The top 10 jobs that attract psychopaths

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Somehow, I don't think special ed teachers fall into this category i.e. psychopaths pursuing such posts b/c it openly requires caring (and you have to be subservient to the school principal). Although, from what I've seen in the news, there have been no shortage of abuse stories concerning special ed teachers and students on the spectrum. But I'd say that's just because these are short-fused individuals who get frustrated easily, so that's a poor career choice for them.

Not surprised by the list. Note how all of them give you control or require you to be very convincing, two things psychopaths tends to enjoy.

I am surprised by scoring nineteen out of thirty-three on the test. I guess there's a reason people think I'm a cold bastard.

Psychopathic Traits Make Good Presidents

Oops, my apologies if I end up digressing too much, but this post reminds me of my current special interest--my country's founding fathers. (I can't reveal which country because the First Amendment doesn't apply to my country. Furthermore, some of the people that I will mention later on are still alive and well and capable of suing people for slander.)

My country's founding fathers, though competent, mostly seem suspiciously psychopathic to me. In case you are wondering, there were entrepreneur(s), lawyer(s), doctor(s), university lecturer(s), teacher(s), journalist(s), civil servant(s), accountant(s) and unionist(s) (who might or might not be terrorists too) among them.

(When the Accountant pointed out that other founding fathers had been politicking excessively, majority of the founding fathers ganged up against him, labelled him as a psychopath and expelled him from the Political Party.)

Glib and superficial charm: Most of the founding fathers could speak very well. One founding father had a reputation for being a "good writer but a poor speaker", but when I watched a Youtube video of him giving a speech, I thought that he was Prince Charming.
Grandiose self-worth: "We should discourage idiots from marrying and reproducing, otherwise they will reproduce more idiots."
Need for stimulation: In its early days, the Political Party not only encouraged students to occupy schools and workers to go on strikes, but also instigated riots.
Pathological lying: The Unionist asked a rhetorical question after instigating a riot, "Is there any politician who wants violence instead of peace?"
Cunning and manipulativeness: In the beginning, there were three factions in the Political Party--the Lawyer, the Unionist and the Accountant. If I had interpreted all the games that they played correctly, the Lawyer and the Unionist formed an alliance to get rid of the Accountant. Once the Accountant was gone, the Lawyer and the Unionist started warring against each other.
Lack of remorse or guilt: When interviewed, all founding fathers insisted that the ends (patriotism) justified the means.

My score is a 5 out of 33.

If anyone is interested, read a non-fiction book called The Sociopath Next Door.
Here's a link that explains the summary of the book:
http://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index ... -next-door

I wouldn't be surprised if doctors = surgeons in that list... narcissism, the obsession with knowing better than the patient themselves, etc...

That's interesting.

According to my research, I believe my ex is a psychopath/narcissist (possibly with borderline personality disorder to round it all out). He always hated working for others, and kept trying to start his own business. He would idealize and invest... but, then would get bored and not follow through when he landed clients.
He is still with the same company now, but, moved from working on a team to working by himself. He still chafes at being expected to show up to work on time, though. Rules are made for everyone but him.
He works in a water treatment plant. I don't think he's bright enough to be a lawyer and, as I've helped him study for some EMT exams, he definitely couldn't hack it as a surgeon either.

I like the difference here... my boredom can be self-cured.
My kids know better than to tell me that they are bored, because I am not an entertainment machine. When they come up with ideas of activities, I am more than happy to support them in whatever they want to do or read or build, but, I won't spoon-feed them stimulation.
My oldest does especially well with this, and has even taken to saying 'only boring people are bored.' That kid is a riot.

There are school troubles, though. I think my oldest might be borderline aspie, because I see how he reacts to noises and stimulation in ways that I did as a child. But, when my psycho ex goes into the school and the teacher says our son isn't doing his work in class, the ex's reply (right in front of the kid is), 'well, that's obviously your fault because he's bored.' without even asking our son if he's bored.
Me? Sure, I'd get bored in school sometimes, but, I'd hurry up with my work, then pull a book out of my desk and read while the others finished. There are ways to cope, other than sloughing off responsibility onto the teacher, like she's supposed to be up there juggling fire all day to keep the kids' attention just because that's what he expected. (btw, he's also a high school dropout. and the only bill he ever consistently paid was the mortgage. He felt entitled to have me pay all the bills, but, wanted the control of feeling like the home was 'his' and not 'ours.' Red flags galore in retrospect.)

