Corporate Psychopathy: Examining Psychopathy, Empathy and Deception amongst Business Management and Psychology Students.

Martin, Rachel (2015) Corporate Psychopathy: Examining Psychopathy, Empathy and Deception amongst Business Management and Psychology Students. Manchester Metropolitan University. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Corporate psychopathy is a relatively new area of research (Mathieu et al, 2014) and has important implications for organisations and society (Stout, 2005). Previous research has reported a relationship between psychopathy and individuals studying business (Wilson and McCarthy, 2011). Psychopathy has also been related to low empathy (Jonason et al, 2013) and deception (Jonason et al, 2014). Given the potential ramifications, it is an important area to investigate further. The study comprised of a 2 x 2 between-groups design measuring psychopathy, empathy and deception amongst Business Management and Psychology students (N= 172). Self-report questionnaires were administered to participants and consisted of three scales; the Self-Report Psychopathy-Short Form scale (SRP-SF) (Paulhus et al, 2013), an empathy sub-scale (Barchard, 2001) and a lie sub-scale (Eysenck et al, 1985). Data was computed into SPSS and a two-way ANOVA was conducted to test the main effects and interaction effects. A significant interaction was reported for empathy, F = 3.91; df = 1, 168; p < .05, consistent with previous research. However, no significant interaction was observed for psychopathy. Based on these findings, it is concluded that future research is imperative to investigate corporate psychopathy further. Limitations and conclusions of the current study are discussed.