Last week, more than a few news agencies and blogs picked up the story that “one out of every 10 Wall Street employees is a psychopath.” This immediately caught my attention, because as a researcher, I found the statistic intriguing because it was so out of whack with the incidence of psychopathy in the general population.
But in trying to research where this statistic came from, I stumbled upon a symptom of what’s wrong with a lot of journalism today.
I can summarize the problem in one word — laziness. Many (most?) journalists nowadays take “experts” words for whatever claims they make, without ever bothering to check them out independently.
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Excellent investigative work Dr. Grohol! When I originally saw the lurid “Wall Street psychopaths” claim I, too, raised an eyebrow, but,unlike you, didn’t lift a finger to verify it. But I hail you for getting all relevant body parts in motion (particularly your brain) to provide us with a most interesting article.
But may I raise one point? Is your allegation of laziness (which, after all, is as much the point of your article as the falsity of the psychopath claim) on the part of those who repeated the falsehood entirely fair? Mightn’t you have had an advantage over them? Don’t you think your being in the field (and quite possibly a familiar name to Dr. Hare) facilitated your access to him? I’m sure you knew exactly how to swiftly locate him, and wouldn’t your credentials, and perhaps name, have generated a response from him more expeditious than would otherwise have been the case?
Isn’t it possible that the experience you had with Christopher Bayer–his not responding “in time” for your post– was precisely the fate of the other journalists in contacting Dr. Hare? It’s unlikely that they’d have mentioned a failure to get a response from him in their article. So, did you check to see if these journalists were actually conscientious and had in fact made an effort to contact Dr. Hare and failed, or, as you assert, had lazily not made an effort at all? Would I be cheeky in suggesting that your own allegation of laziness on the part of these journalists is, apparently, as uncorroborated as the allegation of 1 in 10 Wall Streeters being psychopaths?
Don’t misunderstand me, Dr. Grohol. I think your apparent assumption that these other journalists didn’t bother to check due to laziness is a safe one–but it’s only an assumption, and the whole point of your post is that good journalists should always verify their claims, and not rely on assumptions, however sound they may appear. While you did a wonderful investigation of the claim about the Wall Street psychopaths, you APPARENTLY didn’t make any attempt to verify your own claim of journalistic laziness. (Note that my repeated use of the term “apparent” is to avoid doing the same thing myself–I don’t know for sure that you didn’t investigate your claim of journalistic laziness, it simply appears that you didn’t.)
In any case, I’m a regular reader of your blog posts, and savor your reliably lively and penetrating analysis–something surprisingly uncommon on the internet.
I have the same access to research databases that I would hope any journalist who writes on scientific topics does. Which means it took me about 2 minutes to find the study, and get a copy of it online. It took me about 10 minutes to read and digest the study. In that study was the email address for Dr. Hare, which I then used to write him an email about the data being posted and attributed to him. That took about 3 minutes.
A total of about 15 minutes was used to discover the claim was false, which was verified about 3 1/2 hours later by Dr. Hare himself via email. (I had never contacted Dr. Hare before this and did not know him.)
I have no special access or relationship with virtually any professional I write about here (and when I do, I usually note that in the blog entry).
It is a journalistic guideline that if you try and reach out to someone who can’t comment in time for your article’s deadline, you note that (you see this all the time in mainstream media reports). The original journalist, Sherree Decovny, never reached out to Dr. Hare.
In her defense, she thought she had no reason to, trusting whatever the expert she had contacted — Bayer — to give her an objective reading of the research.
But that’s my point… There’s no reason and there should be no expectation that one should trust a single self-identified “expert” (who has no research himself in the area). I don’t want to make generalizations here, but it’s been my experience, in articles I’ve been interviewed for with most mainstream publications, that my statements are checked and/or challenged with other experts in the article. Having at least 2 experts weigh in on a topic is at least an attempt to present a balanced picture of the topic.
But relying on just a single expert… well, sorry, but in my opinion, that’s just lazy.
John
Thanks for this article. I hope the word gets out. I am a tad concerned about the ‘witch hunt’ mentality lately regarding psychopaths. I know psychopathic traits cause a lot of damage in the world but we (society) always seems to over re-act when we feel threatened especially by something we don’t understand.
To me, the ’1 out of 10′ just didn’t ring true intuitively and I wasn’t buying it but I know a lot of people have/will. As you mentioned, those statements weren’t accompanied by hard proven statistics so I was skeptical. Hope most will be too but I have my doubts.
Thanks for writing this. I saw that article on Huffington Post and was very confused. I think it’s great that you followed the trail. Too bad there (likely) won’t be a retraction. But nonetheless, thank you.
