🔫 If It Seems Like There Are Suspiciously Many Psychopaths in IT — It's Not Your Imagination.

In a recent study published in Personality and Individual Differences, researchers used graph analysis to examine the links between facets of the "Dark Triad" (psychopathy, Machiavellianism, narcissism) and career interests.

The assessment was based on the SETPOINT framework, where IT and programming fall under Technology (Software Developer, Computer Scientist), hands-on engineering under Things, working with people under People, and leadership and management under Influence. Here are the findings:

1️⃣ Psychopathy is drawn to technology. Among all Dark Triad aspects, only one shows a positive correlation (+0.1) with interest in IT — Psychopathic Meanness. In the article's methodology, this is defined as "lack of empathy, callousness, and hostility."

2️⃣ All three facets of psychopathy (Boldness, Meanness, Disinhibition) are also positively associated with the Things category (engineering systems and mechanisms). The researchers note that people with subclinical psychopathy prefer isolated work environments and interaction with systems to minimize social contact.

3️⃣ No vanity. A negative association with the Technology cluster was found for Narcissistic Admiration (tendency to attract social admiration). That is, people with psychopathic traits who go into development simply don't care whether they are admired.

The network revealed no gender differences in these correlations. In women and men with dark traits, interests are distributed similarly.

Now you know that the stereotype of the "toxic genius sociopath programmer who is best locked in a basement with servers" does have a scientific basis 🌚