Abstract
Through the lens of corporate psychopathy theory, this chapter integrates theoretical perspectives on abusive supervision, workplace civility, dark humor, employee autonomy, and managerial psychopathy to examine the processes through which these variables influence employee mental health and illness. Findings from quantitative studies of the effects of working under psychopathic managers are integrated with qualitative research on the same phenomena, to gain a robust understanding of the ways managerial psychopathy contributes to employee mental health and illness. This chapter presents information regarding how psychopathic employees use incivility, bullying, aggressive humor, and close employee control to manage their environment via creating a climate of fear and disengagement and that this results in deteriorating employee mental health.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Andrews, G., & Slade, T. (2001). Interpreting scores on the Kessler psychological distress scale (K10). Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 25(6), 494–497.
Blackburn, R. (1988). On moral judgements and personality disorders: The myth of psychopathic personality revisited. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 153(4), 505–512.
Boddy, C. R. (2005). The implications of corporate psychopaths for business and society: An initial examination and a call to arms. Australasian Journal of Business and Behavioural Sciences, 1(2), 30–40.
Boddy, C. R. (2006). The dark side of management decisions: Organisational psychopaths. Management Decision, 44(9/10), 1461–1475.
Boddy, C. R. (2011a). The corporate psychopaths theory of the global financial crisis. Journal of Business Ethics, 102(2), 255–259.
Boddy, C. R. (2011b). Corporate psychopaths, bullying and unfair supervision in the workplace. Journal of Business Ethics, 100(3), 367–379.
Boddy, C. R. (2011c). Corporate psychopaths, bullying and unfair supervision in the workplace (Report: 01674544). http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=60874461&site=ehost-live
Boddy, C. R. (2011d). Corporate psychopaths: Organisational destroyers. Palgrave Macmillan.
Boddy, C. R. (2014). Corporate psychopaths, conflict, employee affective well-being and counterproductive work behaviour. Journal of Business Ethics, 121(1), 107–121.
Boddy, C. R. (2015). Organisational psychopaths: A ten year update. Management Decision, 53(10), 2407–2432.
Boddy, C. R. (2017). Psychopathic leadership a case study of a corporate psychopath CEO. Journal of Business Ethics, 145(1), 141–156.
Boddy, C. R., Boulter, L., & Fishwick, S. (2020a). How so many toxic employees ascend to leadership. In A. Ragnar (Ed.), Exploring and debating bad leadership: Education, Selection Benefits and Role Expectations. Palgrave Macmillan.
Boddy, C. R., & Croft, R. (2016). Marketing in a time of toxic leadership. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 19(1), 44–64.
Boddy, C. R., Malovany, E., Kunter, A., & Gull, G. (2020b). Employee well-being under corporate psychopath leaders. In S. Dhiman (Ed.), The palgrave handbook of workplace well-being (pp. 1–28). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02470-3_74-1
Boddy, C. R., & Miles, D. (2014). Corporate psychopaths and mental health. HRZone, 1. https://www.hrzone.com/lead/culture/corporate-psychopaths-and-mental-health
Boddy, C. R., Miles, D., Sanyal, C., & Hartog, M. (2015). Extreme managers, extreme workplaces: Capitalism, organizations and corporate psychopaths. Organization, 22(4), 530–551.
Boddy, C. R., & Taplin, R. (2016). The influence of corporate psychopaths on job satisfaction and its determinants. International Journal of Manpower, 37(6), 965–988.
Boddy, C. R., & Taplin, R. (2017). A note on workplace psychopathic bullying–Measuring its frequency and severity. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 34, 117–119.
Boulter, L., & Boddy, C. R. (2020). Subclinical psychopathy, interpersonal workplace exchanges and moral emotions through the lens of affective events theory. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 8(1), 44–58.
Brinkley, C. A., Newman, J. P., Widiger, T. A., & Lynam, D. R. (2004). Two approaches to parsing the heterogeneity of psychopathy. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 11, 69–94.
