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Here’s a cosy thought: According to a survey conducted by psychologist Kevin Dutton, some of society’s most highly-regarded occupations – including police officers and surgeons - are held by a disproportionate number of psychopaths.
There is some good news though; while most people associate psychopaths with Hannibal Lecter-types, apparently not all of them kill people. Around 15-25% of people in prison suffer from the condition, but many people with psychopathic tendencies aren’t criminals - they just don’t feel all that bad if you happen to die on the operating table while they pick away at your brain with a rusty scalpel.
According to Dutton’s study, the Great British Psychopath Survey, the ten professions most likely to be held by psychopaths are (in order from most likely to least):
And, just so you know where you’re safest, here are the professions with the least psychopaths (from least to most):
Of course, none of this means that every lawyer - or journalist - is a psychopath (hey, stop rolling your eyes!), it’s just that there appears to be an overlap between psychopathic personality traits and the types of people who go into the above professions.
Now, where did I leave that pesky chainsaw…
