Psychological impairment causes impairment in professional success

Psychological impairment causes impairment in professional success

Having a psychopathic personality appears to impede career success, contrary to the prevailing hypothesis that people with high psychopathic traits are more likely to become ideal bosses and CEOs, according to new research titled “Psychopathic Personality Aspects Relate to Low Subjective and Objective Professional Success,” published by PsyPost, citing the journal PsyPost. Personality and Individual Differences.

career success

Psychopathy is defined as a psychiatric disorder characterized by shallowness, lack of embarrassment, antisocial behavior and colleagues, a general lack of emotion and a distance from personal relationships.

The study's findings cast doubt on the purported benefits of workplace psychopathy, with Hedwig Eisenbarth, the study's lead researcher, professor at Victoria University of Wellington and director of the Affective and Forensic Neuroscience Laboratory, said: Referring to the hypothesis that people with high psychopathic traits will be successful [in leadership positions] due to their ability to ignore emotions, reduce empathy, and channel rewards.”

Courageous domination

Eisenbarth added that this hypothesis was tested in another study before, “and it turns out that there is some evidence that this does not hold true for psychopathy as a unitary structure, since instead of psychopathy traits being associated with high professional success, the aspect of courageous dominance has been shown to be Only it was associated with higher professional success, but the impulsive, self-centered aspect of those traits was negatively correlated with professional success. Thus, two sides of psychopathy gravitate in different directions.
Self-centered
Eisenbarth said she and her research team sought to see if the experiments could be repeated in a larger sample and if that would also continue over the course of one year, and then analyzed longitudinal data from a nationwide representative sample in New Zealand of 2969 individuals. The data, collected as part of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values ​​Study, included measures of subjective job satisfaction and occupational standing. Eisenbarth and her colleagues also used survey questions to assess three aspects of psychopathic personality including courageous dominance, self-centered impulsivity, and cold-heartedness.

cold heart

The researchers discovered that bravery dominance was the most significant aspect that was associated with greater job satisfaction and job security. But there is a link between self-centered impulsivity and decreased job satisfaction and job security. Self-centered impulsivity and hard-heartedness were associated with lower occupational status.

behaviors and outcomes

Eisenbarth expressed her belief that “what she can learn from the results of this study is that psychopathy is not a simple unitary personality trait with clear associations with behaviors or outcomes. In this case, higher levels of psychopathy traits are not associated with better career outcomes, but rather: highly impulsive and highly psychopathy individuals may actually have less success and highly courageous and controlling individuals may have more success.”

future research

She went on to explain that, "In general, psychopathy traits don't explain much of the variance in occupational success, so other variables could be more relevant than psychopathy." The next research steps are likely to shed more light on the mechanisms and how aspects of psychopathy actually affect the careers of people with psychopathic traits.”

Eisenbarth concluded that the study’s “amazing finding is that even given the difference in measurements and the difference in geographic location of the [research] sample, the results were identical, with the effect on success also persisting (at least) for a year, effectively proving that psychopathy Not really a useful trait, in its full form, with the combination of impulsive and courageous dominant aspects.”