If it looks like a banker, walks like a banker, and talks like a banker, then it probably is a psychopath.
Great article, we need more journalists like you!
Last year some inadvertent evidence came to light when Paul Babiak’s company analyzed 1,000 managers of a large company. It turns out 24% of them were psychopaths. Here’s a quote from a recent article in the Wall Street Journal:
“I only know one man who openly admits he’s a psychopath. I called him to see what he thought of the numbers Ms. DeCovny reported.
“First of all, it’s not one out of 10,” says Sam Antar. “It’s probably eight out of 10.”
Mr. Antar was the chief financial officer of Crazy Eddie, an electronics retailer in the New York area that became one of the more infamous stock-fraud cases of the late 1980s.”
Why did Goldman Sachs just suffer a multi billion dollar fraud judgement against them? Because they sold mortgage backed credit default swaps with insane zeal while betting against those instruments at the same time.
Why not take some time off your loud boasting about what an un-lazy journalist you are, get yourself a PCL-R and analyze some Wall Street firms?
Hi Don,
Psychopathy research is not my specialty area, so that’s why. You have to focus on what you do, and what I do is educate folks about psychology and mental health issues, do research into online mental health interventions and psychoeducation, and evaluate media reports about psychological research.
And your confusing anecdotal evidence with scientific data is at the core of what I’m getting at here. We all have some great stories to tell. But they aren’t equivalent to a scientific research study published in a peer-reviewed journal.
When you say “one out of every ten wall street employees is NOT a psychopath”, I don’t think you’re being crystal clear.
I read it as saying that 9 out of 10 might be psychopaths.
Yes! And that seems much more likely, given all the observational data we’ve got over the past two or three decades.
Seriously. No study you can find shows 10 percent of financial services employees are psychos? Therefore, there’s no way 10 percent could possibly be psychos?
That’s almost as stupid as the piece you’re trying to debunk, debunkie. You only get partial credit for leavening the effort with “one out of every ten wall street employees is NOT a psychopath.”
Yes, that’s how science works… “Well, since we think it’s true, even though we have no data to say one way or another, we’ll just go ahead and say it is.”
Science doesn’t base its conclusions on cultural or societal stereotypes about one group of people. It bases its conclusions upon empirical data.
So yes, please, by all means, cling to your stereotypes. Don’t let the lack of data interfere with your beliefs.
The important thing to remember here is that you can be an arrogant, greedy douchebag without meeting the clinical definition of psycopathy.
As some of the comments indicate, there is a segment of the public that *wants* to hear a claim like this, regardless of whether it is true. And a segment of the ruling class that wants to feed that desire.
So much easier to whip up hate against a group that invokes jealousy … so much easier than to take responsibility for actually dealing with the problem (hint: it isn’t “wall street bankers” that have been in charge the last few years …).
People obsessed with being at the top are invariably Narcissistic which is related to psychopathy in many ways,lack of empathy, drive to use/abuse others, obsession with ones own desires at the expense of others.
In some ways narcissists can be even more damaging to society than psychopaths due to their grandiosity, they are more likely to adversely affect millions or billions of people than the often lazy psychopath. I’d say Hitler was primarily narcissistic with somewhat less psychopathic and histrionic trait.
I often hear credible & convincing psychologists state psychopathic trait such as fearlessness, risk taking, cool headedness in a crisis… are a plus & admired in finance, war and even our beloved sports and competitive games.
It’s still hard for me to see how Wall Street could even exist with out a strong brew of Narcissism & Psychopathy.
None of the journalists involved in the Huffington (or other) postings contacted me. John Grohol and I had not met or communicated before the current issue arose, but he had no difficulty in tracking me down. Many journalists and radio/TV producers have contacted me over the years, and continue to do my best to accommodate them. But, many others do just as Grohol has indicated they do. Moreover, some of their articles also are accompanied by the caption, psycho, thereby continuing the common failure of the media to distinguish between psychopathy and psychoticism.
In evaluating claims about the prevalence of psychopathy it is important to note that they typically are based on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) or one of its derivatives. PCL-R scores can vary from 0 to 40 and reflect the degree to which the individual matches our conception of the prototypical psychopath. This is in line with recent evidence that (at least at the measurement level) the structure of psychopathy is dimensional (i.e., more or less), not categorical (i.e., either or). Dimensionality may pose a problem for diagnosing or categorizing someone as a “psychopath,” a problem shared by other clinical (e.g., anxiety, depression) and medical (e.g., hypertension, obesity) conditions that often are described and treated as categorical but in fact may be dimensional. But, dimensionality does not preclude the use of “diagnostic” thresholds for making clinical decisions. With respect to psychopathy, a PCL-R threshold of 30 (out of 40) has proven useful for describing persons as psychopathic for research and applied purposes. Those with a “heavy dose” of psychopathic features may present personal, psychological, and financial difficulties for others. However, even those with a somewhat lower dose may present significant problems for those around them, just as those with blood pressure readings below an accepted threshold for hypertension may be at medical risk. Finally, I note that while the study by Babiak, Neumann, & Hare (Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 2010, 28, 174-193) found that close to 4% of the corporate professionals in the study had a PCL-R score of 30 or higher, some 80% had scores from 0 to 3, similar to the pattern of scores found in the general population.