Cleckley, H. (1941/1988). The mask of sanity (5th ed.). Private Printing for Educational Use by E. Cleckley (Originally published by C.V. Mosley Co. in 1941).
Coid, J., Yang, M., Ullrich, S., Roberts, A., & Hare, R. D. (2009). Prevalence and correlates of psychopathic traits in the household population of Great Britain. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 32, 65–73.
Cooke, D. J., Hart, S. D., Logan, C., & Michie, C. (2012). Explicating the construct of psychopathy: Development and validation of a conceptual model, the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality (CAPP). International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, 11(4), 242–252. https://doi.org/10.1080/14999013.2012.746759
Cooke, D. J., & Michie, C. (2001). Refining the construct of psychopathy: Towards a hierarchical model. Psychological Assessment, 13(2), 171–188.
Cooke, D. J., Michie, C., Hart, S. D., & Clark, D. A. (2004). Reconstructing psychopahy: Clarifying the significance of antisocial behavior in the diagnosis of psychopathic personality disorder. Journal of Personality Disorders, 18(4), 337–357.
Cooper, C. D., Kong, D. T., & Crossley, C. D. (2018). Leader humor as an interpersonal resource: Integrating three theoretical perspectives. Academy of Management Journal, 61(2), 769–796.
de Almeida Brites, J., Ladera, V., Perea, V., & GarcÃa, R. (2015, December 01). Verbal functions in psychopathy. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 59(14), 1536–1549. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X14545608
Furnham, A., Richards, S. C., & Paulhus, D. L. (2013). The Dark Triad of personality: A 10-year review. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(3), 199–216.
Hancock, J. T., Woodworth, M. T., & Porter, S. (2011). Hungry like the wolf: A word-pattern analysis of the language of psychopaths. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 18(1), 102–114. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8333.2011.02025.x
Hervé, H. F., Justus Hayes, P., & Hare, R. D. (2003, November 01). Psychopathy and sensitivity to the emotional polarity of metaphorical statements. Personality and Individual Differences, 35(7), 1497–1507. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(02)00365-3
Kessler, R. C., Andrews, G., Colpe, L. J., Hiripi, E., Mroczek, D. K., Normand, S.-L., Walters, E. E., & Zaslavsky, A. M. (2002). Short screening scales to monitor population prevalences and trends in non-specific psychological distress. Psychological Medicine, 32(6), 959–976.
Layard, R., Chisholm, D., Patel, V., & Saxena, S. (2013). Mental illness and unhappiness. SSRN.
Levenson, M. R. (1992). Rethinking psychopathy. Theory & Psychology, 2(1), 51–71.
Louth, S. M., Williamson, S., Alpert, M., Pouget, E. R., & Hare, R. D. (1998, May 01). Acoustic distinctions in the speech of male psychopaths. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 27(3), 375–384. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023207821867
Mahaffey, K. J., & Marcus, D. K. (2006). Interpersonal perception of psychopathy: A social relations analysis. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 25(1), 53–74.
Mallén, F., Chiva, R., Alegre, J., & Guinot, J. (2015). Are altruistic leaders worthy? The role of organizational learning capability. International Journal of Manpower, 36(3), 271–295.
Malovany, E. (2014). An enquiry into corporate psychopathy: The unheard voice of follower experience (Doctoral thesis). Capell University, Minneapolis, MN.
Marchand, A., Durand, P., Haines, V., & Harvey, S. (2015). The multilevel determinants of workers’ mental health: Results from the SALVEO study. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 50(3), 445–459.
Marshall, A., Baden, D., & Guidi, M. (2013). Can an ethical revival of prudence within prudential regulation tackle corporate psychopathy? Journal of Business Ethics, 117(3), 559–568.
Mathieu, C., Babiak, P., Jones, D. N., Neumann, C., & Hare, R. D. (2012). What are the effects of psychopathic traits in a supervisor on employees’ psychological distress? Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict, 16(2), 91–94.
