Editor’s note: A master’s student from Carleton University in Ottowa, Canada, is researching psychopaths in the workplace. She invited Lovefraud readers to participate in her research, and many of you did. Below are her preliminary findings.
Backstabbing bosses and callous co-workers: An examination of the experience of working with a psychopath.
Very little research has been conducted on the phenomenon of corporate psychopathy or victims of psychopaths. This study was one of the first to take a victimcentric approach to study how psychopaths behave in a workplace.
The purpose of the study was to better understand the effects (mental, physical, financial, social) of working with an individual who possesses psychopathic traits. We also wanted to determine how psychopaths interact with their peers in a work environment.
Several research questions were created prior to data collection to help understand the experience of working with a psychopathic colleague. Based on these questions, we found:
1)Â Â Â Â Emotional harm was the most common type of harm reported by participants, followed by physical consequences as a result of working with the psychopath, and financial harm.
2)Â Â Â Â The psychopath most often used relational manipulation to harm their colleagues. This refers to any social means used to undermine or control the victim and included behaviours such as: lying, manipulation, deceit, spreading rumours, public humiliation and turning colleagues against one another.
3)Â Â Â Â Most participants had a good first impression of the psychopath and described him or her as charismatic, outgoing, sociable, engaging, good looking, and articulate.
4)Â Â Â Â Most participants suspected they worked with a psychopath after witnessing the psychopath interact with others in the workplace. Others knew their colleague was a psychopath after being victimized or researching the behaviours they observed.
5)Â Â Â Â Most participants reported receiving support from their friends and family. Receiving support from work colleagues was the second most common source of support.
6)Â Â Â Â Emotional support was the most common type of support received and other types of support included: tangible support, informational support, spiritual support, and financial support.
7)Â Â Â Â Participants with psychopathic superiors have lower job satisfaction than participants with a psychopathic peer or subordinate.
8)Â Â Â Â High rates of workplace bullying, perpetrated by the psychopath, were reported by study participants.
The findings revealed that the experience of working with a psychopath is negative and has the potential to be very emotionally harmful to victims. These findings have important implications for human resource personnel as they emphasize the consequences of employing an individual with psychopathic traits. Almost all survivors reported some level of harm due to their relationship with the psychopath, however, coping and support helped to alleviate some of the effects. The results highlight the heterogeneity present in the experiences of victims of corporate psychopaths.
I would like to thank you again for your participation and for bravely sharing your story.
Shelley,
sometimes I think it’s just our fate.
You are doing very well considering. Continue to trust that these are lessons you need and will benefit from.
Kudos, for surviving and thriving.
Shelley,
Welcome to LF!
It sure is a mind game they play on us…..and in the workplace no less.
I hope you can be successful at your transfer, as we all need peace.
They seem to be around every corner……and having the tools to deal with them is key to getting through.
It’s interesting to see how my kids deal with them in everyday life, and what they learned having a spath dad.
I think in the end….as they all head out into the world….they are better off being equipped. And yes….stronger, much stronger!
There is alot of good articles here…..and alot of good people for support.
I wish you well.
EB
Hey Shelley – I participated in this study, too. I really appreciate how you stated about trying to make it work and then realizing it’s not about you anyway and you need to transfer. Wishing you the best of luck to find a better spot.
My situation was tiring and frustrating and before I found this site. LF has explained so many things to me. I’m thinking that in the workplace and in our personal lives, when we cross paths with a spath / narc it’s a whole different ball game that just having a bad day. Yes – it took me awhile to learn that.
I’ve decided that if those around us have awareness and solidarity against spaths / narcs, then we have a chance to weather the situation at work. But mostly I’ve seen fair weather friends, minions, fence sitters, and total ignorance of the reality playing out before our eyes. That’s when I think we need to just get away from the situation if we can. I used to keep trying, but now I know better.
My co-worker spath bullied and manipulated and when our work group was reassigned, I did not stay with my group. Best decision I ever made. She’s still at my workplace and still being herself.
