drunk driving; it doesn't hurt anybody per se. The problem with drunk driving is that it increases the likelihood that somebody will get hurt, and solely because of that probability, we prohibit drunk driving. We have taken that principle very far in the last four decades. Seat belt laws, helmet laws, truck safety inspections, airplane safety requirements, and many other areas of our existence are covered by laws that prevent us from increasing the probability of hurting somebody. So now the question is, can we extend the same reasoning to corporate behavior? Can we impose requirements on corporations that reduce the likelihood of a corporation injuring people?

Let me tell you about a neighbor of mine. His name is Cal. He's a cowboy. He runs cattle around this area. He rides a horse, wears a hard hat (this is forest country), and packs a cell phone. He's in his 60s but his leathery skin seems older. At the urging of his cousin, Cal put his life savings into Enron, and lost everything. Now he's facing retirement in poverty. There are callous people who will shrug their shoulders and say, he took his chances and he lost, but the fact is, he invested in a publicly traded company and expected some kind of protection from criminal activity. Sure, they'll send some of the executives to jail, but Cal will still be penniless. Now, the experts on psychopathy estimate that the CFO of Enron was definitely in the high psychopathy range. In other words, a licensing regime such as I describe would have prevented this bad person from ruining Cal and thousands of other small investors.

I agree that there remain serious questions about whether this can be made to work fairly and well. But, to pull out the cliches, a stitch in time saves nine, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and a psychopath on the board is worth two in jail...

Based on the article you provided I don't think we can say Fastow is "definitely in the psychopathy range". The article never suggests he took the test. They do suggest the test was taken for him. How accurate could this possibly be? I have the same problem here as I did earlier in the topic.



So you would sacrifice the freedoms and rights of the individual who has yet committed no crime for the good of society in this matter? How is this concept different then random bag searchers on the subway, racial profiling, etc?

I agree that we need a better legal frame work for corporate America. I also think licensing of executives is a good idea as it allows use to hold them account able for their ethics, in that we can pull their licence for ethical violations, thus eliminating their ability to run a company in their future. But to suggest that their minds and thoughts should no longer be private, and should be open to this form of "search" without probable cause just goes to far IMHO. I would not be willing to give up my rights in this way, so I cannot support forcing others to do so.

I feel for your fried Cal. My father in-law is in the same boat. The market implosion that followed the Enron and Tyco scandals destroyed the value of his 401k to the point that at 62, it is not possible for him to consider retirement in his future (unless the lottery works out).

We need better controls on corporate accounting as well as brokerage firms. As a result of this situation we got them. In the forms of government regulations and new company policies. Companies have hired independent auditors and made major company policy changes in order to placate Investors as well as avoid potential losses to future lawsuits. This situation turned my industry on it's head. The alarm industry used to take a huge loss when installing an alarm because the balance of the three year contract would result in net profits, not to mention that most customers who stay with a company through a three year contract stay much longer leading to much higher profits. But now that is no longer good enough. Systems that were once installed for free now cost a minimum of 149.00 - 349.00 (depending on type and company) so that the company can show at minimum a zero loss on the installation itself, and usually a small profit. This, so that the corporate numbers look better to investors who now take a paranoid approach to business accounting (which I think is justified).

When it comes to Cal and my Father-In-Law I feel that the execs that violated ethical standards to create the situation that caused their losses should be forced to forfeit all of their personal wealth to help with restitution. I would also like to see these individuals rot in a real prison for the rest of their natural born lives. But to suggest that the mind of anyone wishing to become an executive should be open to government scrutiny because of this issue simply goes to far for me.

It strikes me as being vastly unfair to in anyway discriminate against the 1% of people who are psychopaths.

It's a medical condition, with degrees of severity. Whilst those who have the extreme condition may be terrifying, they also tend to end up in jail rather quickly. Many criminals may well be psychopaths, but it is not true that many psychopaths are criminals.

Psychopaths have less empathy and what is termed 'conscience' - i.e. the ability to comprehend and feel others pain. However this does not mean that a psychopath will break the law and harm people. A psychopath is more likely to weigh up the personal consequences of being caught against the personal gain from committing a crime (or unethical action).

Unless someone has broken the law, it strikes me as greatly unfair to subject them to a particular test for a condition just because it *might* make them more likely to act in an unethical manner.

Yeah, I get that magazine too..... Interesting article by a guy with a big axe to grind against a few individuals; namely Chainsaw-Al Dunlap who eventually got paid back in spades.

But, since you asked, I have a few similar questions.

Should our government require politicians (who define our public policy) and "journalists" who report their version of the "news" to pass the same test?

How about teachers who have tremendous influence over our children or college professors?

What is your definition of "psychopathy"? Lying under oath? The serial sexual harassment of employees? Irrational hatred of President Bush?

I think you have to define your terms before asking this question.

