I’ve been reading a bit on sociopaths and border line personalities for use in an upcoming chapter on how they affect your career, so this little gem from Medical News caught my eye: “Brain Scans Show Bullies May Enjoy Watching Pain“.

Yes, bullies enjoy hurting you. Wow. Like this should be news.

The study, written up in Biological Psychology, looked at the brain scans of boys aged 16-18 who had been diagnosed with aggressive conduct disorder (”bullies”), along with a control set of boys who were not overly aggressive, while they were looking at aggressive images. When the bullies saw videos of someone intentionally inflicting pain on someone else, the pleasure centers of their brains lit up like little fireworks displays. This didn’t happen in the controls.

What does this have to do with the office and your career? Plenty.

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