Read Online Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Robert D. Hare, Paul Babiak - Free Book Online
Book: Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Robert D. Hare, Paul Babiak
Read Free Book Online
Authors: Robert D. Hare, Paul Babiak
Tags: &NEW
Ads: Link
her calendar? Are you a union representative who can smooth over employee conflicts and difficulties?
Are you plugged into the grapevine in your company, and do you have access to information that is circulated to everyone in the know?
Or maybe you are the person in the mailroom who goes the extra mile to make sure important documents reach their destinations on time? These are examples of informal power, an important form of power that is the subject of study in business schools and by organizational psychologists. Your informal power or special authority is a useful asset that corporate psychopaths can use to further their larger, personal objectives.
Besides assessing the potential gain from others, psychopaths assess their emotional weak points and psychological defenses in order to work out a plan of attack. Individual psychopaths do this in different ways and to varying degrees because personal style, experience, and preference play a role in this assessment as well. Some psychopaths enjoy a strong challenge, such as that posed by a confident, well-insulated celebrity or an astute professional with a strong ego.
Others prefer to prey on people who are in a weakened or vulnerable What You See May Not Be What You See 45
state. These might include people who are lonely or in need of emotional support and companionship, the elderly on fixed incomes, the underage and naive, or those who have recently been hurt or victimized by others. Although the usefulness of this latter group may not appear to be obvious from a strictly monetary standpoint, their perceived “ease” of approach makes them attractive to the criminal psychopath who weighs the investment in time and energy.
Chaos: Opportunity Knocks
In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Louisiana, and large parts of the American Gulf Coast. Although the property damage and the human suffering were staggering, the resulting chaos and confusion provided a unique opportunity for those more concerned with their own coldblooded self-interests than with the carnage around them.
At the time, Patrick Meehan, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern Dis-trict of Pennsylvania, had this to say: “If the lessons of September 11 and the Asian tsunami are learned, some coldhearted, evil scam artists will use this occasion to perpetrate fraud, lining their own pockets at the expense of the hurricane victims.” His statement was less prophetic than it was a sober comment on the fact that there are lots of common thugs, criminals, and predators ready to make a buck out of someone else’s tragedy. Some of their depredations no doubt were related to poverty, mob mentality, and understandable survival instincts. However, for many opportunistic psychopaths—on the street and in the boardroom—their egregious acts were simply business as usual.
Several psychopathic traits come into play in this phase. While on the surface psychopaths generally want to come across in public as at the top of their game and wear the suit of status, success, and socia-bility, many are actually playing out a parasitic lifestyle. They prefer 46
S N A K E S I N S U I T S
living off the work of others rather than their own efforts, so being a drifter, moocher, or wastrel is a common lifestyle choice despite declarations to the contrary. In service of this lifestyle, they have no mis-givings about asking for and often demanding financial support from other people. Often, the supporter is a family member or friend, but it can easily be a stranger whom they seduce or con into providing food, shelter, and a source of income. It is not unusual, or wrong, for people to rely on the help of others, including public aid, during rough times in their lives, but psychopaths remorselessly use others even when able-bodied and capable of supporting themselves. Not all psychopaths are out of work, of course. But even psychopaths who have jobs like to mooch off others in overt and covert ways; they take from
Are you plugged into the grapevine in your company, and do you have access to information that is circulated to everyone in the know?
Or maybe you are the person in the mailroom who goes the extra mile to make sure important documents reach their destinations on time? These are examples of informal power, an important form of power that is the subject of study in business schools and by organizational psychologists. Your informal power or special authority is a useful asset that corporate psychopaths can use to further their larger, personal objectives.
Besides assessing the potential gain from others, psychopaths assess their emotional weak points and psychological defenses in order to work out a plan of attack. Individual psychopaths do this in different ways and to varying degrees because personal style, experience, and preference play a role in this assessment as well. Some psychopaths enjoy a strong challenge, such as that posed by a confident, well-insulated celebrity or an astute professional with a strong ego.
Others prefer to prey on people who are in a weakened or vulnerable What You See May Not Be What You See 45
state. These might include people who are lonely or in need of emotional support and companionship, the elderly on fixed incomes, the underage and naive, or those who have recently been hurt or victimized by others. Although the usefulness of this latter group may not appear to be obvious from a strictly monetary standpoint, their perceived “ease” of approach makes them attractive to the criminal psychopath who weighs the investment in time and energy.
Chaos: Opportunity Knocks
In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Louisiana, and large parts of the American Gulf Coast. Although the property damage and the human suffering were staggering, the resulting chaos and confusion provided a unique opportunity for those more concerned with their own coldblooded self-interests than with the carnage around them.
At the time, Patrick Meehan, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern Dis-trict of Pennsylvania, had this to say: “If the lessons of September 11 and the Asian tsunami are learned, some coldhearted, evil scam artists will use this occasion to perpetrate fraud, lining their own pockets at the expense of the hurricane victims.” His statement was less prophetic than it was a sober comment on the fact that there are lots of common thugs, criminals, and predators ready to make a buck out of someone else’s tragedy. Some of their depredations no doubt were related to poverty, mob mentality, and understandable survival instincts. However, for many opportunistic psychopaths—on the street and in the boardroom—their egregious acts were simply business as usual.
Several psychopathic traits come into play in this phase. While on the surface psychopaths generally want to come across in public as at the top of their game and wear the suit of status, success, and socia-bility, many are actually playing out a parasitic lifestyle. They prefer 46
S N A K E S I N S U I T S
living off the work of others rather than their own efforts, so being a drifter, moocher, or wastrel is a common lifestyle choice despite declarations to the contrary. In service of this lifestyle, they have no mis-givings about asking for and often demanding financial support from other people. Often, the supporter is a family member or friend, but it can easily be a stranger whom they seduce or con into providing food, shelter, and a source of income. It is not unusual, or wrong, for people to rely on the help of others, including public aid, during rough times in their lives, but psychopaths remorselessly use others even when able-bodied and capable of supporting themselves. Not all psychopaths are out of work, of course. But even psychopaths who have jobs like to mooch off others in overt and covert ways; they take from
Similar Books