Something else to consider here. We are talking about mandatory psychological testing to determine if we feel someone is fit to run a company. If we do not, then they would be barred from legally running a company. This, in the name of protecting society.

For those who support this measure, why stop there? Don't truck drivers have the potential to put 1000s of Americans at risk on as weekly basis? Not just financial risk here, but their very lives. A Psychopathic leaning truck driver, would be more likely to ignore rules of the road, industry regulation, traffic laws, as well as basic safety issues like getting enough sleep and the like, in order to make their pay per mile faster. What is the difference between a truck driver, willing to risk the lives of other Americans to make more money and a corporate executive with the same way of thinking? Isn't it logical that we should require all truck drivers to take such tests as well?

Of course, nearly every industry out there puts others at risk in one fashion or another, so really every job could be a possibility for this sort of testing (this is not meant as a slippery slope argument, but rather an attempt to understand the thinking behind support for this sort of measure). If it is OK to apply such a standard to corporate executives for the good of society, then is it not OK to apply the same standards to truck drivers, or nearly everyone for that matter, also for the good of society?


Edited to add:

I see LH got in ahead of me to ask similar questions.

You're quite right, the comment was speculative. Fastow never took the test and so we don't know this for certain. Still, I think it reasonable to suspect that, had such a licensing scheme been in place, Fastow would have been caught up before he was able to do his damage.


Whoah, let's not get ahead of ourselves here! We're not sacrificing the freedoms and rights of anybody by requiring them to pass a test to work as a principal at a publicly traded corporation. Yes, we are placing restrictions on people, but that principle has already been established soundly with the notion of government-issued licenses for any activity. There's a huge difference between this and random bag searches and racial profiling. First, this test would be applied rarely, not frequently. Second, this test would be applied to each and every person seeking a certain position, not some subset. Third, this test is less intrusive in that the person must seek out the test-taker rather than the other way around.

I agree that there is a significant distinction: this tests personality, not skills. It's easy to defend tests for drivers' licences, pilots' licences, and so forth because they ask the simple question, can this person operate this machinery safely? This is different; it asks, can this person operate this corporation responsibly? That's a much trickier question, and the difference is substantive, I admit.


I think that there is partial differentiation here in that the average citizen isn't attempting to operate a publicly traded corporation, and so need not submit to intrusive testing. Again, I must admit that there is a line that can be drawn when looking at psychological makeup as part of a person's qualifications. And I think that we can invoke the concept that, in seeking to control a publicly traded corporation, the individual has public responsibilities that justify public intrusion into his private life to some degree. This is not Big Brother sniffing around asking questions about how Mom runs the Mom & Pop grocery store. This is the public saying, if you want the privilege of controlling a publicly certified corporation, then you must demonstrate that you're not psychopathic.

The crucial distinction here is prevention rather than deterrence. Our time-honored systems of law rely entirely on deterrence rather than prevention. You can't legally interfere with somebody before they have committed a crime; you can only pass a law that punishes them for that crime, in the hope that the law will deter them from committing the crime.

However, in the last 40 years, we have been experimenting with increasing reliance on preventative laws rather than deterrent laws. Laws against drunk driving are the perfect example. Helmet laws and seat belt laws are two others. But there are lots of other such laws. It is against the law to have open fires in certain areas during fire season. It is against the law to have an open liquor bottle inside an automobile passenger compartment. It is against the law to place certain highly inflammable or explosive materials inside an airplane baggage compartment. It is against the law to bring a box cutter onto an airplane. It is against the law to carry a concealed weapon without a license. The list of such laws goes on and on.

I admit that we are exploring new legal and philosophical territory here, but the general principle of preventative law has now been well-established. It is especially justified when the injuries that can be inflicted are of low probability and high value. If the chemical plant at Bhopal leaks and kills thousands of people, well, gosh fellahs, that's a real shame, and we didn't mean to do it, and besides, sending us to jail won't bring back the dead, will it? If the airplane crashes and kills a few hundred people, sending somebody to jail for ten years doesn't seem like enough, does it? The Enron executives ruined the lives of tens of thousands of people; what possible penalty assessed against the executives could ever match the amount of harm done? Even if we confiscate every penny they own and send them to jail for the rest of their lives, we still haven't achieved anything approaching justice for the victims.


Again, I have to agree that there is something new and different here that is unsettling. Part of the problem for me is the increasing size and damage potential of corporations. When airplanes were small and few, and carried nothing more than the pilot, we didn't bother licensing the pilots. After all, the only person likely to get hurt by an incompetent pilot was himself. But as planes got bigger and started carrying passengers and hurting people on the ground when they crashed, it became necessary to place more stringent controls on them. Nowadays the pilot of a commercial airliner operates under a mountain of regulations controlling his eating, sleeping, and drinking.

