12 Careers With The Most Psychopaths – is Your Profession on This List?

Unfortunately, in modern times psychopaths are everywhere. This could be the person right next to you, your partner at work, or even the cashier at the grocery store could be a psychopath! As a matter of fact they could be making headlines before you even have a chance to notice…

While not all psychopaths turn out to be terrifying serial killers, they are more common than you think. The clinical diagnosis of a psychopath is something that refers to people who lack empathy or guilt; they are cold-hearted and manipulative.

There are actual visible differences when looking at the brain scans of someone who is a psychopath and someone who is not. This being especially obvious in areas where the individual would be processing emotions. Author Kevin Dutton has done quite a bit of research on this and knows a lot about the brains of psychopaths.

He is a research psychologist at the University of Oxford and was actually able to compile a list of careers that are most likely to attract and/or foster people with a psychopathic personality. That being said, his list only goes to ten and is a few years old so after number ten we will be adding in a couple more careers that seem to be flooded with psychopaths as well.

Is your job on the list? Take a look below to find out!

12 Careers With The Most Psychopaths:

1. CEO

CEO is a position of power which is perfect for the psychopath. They are able to make important emotionless decisions and because they lack remorse can hire and fire with ease. This often results in reckless behavior and can cause problems in the long run.

2. Lawyer

We can say without a doubt that there are many lawyers in this world who benefits from being able to lie and turn on their charm without conscience. During one interview Dutton actually spoke with a successful psychopathic lawyer who said this “deep inside me there’s a serial killer lurking somewhere. But I keep him amused with cocaine, formula one, booty calls, and coruscating cross-examination.”

3. Media

This one should be quite obvious; while not everyone in media falls into this category a lot of them do.

4. Salesperson

As you can probably tell, salespeople often only think of themselves. This means there will always be problems to come. The psychopathic salesperson is going to exploit the system as best they can in any way that will benefit them.

5. Surgeon

It seems a lot of surgeons are self-centered. Psychoanalyst Carl Sword actually recalled a conversation with an anonymous neurosurgeon who said the following “I have no compassion for those whom I operate on…. In the theater, I am reborn: as a cold, heartless machine, totally at one with scalpel, drill, and saw. When You’re cutting loose and cheating death high above the snowline of the brain, feelings aren’t fit for purpose. Emotion is entropy, and seriously bad for business. I’ve hunted it down to extinction over the years.”

6. Journalist

Psychopathy is something that can creep its way into any career, especially journalism. Seeing your name in a big newspaper daily is enough to turn anyone narcissistic and things can become worse from there.

7. Police officer

As you may have noticed police brutality is a huge topic these days. While not all police officers are psychopaths, any person who puts themselves in a position of power has the potential to be. Women actually suffer domestic abuse in at least 40 percent of police officer families.

8. Clergy

Joe Navarro, a former member of the FBI actually took the time to create a list for Psychology Today of the reasons why psychopaths might be attracted to the clergy.

9. Chef

Gordon Ramsay himself claims that Chefs are nutty. He says they are all self-absorbed narcissists and absolutely have the potential to be psychopaths. He of all people would know!

10. Civil servants

There is a bit of power when it comes to certain civil service rolls and as mentioned above psychopaths love any sort of power position they can obtain.

11. Entrepreneur

Psychopaths like to manipulate people and this is the perfect career for manipulation. There is plenty of room for the psychopath to do whatever he or she wants with this kind of job.

12. Management (of any kind)

Managers get to tell other people what to do, obviously a person with this sort of power at any job has the potential to be a psychopath. Regardless if it is fast food management, department store management, or even corporate management psychopaths are always going to be found no matter where you go.

This is because most of these professions offer power and many even require an ability to make clinical decisions apart from feelings. Psychopaths are drawn to these kinds of jobs. They do not want any part in a position that offers no power and forces them to deal with emotions.

To hear a little more information about this topic please check out the video below, but keep in mind the last two careers will not be mentioned in this video.