Recognise anyone? Study identifies the psychopaths in your workplace

Unless you're extremely lucky, it's highly unlikely you gel with every single person in your workplace.

While you may not be able to articulate why you tend to give certain people a wide berth, you just know that they're simply not your type of person.

But if you harbour suspicions that they're raving psychopaths and would give anything to find evidence of this, you need look no further than two recent studies published in Journal Of Business Ethics.

According to the research, you can spot the psychopath in your office by taking note of the relationship they have with their boss.

If the boss in question is particularly difficult to work for and yet your colleague appears to thrive under their management approach, then you may – put simply – have a psycho on your hands.

So, how did researchers set about isolating the psychopaths among us?

419 volunteers firstly had their reactions measured when presented with manager profiles before being asked to assess their own real-life managers.

The study identified two types of psychopathy; primary dimension and secondary dimension, and ascertained that those who appeared to thrive beneath a problematic manager displayed signs of the former.

Elaborating on the findings, Dr Charlice Hurst said: "Both consist of high levels of antisocial behaviour; however, people who score high in primary psychopathy lack empathy and are cool-headed and fearless."

"They don’t react to things that cause other people to feel stressed, fearful or angry. Secondary psychopaths are more hot-headed and impulsive."

Unlike other people who would struggle under the direction of a problematic manager, primary psychopaths benefit under abusive supervisors.

"Relative to their peers low in primary psychopathy, they felt less anger and more engagement and positive emotions under abusive supervisors," Dr Hurst continued.

So, now you know…