In like fashion, some corporations have become so gigantic that their capacity for hurting people should they screw up is enormous. In terms of public safety, pollution, and financial risk, these entities can wreak havoc on society unlike anything we knew in the good old days. I do not begrudge them their size; size confers economies of scale that can work to the benefit of society in the same way that a 747 is better than a Sopwith Camel. But just as we must regulate the 747's operations more intrusively than the Sopwith Camel's, so too must our regulation of corporations be more intrusive. This doesn't mean that we must adopt the kind of licensing I propose. I am merely providing a philosophical justification for the concept. You seem to accept the concept in principle. I gather that our differences here lie in the entirely subjective comparison of the evil wrought by crossing the line into psychological intrusiveness versus the evil wrought by corporate malfeasance.

Interesting topic Erasmussimo.


1.) I am not sure that the SEC should, but it is not a bad idea if a company desires candidates for the top job to be tested. Companies already have bylaws and required stipulations, if a private entity would like to screen out psychopaths per test then it is their privy and should not be disputed. It should not be an SEC-regulated test, first off: it could impeach upon some Civil Rights. Secondly, each company should have the power to weed out psychopaths and not be told to do so.

Should the SEC require business executives at publicly traded companies to obtain a license requiring them to pass a test for psychopathy?

Well, let me see - if the remuneration package is set up in such a way so that my interests, as a shareholder, coincide with those of a psychopathic CEO, doesn't that mean that the CEO is going to do everything they possible can, legal or illegal, to advance their (and therefore my) interests? So in such circumstances, wouldn't I wany a psychopath for my next CEO? If so, it would certainly be good idea to screen candidates for such a condition, but I wouldn't be trying to weed them out, I'd be trying to recruit them.

A trait of psychopathy is that they have no particular respect for the law, but a rational desire not to get caught & punished. If they break a law, it's generally because they think they can get away with it, and once they get to CEO, they are probably smart enough to cover their tracks 99 times our of 100. Which means, among other things, they aren't going to publicise their law-breaking or corner-cutting in the annual report. Which means I, as a shareholder, am not going to know how they managed their record profit uplift.

And, being human, I'm just going to smile sweetly, take my dividend cheque and uplifted share price, and laugh all the way to the bank. I am not going to probe deeply into exactly how my psychopath CEO managed to do it all.

It has recently been put forward that corporations themselves display all the symptoms of psychopathy - most notable in the film & book by Joel Bakan.

If we want to permanently discourage psychopathic behaviour in business, either by individuals or the business as a whole, that means changing the law dramatically to force the needs and aspirations of other stakeholders (other than the board and stockholders, that is) to be considered in business decision making.

That, of course, means interfering with the "right" of business to do whatever it wants (i.e. screwing over anyone or anything that gets in their way, be that customers, the public, staff, or stockholders). We don't tolerate that behaviour in individuals - we have even come up with a name for people like that; "psychopaths". Why do we tolerate it in institutions?

German business has worked that way for decades - with worker representation compulsory on executive boards and the like. Even the bits of it that are still profitable and doing well (despite high unemployment, Germany is still by far the world's largest exporter and third-largest economy) work that way, before anyone says "yes, but we don't want to copy Germany, because their economy is failing". Their economy is bad shape, it's true. But that probably has more to do with the ongoing problems of integrating a third world economy than with firmer corporate governance rules.

Should the SEC require business executives at publicly traded companies to obtain a license requiring them to pass a test for psychopathy?

No, because having a hard heart might be a necessary trait to make money.

For example, what does it take to sell crappy used cars to naive people? I could never do it, but there are plenty who do. Had one guy actually use the line that the little old lady who owned it before only drove on Sundays.

At a wreck-um rodeo?

Consider what it takes to axe thousands of people, many of whom were approaching retirement age. Or how about buying out a competitor to kill the company? I can't do these things, but somebody has to.

Taking it to a different level, what about people who slaughter animals for a living? How hard of a heart do you need to survive such a job?

It could be argued that psychopathy has evolved in our species as it rose to become the top consumer in the world. We have a bloody history, and psychopathy could be a bona fide defense mechanism, possibly necessary to keep the food supply for the group coming in.

My oldest brother is a prime example. He is an avid hunter, fisherman, trapper. I once helped him with his beaver trap line in the early spring, when the beaver pelts are prime. It's also when female beaver carry their pups. One trapped beaver was carrying four or five pups -- man, that turned my stomach, but my brother wasn't phased. And of course there are the gnawed-off paws in some of the traps.

Life is just so messy. If I had to do it on my own, get my own food, maybe that'd change my feelings about killing animals. But the point is that where my brother likes the killing, I lost my taste for it. I'm pretty sure this is a difference in our respective, inherent makeups.

There's one primary exception: I can and have enjoyed hunting upland game birds like ruffed grouse. For some reason, birds are okay to kill but not land mammals. Go figure, I don't have a clue as to why this is. Maybe I was a raptor in some previous life? Eh, as good an explanation as any.