At any rate, the narcissism necessary for the confidence to diagnose and cut into people without any oversight is a characteristic that is obviously necessary for a surgeon. As much as I believe in my research, I would never have the confidence to take someone's life into my hands like that.

Oh, and I scored a 9 out of 33 on that psycho test, too. Very low. I know my answer that people who scammed kinda deserve it got me some points there. I'd never scam someone like a psycho would, but, I do tend to blame the victim as well as the perp in many cases.

after working in public education for many years i really think administrators should be added to the list,, it seems ANY job that someone has power over groups or people is attractive to them,, I read a book years ago. i think the title was,, The Psychopath among us,, it said it is a lot m ore common, that its only the ones that display the extreme behaviors that come to our attention.

As a self diagnosed Aspie, I am also convinced that somehow i bring out the psycopathic side of people that have tendencies that way,, is anyone else experiencing this.

If you check out some of the threads in the love and dating forum, some folks believe that aspies draw them like moths to a flame because of the peculiarities of both personality types.

Surgeon is the perfect job for a psychopath. Can you honestly visualize yourself breaking a living human beings chest open and massaging their heart while you cut out one of their lungs and bin it and then stitching them back together?

Would you ever get over it if you did everything right but still lost the patient?

I know for sure I would never be that confident with another human being's life in my hands. A psychopath, however, wouldn't have anything to worry about. The patients life is linked to the psychopaths ego (sense of ability / accomplishment) so in that regard they are in safe hands.

1. CEO
2. Lawyer
3. Media (specifically TV and radio)
4. Salesperson

The first three worry me more. The CEO, Lawyers and Media can ruin thousands of peoples lives without ever having to take responsibility for the consequences, they are only responsible to their clients (the shareholders) and the shareholders are only a cover story for the worlds longest con.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/brendancoff ... verything/

My ex-girlfriend was one of the best sales people in the country. I did wonder about her sometimes.

Anyway, my psycho results were:

Your Psychopath Challenge score is below average: 14 out of a possible 33

B.

Last edited by Bunders on 20 Dec 2012, 2:29 am, edited 2 times in total.

I don't think so. I think they should be at the top of the list.

Police officers! I work for defense attorneys and have a whole file cabinet full of internal affairs complaints and examples of how they lie in their reports. The excessive force stuff is scary, and so much of it is covered up before the media gets wind of it.

Attorneys - this gave me a chuckle. I'd say most of the ones I know are likely narcissists. The late Marvin Mitchelson was a psychopath, IMO. Years ago, he was accused of raping a woman, and there was something on the news I'll never forget: The woman said that after he raped her, he got up and began to conduct an invisible symphony. That creeped me out, because it's not the kind of thing anyone would make up.

The article doesn't mention what kind of professions get to avoid psychopaths. I'm guessing a wide range of them (low skilled service sector) can put you in their crosshairs.

I heard that during soviet rule, a lot of Eastern European citizens participated in math clubs because they were a safe escape from government control.

I know in more sociable professions such as medicine, office work, or military, there's an obsession with being right and looking competent, and the higher up you are, the more face you can lose by being wrong.

Ever since my career change, I've seen professors make mathematical mistakes, a student usually corrects them and they just continue with the lecture.

i was a civil servant for 2 decades but i scored a 1 out of 33 on the psychopathy test because i said "rules were made to be broken."

I hear that, as much as I hated the customer service aspect, I never respected rules we had about holding out on stuff, the people making them were mean spirited.

Professions psychopaths are drawn to:

1. CEO
2. Lawyer
3. Media (specifically TV and radio)
4. Salesperson
5. Surgeon
6. Journalist
7. Police officer
8. Clergyperson
9. Chef
10. Civil Servant

I have been working as a journalist most of my life. I can honestly say that the media in general really do attract antisocial people of all kinds. I have a personal experience from working with three sociopaths. I don´t think they were full-blown psychopaths, as psychopaths are even rarer to be found than sociopaths, and there are subtle differences between these two groups. But it was interesting that all of them were women, not men. Funny, because it´s proclaimed that this personality disorder is more frequent (4:1) among men than women.

That's been my experience as well... I've known at least 6 female sociopaths, only one male. Ironically, because they don't use physical force, their actions are not only legal but actually ADMIRED by both corporations and feminists alike. Powaaaahhhh!! !