Are Some Business Executives Really Psychopaths?

An article today in Globe and Mail discussed how new brain imaging research is revealing more details on what makes some people psychopaths. It's thought that about 1% of the population is psychopathic and that criminals may be suffering from brain disfunction stemming from the disorder. The article also stated that the behaviors that are characteristic of psychopathy - manipulation, cunning, lack of empathy, inability to feel true emotion - may, in its functional form, also be the hallmark of CEOs and business executives. The disorder seems to stem from an abnormal structure of the amygdala - the brain structure responsible for processing fear - and the corpus callosum - which transfer neural information between the brain hemispheres. Interestingly, the corpus callosum is supposed to be more developed in women and those individuals with better social and emotional intelligence. An interesting question is whether these neural abnormalities could predict unethical behavior in business, think financial meltdown, and whether we are teaching and promoting the right set of skills in business schools where young people could be trained to counteract behavioral and cognitive deficiencies.