Yep, and I could slaughter chickens. They just strike me as deserving it, as if chickens only exist to feed my gut. But I have a hard time shooting deer. Deer hang around this place regularly, and not once have I had the urge to put a bullet in one's heart.

I don't see us understanding psychopathy any better today than we did when I studied psychology in the 1970s. Having a hard heart is common in the world. Carrying out tasks and duties without feelings attached to them is also common, and has been over history. So when does having a hard heart become wrong?

I guess only when laws get broken. But what about when spiritual laws get broken? Might it be said that those born with hard hearts are not responsible for that condition? Conversely, those born with sensitive feelings are not responsible for them either. Therefore, the sensitive peaceful man is not better or worse than the hard-hearted warrior. And it looks like one cannot exist without the other.

I won't flat-out disagree with you, but I think this point deserves examination. Let me offer another story:

My wife was once director of a high-tech factory with about 120 people under her supervision. Her company bought out another company on the opposite coast and asked her to carry out the task of determining how best to merge the two manufacturing operations. After careful consideration, she recommended that her unit be shut down and that the other unit be expanded to take up her unit's responsibilities. She wrung her hands over this decision, because it meant laying off all her people, but she could not deny the business logic. Her superiors were greatly impressed with her integrity and approved her proposal for how to carry out the transition. She had deliberately and openly padded the transition schedule so as to give more time and opportunity for her people to find other jobs. The layoff plan was announced to everybody as far in advance as possible, with the various phases laid out so that everybody knew when they'd be let go. She spent much of the time pounding the pavement setting up transfers for her people. It took about eight months, and she managed to get positions for about 40 people. Most of the others were able to find new jobs, and a few were so quick that she was able to re-arrange schedules to give other people more time. In the end, almost all of her people landed on their feet.

Having sold off the last equipment, she turned in her resignation. Her superiors were flabbergasted; she had just executed the cleanest, most successful such transition in the company's history. They had a promotion in mind for her. But she told them that it would be unconscionable for her to retain her job when she had destroyed all of her subordinate's jobs. She had to go, too. That was part of her proposal and she meant to carry it out. And that's what she did.

Now, the typical corporate psychopath would have happily dumped everybody and taken pride in himself -- but he would not have done his job as well as my wife did her job. And the really sad thing is, the psychopath would not have resigned when the job was done as my wife did -- he would have demanded that promotion and a fat raise as well.

My wife also has a good philosophy about firing people. She has fired lots of people in her career, but her criterion for doing so is simple and remarkably ethical: would everybody be happier if this person were in another job? A weak performer brings down morale of the entire group. That poor morale ultimately gets directed at the weak performer, who then becomes something of a social outcast. My wife always gives the weak performer a clear statement of her expectations and requirements, and makes certain that the problem employee clearly understands them. It always turns out that, after a few months of struggling to meet the requirements and failing, the problem employee is unhappy. My wife then sits down with the person, points out that s/he is just not working out, that s/he is unhappy, that s/he is being set up for failure in this position. My wife informs the person that s/he will certainly be happier in another position that better matches his/her personality and skills. And with that, my wife terminates the employee.

In every case but one, the employee left without anger or resentment, sad but resigned to the truth. In the one case, the terminated employee was fired for a bad temper, which of course flared up during the termination interview. My wife had security guards there and the obvious presence of force kept this guy inside the bounds.

My point here is that it may not be necessary to have a hard heart to run a business productively. Indeed, if you take the view, as I do, that the most important asset of any business is its workforce, then psychopathy is definitely a threat to that workforce and a serious liability to the business.


Once again, I won't flat out disagree with you; inasmuch as 1% of the population is seriously psychopathic, that hard-hearted fighter will always be necessary. But we must never forget that the psychopaths are a tiny percentage of the population and so we want lots more peaceful men than fighting men. The peaceful men, after all, are the only ones that produce anything; the fighting men are necessary to protect the production. And we must also make certain that the psychopaths don't infiltrate our system and become the warriors. All police forces already have a barrage of personality tests to insure that this doesn't happen. Why should our corporate executives be held to lower standards than our cops?

Erasmussimo,

One problem here is that cops are hired by communities, whereas corporate executives are hired by corporations. There's no equating the standards from that viewpoint, but there are other disconnects.

Corporate executives generally don't carry firearms and don't generally interact with the community on a daily basis. They have no right to stop you, arrest you, imprison you, or shoot you under certain circumstances.

Now the proposal is to test through the SEC, and only test public corporations. But I question the validity of this testing. I don't see as the SEC will learn anything of any importance through the testing. So CEO so-and-so is a psychopath. What does that mean? He's dishonest? Greedy? Heartless? A prick? Or maybe a mass-murderer in the making?

How many CEOs have become mass-murderers? I can't think of any. No, the more I think about mass-murderers, most are far from the corporate boardrooms. Oh, they are sick puppies all right, but we don't understand why.

