Abstract
After a historical examination of the concept of white collar crime, the authors highlight that severe psychopathic traits can be found in white-collar criminals, often studied only by analyzing their crimes, and not by assessing the people who committed crimes. Approaching white-collar crime from the personological perspective enable us to understand how certain individual traits (arrogance, love of risk, disregard for the damage inflicted to the next, manipulative tendencies, narcissism and others) can be ecological both for the psychopathic subject and—on the short term—for specific business contexts. Corporate Psychopathy is the criminological and personological construct embracing such behaviors.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Alalehto, T. (2003). Economic crime: Does personality matter? International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 47(3), 335–355.
Babiak, P., & Hare, R. D. (2006). Snakes in suits: When psychopaths go to work. New York: Regan.
Babiak, P., Neumann, C. S., & Hare, R. D. (2010). Corporate psychopathy: Talking the walk. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 28, 174–193.
Ben-David, S. (1991). Personality traits in white-collar offenders. Medicine and Law, 10, 527–536.
Blickle, G., Schlegel, A., Fassbender, P. & Klein, U. (2006). Some personality correlates of white collar crime. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 55(2), 220–233.
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. (2010). Corporate psychopaths and organisational type. Journal of Public Affairs, 10(4), 300–312.
Boddy, C. R. (2011a). Corporate psychopaths—organizational destroyers. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Boddy, C. R. (2011b). The corporate psychopaths theory of the global financial crisis. Journal of Business Ethics, 102, 255–259.
Braithwaite, J. (1984). Corporate crime in the pharmaceutical industry. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Bromberg, W. (1965). Crime and the mind. New York: McMillan.
Ceretti, A. (1987). Studies on the personality of the criminal white-collar. Review of Criminology, XVIII(2), 290–374.
Ceretti, A., & Merzagora, I. (1993). White-collar crime and medicine. The Italian Review of Criminology, IV(1), 19–46.
Clarke, J. (2005). Working with monsters: How to identify and protect yourself from the workplace psychopath. Sydney: Random House.
Cleckley, H. (1941). The mask of sanity: an attempt to reinterpret the so-called psychopathic personality. Oxford: Mosby.
Collins, J. M., & Schmidt, F. L. (1993). Personality, integrity, and white collar crime: a construct validity study. Personnel Psychology, 46(2), 295–31.
Cornwell, R. (1984). God’s banker. London: Gollancz.
Gao, Y., & Raine, A. (2010). Successful and unsuccessful psychopaths: A neurobiological model. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 28, 194–210.
Gurwin, L. (1984). The calvi affair: Death of a banker. London: Macmillan.
Hare, R. D. (2003). The hare psychopathy checklist-revised (PCL-R, 2nd ed.). Toronto: Multi-Health Systems.
Horoszowski, P. (1980). Economic opportunity special-conduct and crime. New York: Lexington.
Jones, G. E., & Kavanagh, M. J. (1996). An experimental examination of the effects of individual and situational factors on unethical behavioral intentions in the workplace. Journal of Business Ethics, 15(5), 511–523.
Lynam, D. R. (1997). Pursuing the psychopath; capturing the fledgling psychopath in a nomological net. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 106(3), 425–438.
Paradise, P. (1983). Crime in business—a criminological approach. Padua: Cedam.
Rayburn, J. M., & Rayburn, L. G. (1996). Relationship between machiavellianism and type-a personality and ethical orientation. Journal of Business Ethics, 15(11), 1209–1219.
Schmeelk, K. M., Sylvers, P., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2008). Trait correlates of relational aggression in a nonclinical sample: DSM-IV personality disorders and psychopathy. Journal of Personality Disorders, 22, 269–283.
Skeem, J. L., Polaschek, D. L. L., Patrick, C. J. & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2012). Psychopathic personality: bringing the gap between scientific evidence and public policy. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 12(3), 95–162.
Skeem, J. L., Poytress, N., Edens, J. F., Lilienfeld, S. O. & Cale, E. M. (2003). Psychopathic personality or personalities? Exploring potential variants of psychopathy and their implications for risk assessment. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 8, 513–546.
Sombart, W. (1994). The bourgeois. The development and the sources of the capitalist spirit. Parma: Guanda.
Spencer, J. C. (1965). White-collar crime. In T. Grygier, Jones, H. & Spencer, J. C. et al. (eds.), Criminology in transition. London: Tavistock.
Sutherland, E. H. (1949). White collar crime. New York: Dryden.
Terpstra, D. E., Rozell, E. J., & Robinson, R. K. (1993). The influence of personality and demographic variables on ethical decisions related to insider trading. Journal of Psychology, 127(4), 375–389.
Verbeke, W., Ouwerkerk, C., & Peelen, E. (1996). Exploring the contextual and individual factors on ethical decision making in salespeople. Journal of Business Ethics, 15(11), 1175–1185.
Yang, Y., Raine, A., Lencz, T., Bihrle, S., LaCasse, L. & Colletti, P. (2005). Prefrontal white matter in pathological liars. British Journal of Psychiatry, 187, 320–325.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Merzagora, I., Pennati, A., Travaini, G. (2014). Psychology and Psychopathology of White collar crime. In: Caneppele, S., Calderoni, F. (eds) Organized Crime, Corruption and Crime Prevention. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01839-3_20
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01839-3_20
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-01838-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-01839-3
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)