I am grateful that the workplace is getting some attention about bullies, etc. A couple months ago, in our mass e-mailings, there was an ad for how to interview potential employees in order to avoid hiring problem people. I’m not in HR, but I was happy to see some awareness out there.
I, too, am sad when I see the potential for getting good things done, but cannot because of the monkey wrenches the spaths keep throwing in the machinery. Sad that the best decision really can be to leave. Take care.
I had one for a boss when I had to to support my children until she got promoted. Then I found out that I got her job when she died. Talk about sweet revenge. I say that now but I was not happy to find it out at the time.
After I remarried I had the luxury of quiting rather than puttinging up with psychopaths at work. I do not know how many are actually psychopaths but the workplace is full of people who climb the ladder over the bodies of others.
My ex, the psychopath got started wirh one of the best law firms in DC with my brother’s help. He slowly sank down to jack leg southern abulance chaser and sleezy divorce laywer in a small town in Georgia.
Unfortunately, many are able to work their way up to the Whitehouse and Congress. We have a nest of them there right now.
For me, a job has ceased to be “something meaningful,” anymore. At one point, it was very important for me to be the VERY best employee that I could be – often putting myself on the line, covering up for others, and allowing myself to be drawn into the workplace drama/trauma because my behaviors were all fear-based and shame-based.
Oh, hell no. Not anymore. A job is where I go to perform a task(s) and am compensated for this in the form of a paycheck. I will not get cozy with coworkers, bosses, supervisors, owners, etc….nope. I will do what I am required to do, and no more. I used to go above/beyond to make myself valuable. I don’t need to do that, anymore. I AM valuable, but I’m dammed sure going to be compensated for whatever it is that I’m contributing.
I think the Former Self was so desperate to be valued that I was PRIME for spath targeting. And, no job, paycheck, or compensation is worth that ugly dance, ever again.
Brightest blessings
Its no coincidence that just three hours before reading this post, I was looking up info about workplace bullies and harassment. One guy said these people were psychopaths in his youtube video. My past relationship with my spath has been shared with my coworkers and other workplace employees not of my company and they have laughed at me since january with cruel hatred. I have not said on word to them in relation to this and I do my work minding my own business, but they are so obsessed with the story, they can’t stop.
I can’t come at them because I was stupid enough to believe him. The insults invade all levels of their company and I can’t prevent people from talking. They haven’t come to me directly to find out if all that is being said about me is true. These are adults. People who feign sympathy and christian beliefs yet they make sure not to let a moment go by in commenting to themselves loudly about what he had done to me. Every single day I’m there.
The leaders of the pack of hyenas are in some ways like my spath. They seem likable to everyone, charismatic, and in good positions of earning money. One I know for a fact is a supervisor of that company. Today, they got renewed vigor in their laughing spree and I’m not quite sure what it is. I’m 7 1/2 months pregnant and don’t need this stress. Anyone else would have quit by now or done a columbine or committed suicide. I am doing my best to hang in there and not allow them to defeat me.
Did anyone see the TV special last week about “work place violence” that was caught on cctv? It was dateline or 20/20 and it showed people throwing computers, attacking other workers, screaming and yelling etc. The people who were narratiing the show seemed shocked by this. I was not shocked at all.
Of course we’d like to think that we are safe when we go work but that is not always the case.
Sometimes the film shows someone acting like a 2-year old throwing a tantrum if you just looked at the body language, sometimes it appeared the rage was more adult and directed toward another worker. Scary stuff.
This program only centered on physical violence, not emotional violence.
I used to have a “career” and a “career track” but there came a time in an abusive situation in the specialty hospital that was not just directed at me, but at the entire nursing staff–since my career was important to me I stuck out the abusive situation for 6 months and was one of the last to leave. I just couldn’t believe that the “powers that be” could allow this situation to continue. Well, the trouble maker got fired, but by then it was so chaotic, and during the great nursing shortage of the 1980s, then I left, and got a better job, another level UP the “career track” A month or so after I left the CEO got fired…she was as much a victim as the rest of us, she just fell for the psychopath control freak’s love bomb when she was new in her job, unsure, and the bad woman offered to “help” her. Yea, helped them both OUT of jobs, and destroyed the company.