McCleskey, J. (2013). The dark side of leadership: Measurement, assessment, and intervention. Business Renaissance Quarterly, 8(2/3), 35–53.
McIlwain, D., Evans, J., Caldis, E., Cicchini, F., Aronstan, A., Wright, A., & Taylor, A. (2012). Strange moralities: Vicarious emotion and moral emotions in Machiavellian and psychopathic personality styles. In R. Langdon & C. Mackenzie (Eds.), Emotions, imagination, and moral reasoning (pp. 119–148). Taylor & Francis.
Mesmer-Magnus, J., Glew, D. J., & Viswesvaran, C. (2012). A meta-analysis of positive humor in the workplace. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 27(2), 155–190.
Morrow, R. (2008). Psychopathic storytelling: The effect of valence on self and time in psychopathic language use (Honors thesis). Cornell University, New York, NY.
Murphy, C., & Vess, J. (2003). Subtypes of psychopathy: Proposed differences between narcissistic, borderline, sadistic and antisocial psychopaths. Psychiatric Quarterly, 74(1), 11–29.
Nelson, L., & Tonks, G. (2011, September 13–15th). Management inertia and psychopathic behaviour. British Academy of Management Annual Conference.
Oyewunmi, A. E., Akinnusi, D. M., & Oyewunmi, O. A. (2018). Of predators and preys: Corporate psychopathy and employee burnout as parallels. Periodica Polytechnica Social and Management Sciences, 26(2), 149–156.
Palmen, D. G. C., Derksen, J. J. L., & Kolthoff, E. (2019, December 06). High self-control may support ‘successfulness’ in psychopathic leadership: Self-control versus impulsivity in psychopathic leadership. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 50, Article 101338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2019.101338
Palmen, D. G. C., Kolthoff, E. W., & Derksen, J. J. L. (2021, November 01). The need for domination in psychopathic leadership: A clarification for the estimated high prevalence of psychopathic leaders. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 61, Article 101650. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2021.101650
Proyer, R. T., Flisch, R., Tschupp, S., Platt, T., & Ruch, W. (2012). How does psychopathy relate to humor and laughter? Dispositions toward ridicule and being laughed at, the sense of humor, and psychopathic personality traits. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 35(4), 263–268.
Ray, J. J., & Ray, J. A. B. (1982). Some apparent advantages of subclinical psychopathy. The Journal of Social Psychology, 117(1), 135–142.
Romero, E., & Pescosolido, A. (2008). Humor and group effectiveness. Human Relations, 61(3), 395–418.
Sanecka, E. (2013). The effects of supervisors subclinical psychopathy on subordinates organizational commitment, job satisfaction and satisfaction with supervisor. The Journal of Education Culture and Society, 2, 172–191.
Stout, M. (2005). The ice people: Living among us are people with no conscience, no emotions, and no conception of love: Welcome to the chilling world of the sociopath. Psychology Today, 72–76.
Van Scotter, J. R., & Roglio, K. D. D. (2018). CEO bright and dark personality: Effects on ethical misconduct. Journal of Business Ethics, 164, 451–475.
Veselka, L., Schermer, J. A., Martin, R. A., & Vernon, P. A. (2010). Relations between humor styles and the Dark Triad traits of personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 48(6), 772–774.
Viding, E. (2004). Annotation: Understanding the development of psychopathy. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45(8), 1329–1337.
Walton, M. (2021). Silent killers!—Toxic leaders? Management Insight, 17(1), 27–36.
Woodworth, M., Hancock, J., Porter, S., Hare, R., Logan, M., O’Toole, M. E., & Smith, S. (2012). The language of psychopaths: New findings and implications for law enforcement. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 81, 28.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Boddy, C., Taplin, R. (2024). How Managerial Psychopathy Contributes to Employee Mental Health and Illness. In: Germain, ML. (eds) Psychopathy in the Workplace. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55214-4_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55214-4_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-55213-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-55214-4
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)