Your claim in the title, “Untrue: 1 out of Every 10 Wall Street Employees is a Psychopath”, was uncorroborated by the text of the article. It should read “Unproven: 1 out of Every 10 Wall Street Employees is a Psychopath”.
“Unproven: 1 out of Every 10 Obama staffers is a Psychopath”
Doesn’t really work, does it?
The burden of proof is on the person making the outlandish claim.
Exactly.
It’s as ridiculous as saying, “1 out of 10 trash collectors is an alien.”
If you’re so specific with the numbers — 1 out of 10 — there’d better be some actual data to back that up. In this case, there was none because the journalist relied on a single source who doesn’t have a single research citation to his name (at least none that I could find).
And this is what passes for journalism today, and what society seems to be okay with. “Repeat it often enough and it becomes true.” With the Internet acting as an endless echo chamber with stuff like this (I just replied to another article in The Atlantic again repeating this claim, with at least more skepticism this time), it’s only getting worse…
I am not sure why the findings do not hold. If you have properly randomized the persons even in the 7 corporations – then by the Central Limit theorem -the finding should hold and applies. I am not sure whatt is Dr. Hare’s methodology -but it should really be no different from polling which we find to be in general (with proper sampling) to be representative.
OK. The distribution of psychopaths is more like say, 1% to 4%. Alright. Now, if I’m thinking like a psychopath do I want to be a janitor? A short order cook? How about a doctor? Hmm. A Psychologist? Hmmm. Maybe an top salesman for major corporation? One who might become executive vice president, or higher? Hmmm. Psychopaths are con-artists and can be highly successful in achieving objectives. They lie covertly, they role-play convincingly, they cheat darkly, they steal legally, and occasionally they kill, and get away with murder. As a type, they share in a lack of conscience to some threshold degree. They have no capacity, or area of brain to feel responsible for the people they pluck, use, cheat, or kill. They are absolutely by definition, ruthless! They may act within bounds of cooperation to satisfy their goals. Or they may not and so be discovered and jailed. If the girl cooperates, how far CAN they go? Not the girl, but the psychopath. How much can HE get. They feel NO remorse. Their premise in life is justified on an epistemological level. They are never guilty, as that criminal who swears he’s innocent after overwhelming evidence convicts him.
He could be a Wall Street Hedge Fund manager who works only for HIS OWN benefit when entrusted with the fortunes of others. Bernie Madoff? And others who’ve similarly cheated? (And are cheating?)
So, OK, not one in ten. But one in fifty? One in a hundred? If these personalities would politely crush anyone along the ladder of their ascent then even one in a thousand can cause devastation at elevated levels of responsibility. Chances are you’ve known one. Maybe you didn’t understand what was wrong with that person. I’ve know one. If you meet one, run like hell.
I raised an eyebrow also . . because I think it’s
MUCH higher. I worked on wall street, with lawyers, and know politicians all to well! I believe it’s more like 70% of the CEO’s (i.e., powerful executives on wall street), as well as lawyers and politicians are lacking a conscience…. Which is (after all) the defining characteristic of the psychopath.
But I’m not scared to say it!
Dr Hare notes that diagnosing psychopathy is not a categorical, either/or proposition. Diagnostic checklists such as his serve to reduce a continuum of imperceptible gradations to one of discrete steps that allow more reliable diagnoses.
But more work needs to be done in eliminating class bias and accounting for non-obligative behaviors.
For some deeply-unhealthy reason, we regard the same behaviors differently depending the status of the actor.
Someone who routinely ignores, without hesitation or remorse, the legitimate rights of other people is much more likely to get a psychopath diagnosis if not wealthy. Why?
Someone who sees no reason not to rape and kill 10 women and who feels no remorse afterward will stand trial as a mass murderer and quite possibly will get a psychopath diagnosis and be locked up forever.
Compare that with the way we treat the ones who kill hundreds of thousands of innocents via military aggression. Or the ones who profit by the needless deaths of tens of thousands who cannot afford commercial healthcare. They, too, act without hesitation or remorse to deprive people of their legitimate rights, but they will never be diagnosed, never stand trial, never spend a day in prison.