Let's go on the honesty part. Could psychopaths also be honest? Maybe so. We have separate honesty tests, but we also have the problem that everyone is somewhat dishonest. To claim to be honest all the time is a lie. When was the last time you told your spouse the brutal truth about a subject of high sensitivity? Was it fun sleeping on the couch?

Okay, honesty is out. How about greed? Is it wrong for a CEO to want more money?

Seems to me that this is a prerequisite for the position. No Buddhist monks in the corporate boardrooms, eh?

Heartless, there's one. That might be psychotic behavior. The CEO is capable of laying off 20,000 people over the span of a year. Lock that guy up! He runs EDS! Ooops, no, the 20,000 person layoff is legal. It sucks, but it's above board. Maybe the CEO does feel the pain, but I would not wish that on him. I in fact feel sorrow for him a little, you know, if he should happen to have a heart.

Maybe testing is worthwhile for detecting people on the edges of the bell curve, but I'm not convinced that the edges of the bell curve are responsible for things like Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing or the rest of the problem corporations. Nope, it looks like very normal human behavior is responsible, the parts that sweep problems under rugs and weave complex webs of lies.

What's the cure for that? Courage? I think so. Maybe we ought to test CEOs for their levels of native courage, with the high scores getting the go-ahead. But that still doesn't avoid the problem of a person losing courage along the way. The stories I've seen indicate a gradual weaving of the web and people getting caught in it, which is a very old human theme. We are masters at self-deception.

BTW, good story about your wife. Ever think of doing a fiction work or true-life drama around the theme? And I am in sympathy with the idea that a corporation's greatest asset is its workforce, or in simple terms, the people who get things done. It is unfortunate how badly these people have been and are being treated. It's a shame how the money keeps flowing ever upward to the detriment of those who actually earn the money. And even though I think most CEOs are pricks, I don't see a solution through testing to weed them out and give the jobs to only the nice ones.

I do think that there are solutions to some of the corporate problems, and maybe testing could be a part of some of the solutions, but I'm not sold on the usefulness of the psychopathy test results.

The criterion by which society determines the appropriateness of licensing is the capacity to do harm, not the identity of the employer. An airline pilot is also hired by a corporation, but he's required to obtain a license, too.


Last year, the police shot and killed, what, a few thousand people? During the same period, how many people died from air pollution from coal-burning power plants? How many died from the microscopic amounts of heavy metals released by industry? How many lives were shattered by business malfeasance? Corporate executives kill, too. They just do it in ways that are more diffuse.


Remember, a pyschopath lacks a conscience. Do we really want people without conscience wielding the kind of power that a corporate principal wields?


In the literal sense, I agree. But in a looser sense, there's no question that corporate activities kill tens to hundreds of thousands of people in this country. Many of these deaths, I admit, are unavoidable. But some are certainly avoidable.

Let me give you an example. The law requires that, when a coal-fired power plant undergoes a major upgrade, it must also be brought up to current air-pollution standards. This is because the air pollution laws grandfather in the existing power plants. So, simply put, the law says that you can keep your filthy, pollution-belching plant for the moment, but as soon as you make any upgrades or major repairs to it, you must also install the equipment to bring it up to modern standards. So the executives at coal-burning plants put off repairs for as long as possible, then dribble them in over the course of five years, passing them off as mainenance, not repairs. Then they lobby Congress hard to loosen the requirements so that they don't have to install the air-cleaning equipment. To insure that their lobbying works, they make generous campaign contributions. Clearly, these people are deliberately increasing the number of air pollution related deaths in order to increase their profits. Would you do that? I certainly wouldn't, and I think that most people with a conscience would draw the line at making profit over the bodies of innocent people. But these guys do it, because they have small consciences. We as a society have every right to protect ourselves from psychopaths who inflict harm on society for their own benefit.


Woah! There's a big difference between telling your wife that she looks gorgeous in that ghastly hat, and doctoring your pollution test reports or cooking your books. Sure, everybody lies -- but when the lies seriously hurt people, we draw a line.


Greed isn't part of the definition of psychopathy -- it's lack of conscience. I don't mind somebody being greedy, so long as they satisfy their greed in a conscionable way. Psychopaths don't.


Laying off people isn't a crime and I wouldn't hold it against any executive. My own wife has laid off people. In the larger scheme of things, layoffs are not one of the main paths by which psychopathic executives inflict injury upon society.


Do you believe that a normal person would have created the gigantic financial deception scheme that Mr. Fastow did? Do you think that a normal person would have rigged a complicated scheme to cheat the people of California out of billions of dollars in electricity payments and then joked with a colleague about impoverishing poor Granny? Do you believe that a normal person would have cooked the books as extensively as they did at WorldCom?

I am not against corporations, capitalism, executives, or profits; these are all necessary components of our civilization, and they provide enormous benefits to all of us. I have known about a dozen CEOs personally and two were genuinely good people, most were close enough to normal, and some were truly evil. My concern is with the few executives who are truly evil. They are not a tiny collection of bad apples -- they're out there and their numbers are large enough to be cause for concern.