One of the things I learned in management was that making personal friends at the office is not a good idea.
Another thing is that if you want to learn about someone, don’t talk to their boss about them, talk to the people who work FOR them….there’s where you will get the real skinny.
Don’t take just one person’s word about an incident if you can get witnesses.
Truthy,, I am retired now and don’t have to put up with the “office politics” any more and it is a great weight lifted off my back. The last two jobs I had were politically a mess (well they all were but these were pretty bad even above that other norm) the thing about the last two was that I was in a position to QUIT and walk out the door, purse in hand, when the stress got bad and wasn’t emotionally attached to the “career” it was by then JUST A JOB.
I worked with female physician and we were talking about the JOBS she had, rather than her “career track”—she took off time to raise her twins, get them in school, then worked nights in an ER for a while, then came to the clinic I worked in 2-3 days a week, (she later quit entirely to stay home with her kids) but anyway at the time we were talking she was working part time.
I always thought of being a physician as a lifetime commitment, you gave up everything else to be a physician and that is why I never wanted to be one like my grandfather. Dr. X said, “IT IS JUST A JOB…LIKE ANY OTHER *J*O*B*
It wasn’t too long that dr. X turned in her resignation and went back to being a full time mom. I ran in to her in a store the other day, I hadn’t seen her in 6-8 years. She had one of her now teenaged twins with her. She looked well.
When I left the job where we both worked (in clinics owned by a hospital) my next job was working for a psychopath and 6 months in I realized that the warnings I ad received about this woman as a boss were TRUE. I gave the minimum amount of notice I could professionally give and left.
The last job I had was only 2 days a week for another hospital working as charge nurse on the weekends in a psych unit of mostly old and very physically sick patients. It was very stressful, but it was a JOB that was all. I went and did my JOB and came home and my husband or sons would say “It’s okay, you don’t have to go back for 5 days.”
After my husband was killed I took off 3 months but then they wanted me to come back. So I tried, but realized I couldn’t work under that stress load any more and so turned in my resignation and retired to take care of MYSELF. It was just a JOB like Dr. X had said. Just like stocking shelves at wal Mart is a JOB, or teaching school, or being president of the US, it is just a JOB.
as you said, Truthy “no job, paycheck, or compensation is worth that ugly dance, ever again.”
Thanks all….Opalrose, Spathinator and ErinBrock…
The irony is that I found Lovefraud almost 2 years ago when I was searching for info on workplace spaths. It helped me understand my last relationship. However, that didn’t help me from stepping right back into the sh**.
And yes…like Truthspeak says…work has ceased to ‘be meaningful’ to me anymore. It isn’t that I don’t like the work..it’s that I’m detaching from the drama.
As I’m going through this process with Human Rights…other spaths are coming out of the woodwork to throw spanners in the works…and it doesn’t matter..well, it does, but now it’s just part of the game and I’m more ready.
Yes, Wok_chang, I had the same experience…at first denial from co-workers (and colluding in harrassment), but now…they aren’t in denial. I can’t trust any of them. Sad, but reality.
It’s really sucked, but boy have I grown in the past months. At 50 – who would think?
I hope a transfer works out…and if not, well, Tim Horton’s sounds good (even at 1/4 the pay)…but I’ll battle on..only because I truly don’t have an investment in the outcome anymore.
Yes, Oxy, I saw that show too.
And did anyone watch Dr. Phil (yuk)…promoting his new book about Life Rules. He calls them Baiters. OMG…call them what they are.
Shelley
Oxy,
I think for me the most shocking part of the show was the HR consultant who has written a book about the hidden antics of HR departments.
It made me feel out of my depth in dealing with workplace abuse.
Shelley
This was a great read. My ex boss (friend) did all what was written here. But I am the only one who knows it. I didn’t know that My boss was a Sociopath intell after I was victimized and forced out after ten years. He has everyone fooled.The Emotional harm and the personal loss of time is something you can just pray to get over. He was a big game player, gasslighter, projection, lier, con man ect. I have read all your comments. This may not help much, but I understand what you are going through.