Why do we support such a pathological difference in our diagnostic standards and instruments? Who benefits?
We don’t know how many psychopaths work in Wall Street (or anywhere else) because the answers we get depend completely on the questions we’re willing to ask.
“…one out of every ten wall street employees is NOT a psychopath.” Right. It´s probably more like 9 out of 10.
My father is the son of a psychiatrist and a commercial banker with fifty years’ experience. Having worked with him for the last twenty-five of those years, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard him say “Don’t lend any money to that guy; he’s a psychopath.” I used to think he was engaging in hyperbole.
If I had to do it over again, I would have kept records, and found a way to get them all scored on the diagnostic checklist. The list would be big enough to produce a normal distribution and so forth – good enough for publication in a peer reviewed journal.
I really wish you wouldn’t dump so much on people with loads of anecdotal inductive experience who do believe that there is a larger than normal percentage of psychopaths in these fields. I think they are better positioned to judge what is “untrue” on the basic point.
Not surprising that the NYT has published an op-ed 5/13/12 by William Deresiewicz that is using the same “study”. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/opinion/sunday/fables-of-wealth.html?src=me&ref=general
It seems to fit a narrative which makes it easier for people to deamonize success and group people. That, in turn, works well for the template that says: rich=evil. Another tactic of class warfare which just creates division. Thank you for clarifying the study, Dr. Grohol! I agree with you, the lack of journalistic integrity is astounding. V. Leff, LCSW, CCM
This study was picked up in the book The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson; after coming across this idea, he “investigated” it by visiting a town devastated by the shut down of a Sunbeam factory, and then talked to Al Dunlop. A fun, but definitely not scientific exploration of some of the issues discussed here.
Yes its untrue. The real number is probably closer to 1 in 4.
“So to be crystal clear here, one out of every ten wall street employees is NOT a psychopath.”To an English person that looks funny because it reads as nine out of ten wall street employees ARE psychopaths. It’s all about where you put the ‘not’, and Brits and Americans seem to have different habits on this.
Having worked for top-tier investment banks across the globe (London, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Mumbai)and a hedge fund for over 15 years, I would respectfully say that I do not agree with Mr. Grohol and the author has no evidence to refute the claim.
My own personal experience would suggest the figure is far higher than 10%. I have actually encountered these people and eventually realized that they genuinely have no conscience. It’s the only way to explain their behavior. Out of the 7 bosses I have had, 4 would tick most of the boxes put forward by Dr. Hare. That puts my % above 50%.
Pathological lying, abuse, bullying, criminal tendencies, drug and prostitution use is so highly prevalent in the industry GLOBALLY that it is actually normalized.
The evidence to back the claim is all there: the near collapse of the financial system, the lack of responsibility the financial leaders take for the mess we are in, continuing to lobby for less regulation, criminal activities such as insider trading, rate-fixing and other fraud (see Madoff), the abuse and sexual harassment cases that make headlines in the industry and a whole lot more that is not even known to the public, due to the isolation you suffer if you speak out or the physical/legal threats that are sure to come.
The industry is barely regulated, especially when it comes to the world of hedge funds. The politicians (at least in the US) are in the pockets of the top brass in the industry. Look at Obama and Romney’s donation lists.
There are clear criminal links to some hedge funds and you can find this information on the Internet. In fact, the way some of these hedge funds operate (intimidation, harassment, bear raids, stock price manipulation)and the methods they employ are not dissimilar to organised crime.
I agree with a previous post – there needs more work to be done in this area and people need to be aware. The problem has been getting worse as the good people in the financial industry are increasingly leaving or being driven out – leaving the rotten apples accounting for a higher proportion of the financial population.
Very dangerous when these people wield so much power and influence over our political process.
While I respect your opinion about your personal experiences, anecdotal evidence is not the same as scientific data. Anecdotal evidence is biased — not only because it comes from a single data point, but also because of human traits such as confirmation bias.
It’s not reliant upon me to provide evidence to refute a scientific lack of evidence — only to point it out. Which is all I do here — point out when the actual scientific evidence is lacking for a conclusion to be drawn.
In this case, not only was there a lack of scientific evidence, the evidence that was used was based upon a single study. You wouldn’t inject drugs into your body based upon a single scientific study, so why would we look at a single study in psychology and say, “Wow, that must be the way the world works here”?
I wonder how many psychiatrist and psychologists have psychopathologic tendencies? In the local medical board website, a lot of them get charged with having sexual inappropriate contact and unprofessional conduct.