Thanks, she's quite a woman.


Again, I confess that this testing idea has its problems because of its intrusiveness and the uncertainties of testing. I don't think we need to give licenses only to nice guys -- I just want to weed out the seriously evil people. One point that hasn't been raised yet is that psychopaths are very good at deception. Part of their system is to act like Mr. Nice Guy to gain people's trust. I'm sure that many would be willing to pay thousands of dollars to learn about the details of such a test, the better to fake it. That in itself might well make the test unreliable. Perhaps we should make them take lie detector tests (yes, I know that's now illegal in many states -- I'm just kidding.)


Yes, I agree that the psychopathy test is not sufficient, and in fact I'd be reluctant to bring somebody's executive career to a screeching halt on one test. Let me offer another idea that might better address your concerns as well as overlandsailor's:

What if we make boards of directors criminally liable for the actions of their executives, unless the directors can show that they really did due diligence on the character of their hires? In other words, we don't specify any tests at all. We just say to the board, if you hire somebody who later breaks the law, then you're in the same soup he's in -- unless you can prove that you really did beat the bushes trying to determine whether this guy has any skeletons in his closet or demons in his head. This wouldn't directly prevent cases like the coal power plant case I described earlier, but it could indirectly obviate such developments. Consider: the directors are now on the spot when they hire a CEO. If this guy messes up, their arses are on the line. So they're going to shove that psychopathy test down the candidates' throats. They're going to look long and hard at the results. If this candidate is borderline psychopathic, do they really want to take the chance that he might do something that could get them in hot water? These kind of incentives might well address the problem without being as harsh as my original proposal.

What do you think?

Why go this route? Why not simply address our issues by holding the board of directors liable personally when their company acts in a manner that is in violation of industry regulations or outright illegal?

Right now, few corporate executives are held accountable for their actions in a real sense. They take actions that lead to lives lost, or laws broken and if we can prove it, the corporation, not the individual pays the penalty.

I see no reason why the board of directors of Enron should not have had to forfeit all of their personal wealth to restitution of the employees and investors. I see no reason why anyone one that board, where it could be proven that that acted outside the law, should not be imprisoned for decades.

To require, either through direct regulation, or coercion that anyone be psychologically tested in anyway to be allowed to hold any position is to put an awful lot of fair in our testing methods. Ever take a personality test on line? I've taken any test like that that I come across. I would say no more then 50-60% actually get me right. I would imagine most people's experiences are similar. Are we really willing to limit how some make a living based on the results of these kinds of tests?

I realize some government jobs require such testing. I have the same issues with them, but they are in place, and are not likely to be removed. That does not mean that we should expand this wrong to broader applications.



And if the test fails to identify a problem they are off the hook? Why not apply accountability? Hold them personally responsible for the actions of their company because they are responsible for the oversight of that company. No easy out for them because some underling figured out how to "beat" a test.



If they knew that we would hold them personally liable if their company operates in a negligent or illegal manner wouldn't they be just as likely to look long and hard at the candidate? And with this type of approach they would be unlikely to stop there because their personal liability would not end once leaders were hired. They would likely take it further by instituting stricter oversight and controls to protect themselves and their families wouldn't they?

We can accomplish what you are looking for, with better results and less invasion of individual privacy by legally obligating top executives and members of corporate boards when in comes to the companies they run, nd they way those companies conduct themselves.

How less likely would a board of directors, CEO, CFO etc be to cook the books for the investors if they knew that, if they are found out, their entire personal fortune, home, cars, everything would be forfeit for restitution to the investors, and they would likely land in prison as well?

First off, I agree entirely that we need to make executives more directly responsible for their actions. I considered the idea of making directors criminally responsible for the actions of their executives, but then I suspect nobody would ever take the position. After all, there's no guarantee that an executive might pull off something behind your back and you go to jail for it. We've had real trouble dealing with criminal liability for industrial accidents, because juries are unwilling to send somebody to jail when they plead ignorance. The usual counterargument is that they should have known -- but in the absence of a law specifying that they should know, it's hard to make that stick. That's why environmental laws are now implemented with mountains of paperwork. The corporation must demonstrate that it is in fact taking all reasonable measures to prevent accidents, and this must happen before the incident, not after. So we require them to wade through all manner of bureaucracy to file their paperwork as a means of insuring that they really do dot their i's and cross their t's, environmentally speaking. I am proposing something similar for psychopathy.

Then that is where we start. With that law. A law that says the top leadership of corporations are personally responsible for the actions of that corporation, period. I was in the Navy. If something went wrong on a ship, it didn't matter if it was the middle of the night, and the Captain was asleep, the Captain was still held responsible. The trade off of these positions that provide you with fame, fortune and power is that you are responsible for what happens on your watch 24/7. I see no reason to treat a CEO or Board of directors differently then the Captain of a Destroyer in this respect.



