Robert Hare is a world-renowned psychiatrist and professor at the University of British Columbia. He has developed the Psychopathy Checklist, which is used by mental health specialists as a means of diagnosing very serious mental illness.
The checklist is a series of characteristics commonly found in psychopaths. These are people who have no conscience. They are described as being manipulative, charming, glib, deceptive, parasitic, irresponsible, selfish, callous, promiscuous, impulsive, antisocial, and aggressive.
The Corporation as Psychopath
When Jennifer Abbott, Mark Achbar, and Joel Bakan were making the 2003 documentary The Corporation they went to Dr. Hare with an interesting question. They wanted to know whether or not there are similarities in the behaviour of psychopaths and modern corporations.
Dr. Hare’s findings, as outlined in the film, suggest corporations display the following behaviours:
- Callous unconcern for the feelings of others;
- Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships;
- Reckless disregard for the safety of others;
- Deceitfulness: Repeated lying and conning of others for profit;
- Incapacity to experience guilt; and,
- Failure to conform to the social norms with respect to lawful behaviours.
The Exploding Ford Pinto
The story of a car manufacturer is just one of many examples of how these characteristics show up in practice.
In September 1970, the Ford Motor Company introduced its Pinto model. Seven years later, after a number of accidents in which Ford Pintos erupted into deadly fireballs, Mother Jones published an expose of the vehicle. The magazine’s article, “Pinto Madness” by Mark Downey (September/October 1977 issue) alerted the public to a flaw in the car’s design that Ford knew about and decided not to rectify. The problem was that the gas tanks ruptured easily in rear-end collisions.
Engineers discovered the defect in pre-production testing but the assembly-line was already tooled so Ford decided to go ahead and make the car without modifications.
The magazine estimated that at least 500 people burned to death needlessly. A memo came to light in which Ford executives compared the cost of fixing the car against the cost of compensating victims. Time Magazine in its "The 50 Worst Cars of All Time" publication wrote, “…the Ford Pinto memo, which ruthlessly calculates the cost of reinforcing the rear end ($121 million) versus the potential payout to victims ($50 million). Conclusion? Let ‘em burn.”
Psychopaths as Corporate Leaders
A study published by The Stanford Graduate School of Business in September 2005 says it all with its title: “Emotions Can Negatively Impact Investment Decisions.”
The authors of the study commented that, because psychopaths can’t feel emotions such as fear, they are well suited to executive decision-making. They can eliminate emotion from weighing the upside and downside of actions; there will be no sleepless nights for them because they have closed a plant and put thousands out of work.
The 2008 Australian documentary, I, Psychopath, is a careful examination of how this plays out in one corporate executive. The film follows Sam Vaknin, a financial analyst and businessman.
As the documentary’s website points out, “He has achieved more than most people do in life...having won and lost prestige, fortune, friends, and love, not once, but numerous times.” After being jailed for fraud in 1995 Vaknin embarks on a journey of self discovery.
He admits to being a bullying and aggressive narcissist, but he discovers he’s more than that; he’s a psychopath.
As the documentary points out the vast majority of psychopaths are not crazed axe murderers: “Most of them function incognito in high-powered professions, all the way to the very top.”
Looking for Corporate Apologies
Today, the public is angry and looking for mea culpas from the people who brought financial ruin to so many families. Some of those caught up in the latest round of corporate scandals may apologize in public, however the psychopaths among them won’t actually mean it.
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