You are proposing to force people who have done no wrong to open their very minds to public (government) scrutiny in an effort to prevent wrong doing though we are in no way close to certain that will work. Furthermore, the government has a history of abusing privileged information. I doubt what they learn about the inner workings of the minds of these people would be any different.

Lets look at the Enron situation. Because of Enron's actions companies all over America started to have independent audits done, changed their accounting and business practices, and began to frequently review their operations, policies, etc. This was all because they didn't want to see their investors leave them, or find themselves on trial. Passing legislation, that makes it clear that boards and top executives will be held personally liable, both financial and criminally, for wrong doing would surely effect business standards and practices at least as much as the Enron debacle did.

IMHO, the psychopathy testing is unproven. We have no idea if this will effect a positive change in the activities of businesses. We do know however, that we will be forcing men and women to give up even more individual liberty if we enact it.

The legal approach has a better track record (or if nothing else, it at least has a track record), it will not infringe on anyones rights, and IMHO is simply the more logical approach.

What happens when a non-psychopathic person gets forced to act against the common good for the sake of the stockholders and profits? People in these positions do not end their careers and walk away from their jobs when faced with these choices, they do what those above and those on Wall Street require of them. If the legal approach is taken, they would be far less likely to do this because it is not only their careers on the line anymore, it is the financial welfare of their children, as well as their individual freedom that is at stake. I think it is far more likely that these pressures would have a positive effect on the business community (from a societal standpoint) then a test that only weeds out psychopaths (and not sycophants and the like).

overlandsailor, I've thought it over and you've convinced me. Your "string 'em up" law would be a better solution than my "bury 'em in paperwork" law. I do like the idea of putting responsibly squarely in the laps of the people who make the decisions, which is where it belongs. You get the torches, I'll bring the rope!

OK, that was the easy part. Now, the real issues come to bear. What is it that we are willing to hold corporate leaders responsible for?

Obviously, cases of gross negligence, purposeful circumventing of law and / or regulation, and organized criminal activity are the easy ones.

But, what if a Chemical plant is attacked by terrorists and the resulting catastrophe results in 1000s killed in the area? What if the security at the plant was a joke, even now, knowing the results of September eleventh and other such attacks?

What if a Drug manufacturer follows all the rules, does all the testing and later, either because something was not required by the FDA or because the technology didn't exist originally, we discover damaging side effects from a drug?

What we need to determine is what we will hold these corporate leaders responsible for. And to what degree.

Deciding to draw a line is the sand is always easy. Agreeing on where to draw that line is always the hard part.

Erasmussimo,

I think that you and OLS are on the right path. I worked for a couple of years at a member of the Federal Reserve. This national bank had a policy that after five years of employment, each and every employee became a vice president on paper. This meant that if the employee decided to bring fraud to the bank, and thus threaten the regular VPs with possible legal prosecution, the employee would go to the slammer too, and for just as much time.

That's kind of a reverse situation for the employee, but the fact that the Fed Reserve insists on such actions for member banks indicates that a strong regulatory branch of federal government can be effective at avoiding fraud.

There is a socialistic side of me that favors the nationalization of our fundamental utilities: energy and water. I might even throw in communications after witnessing the meltdown of MCI into WorldCom. But this is a side debate, so I won't spend any more time on it, other than to acknowledge that there are good counter arguments to nationalization as well, and me being the kind of debater that I am, I can take either side -- I see both sides.

I do want to comment on industries causing the deaths of people. Yes, I know that one needs to have little guilt over pushing policies that lead to the death of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, over a period of time. I think that a true psychopath, as I remember the definition, would actually feel glee, perhaps sexual arousal, over the policies. Or is that a sociopath? Or a different psyche altogether? It has been a long time since I had interest in this.

More likely though, the people working for the death-causing policies rationalize them away somehow. I can speculate that the rationalizations involve the greater good for the most people, with acceptable levels of collateral deaths. Sound familiar? It was the rationalization used to unleash the atomic bombs in WWII, and the rationalization for the Dresden firebombing, Vietnam's Rolling Thunder blanket bombing, and literally every bombing where civilians were at risk.

I will agree with you that we don't want psychopathic personalities in corporate board rooms. We don't want them anywhere near us, except maybe in the slaughter houses where they can get their kicks on steers. Somebody has to do the dirty work, eh?

But if it is true that only about one percent of a given population shows psychopathic tendencies, then a smaller percentage actually acts on those tendencies -- isn't that a valid hypothesis? And since we can't predict future actual behavior on tendencies alone, isn't it fair in a free society to use tight fraud oversight and law enforcement? I think so. That's where you and OLS are going, and I'm with you.

Now, as for WorldCom, an outfit I was with for 18 months as a contractor before the scandals were discovered, I'll have to say this: Bernie Ebbers wasn't psychopathic. He was a good salesman and a bold corporate takeover artist. The finances in the old MCI were often done by juggling buckets of money, some of which were gambles that the money would actually fill the buckets down the road. This was wrong to begin with, possibly criminal. The shareholders of StorageTek brought the company to court over exaggerating revenue flow, listing future contract revenue as already collected, after that company's 1980s bankruptcy. In both cases, I happen to work fairly close to the low-level financial people, and in both cases, these folks were nervous as hell. Something fishy was going down, you bet. The low-level folks were CYAing up a storm. Meetings sometimes got pretty dramatic.

This, I am sorry to report, reflects corrupt human nature. It's a shame. We should try to do better. Maybe going to church might help.

Or not. Many churches have problems of their own. They seem to be a favored haunt of psychopaths too, along with other kinds of evil psyches who need cover, as you've pointed out.

The energy examples given -- I'm right there with you that corruption runs rampant in them. Maybe high crude prices will result in more development of alternatives. Maybe voters will revolt and elect environmentally-friendly politicians. Maybe we'll crack down on the corruption. I think these are strong probabilities as this whole dance works its way out. Corruption is nothing new to this country or world, and human nature spews forth eternal.

Maybe what we need is a dude/dudette license. Something akin to a college degree, a credential that demonstrates that the holder has proven to be a decent human being, capable of love and honesty (when it really counts). Then these people would be more favored to become CEOs and CFOs of corporations, versus those who have lied, cheated, stolen, and kissed way too much tush while getting ahead.

My sigoth, Lydia, is a bona fide, card-carrying member of the Dudettes of America. Looks like you and your wife get the D licenses too, along with OLS.

Bernie Ebbers? [No comment due to the profanity filter]

Should the SEC require business executives at publicly traded companies to obtain a license requiring them to pass a test for psychopathy?

There are couple of flaws in the reasoning behind this topic for debate's premise.

The first is the definition of psychopath. The definition given in the article seems to be one who is selfish and uncaring about the feelings of others.



So being superficial, egocentric, insincere and manipulative is now a disqualifier for doing business in America? News flash: it is very difficult to be successful without looking out for Number One (and by extension, the company you run).

From the article:


The article does do itself credit by distinguishing that some of the traits of a "psychopath" can be good for a business, but it renames this the "productive narcissist". This person uses their intense drive for success to propel their company to success. The motives are wrong, but the results are good (according to the article).

What I disagree with is the assertion that these individuals are out to intentionally harm others or to harm the company they work for. I think there is a huge chasm to bridge to prove that any CEO intentionally submarined their own company.

Certainly there are unscrupulous people who will use any opportunity to make money. I'd put Enron's execs in that category. In other words, crooks. These people should certainly be prosecuted. However, they do not have the wonton nature that I connotatively associate with "psychopaths".

Which is the other flaw I see in the premise here: that simply being self-serving or uncaring towards others makes you a bad executive. While there are certainly some lines which should not be crossed and personal traits which may make you a bad person, they certainly are not reasons to disqualify one from running a company. This is still the U S of A, isn't it? Where every idiot can make it big?

These people are accountable to the shareholders and to the board of directors. They are not untouchable. They are also flawed. If you want saints to run the companies of the US, I'm afraid you are expecting the unattainable.

There should not be a personality test for running a company.

I think you're taking too black-and-white an approach here. Psychopathy runs the gamut from the self-sacrificing saint to the heartless murderer. Most people fall around 3 or 4 on the testing scale. Is it safe to allow people with scores of 10 to 20 run corporations? That kind of thinking is what lay behind the original question. And it is perfectly reasonable for society to expect its members to have some due consideration for the effects of their actions on others. After discussing it with overlandsailor, I agreed that his approach of making all principals and directors of a company liable for the actions of the company would do the job better than any test. This would accomplish the same thing in a more decentralized fashion by forcing directors to ask themselves whether a candidate for an executive position is a little too far on the "Looking out for #1" scale.

So what about potential CEO #1 who would move company operations overseas to make more money? Does that disqualify one?

Or CEO #2 who would lay offs workers to save money?

Or CEO #3 who would yell at subordinates who don't meet expectations?

Or CEO #4 who didn't go to his father's funeral?

Looking out for #1 has its advantages when running a company.

I agree that individual responsibility is the key. Testing for (or in this case, against) one personality type (or having people "fake it" on the test) is not.

This is an interesting debate and I don't have too much to add that hasn't already been said. I think though, Amlord, the issue is not whether or not psychopathy can't have good results. The issue, I believe, is that a sufficiently high psychopathy quotient is likely to have bad results. I may be able to fake the eye exam for a driver's license test, but this doesn't mean that (1) the test is invalid or (2) qualifying the eye exam is a bad criterion for a driver's license.

I think there is some value in psychological testing for executive officers in publicly traded companies. Right now, I'd hesitate to go so far as licensing. Still, it would be interesting to see how far CEOs are from the norm.