The Role of Interpersonal Influence in Counterbalancing Psychopathic Personality Trait Facets at Work

Psychopathy

Although originally studied within clinical settings among individuals incarcerated for some of the most heinous crimes in history, psychopathy represents a collection of malevolent, exploitive, agentic, and callous personality traits (Babiak & Hare, 2006; Cleckley, 1988; Hare, 1999). People with extremely elevated levels of psychopathic personality are commonly referred to as “clinical psychopaths” (LeBreton et al., 2006); however, such individuals compose only roughly 1% of the population (Hare). Nonetheless, because psychopathic personality exists on a continuum, research estimates that roughly 10% of individuals possess more moderate levels of these tendencies (LeBreton et al.); as such, individuals with these subclinical levels of psychopathy are still able to function both at work and within society at large.

High levels of psychopathy are characterized by selfish conduct, manipulativeness, remorselessness, arrogance, low levels of fear and anxiety, egocentrism, impulsiveness, and pursuit of unmitigated agency (Boddy, 2006; Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Given that individuals with elevated levels of psychopathy are highly self-confident, they often engage in grandiose and arrogant displays of self-promotion (LeBreton et al., 2006; Lynam & Widiger, 2007). Individuals with high levels of psychopathic personality trait tend to be charming, outgoing, cool under pressure, and willing to take risks (Hare, 1999; LeBreton et al.), which are characteristics they deploy to successfully influence others. Moreover, a hallmark of individuals with elevated levels of psychopathy is their lack of empathy, guilt, and remorse (Decuyper, De Pauw, De Fruyt, De Bolle, & De Clercq, 2009). Those with high levels of psychopathic personality traits are unable to forge meaningful personal relationships with others largely due to their disregard for norms of social exchange (O’Boyle et al., 2012), their serial deceit, and their maliciousness towards others (Babiak & Hare, 2006). Thus, as a testament to their paucity of the more communal traits (Paulhus & Williams), individuals with elevated levels of psychopathy are able to use and abuse others as stepping-stones to achieve their own self-interests and personal needs without any regard for the harm, pain, or discomfort they cause to such victims.

Research suggests that these tendencies can be subsumed by two orthogonal overarching factors—fearless dominance and self-centered impulsivity; coldheartedness does not load on either factor (Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005; Patrick, Edens, Poythress, & Lilienfeld, 2006). Coldheartedness captures the deficient affective experience of individuals with elevated levels of psychopathy (e.g., guiltlessness, low anxiety). Accordingly, individuals with elevated levels of coldheartedness experience little guilt; show little concern, empathy, or sense of loyalty to others; and maintain low levels of both anxiety and fear (Cleckley, 1988; Hare, 1999). Fearless dominance captures the deceptive and egotistical interpersonal style (e.g., egocentrism, belief that rules do not apply to them) of individuals with elevated levels of psychopathy. Individuals with elevated levels of fearless dominance seek and get attention from others, are resilient to stress, and experience no social fear; moreover, such individuals tend to engage in self-promotion behaviors, tend not to abide by common rules of exchange, and, perhaps not surprisingly, put their needs before others (Boddy, 2006; Hare; LeBreton et al., 2006; O’Boyle et al., 2012).

Finally, the self-centered impulsivity component of psychopathic personality indicates that such individuals are thrill seeking, lacking diligence, and unconcerned with deadlines or responsibilities; as a function of this impulsivity and irresponsibility, individuals with elevated self-centered impulsivity often pursue means to satiate their immediate needs. Moreover, such individuals oftentimes blame others for what befalls them, fail to think their actions through, and struggle to forge meaningful, lasting relationships with others (e.g., coworkers; Cleckley, 1988; Hare, 1999). Previous meta-analytic research (O’Boyle et al., 2012) has found substantial, but very low, associations between overall psychopathy scores, CWBs, and job performance, thereby suggesting the likelihood that subtle differences exist among the different dimensions of psychopathy and/or the existence of moderating effects.

Accordingly, we suggest that certain dimensions of psychopathy will be differently related to undesirable interpersonal performance domains, namely, CWB-I and CP. Given that coldheartedness reflects a deficient affective experience (Cooke & Michie, 2001), we do not expect to observe an association of this facet of psychopathy and the interpersonal performance domains of interest (i.e., CWB-I and CP).

However, we do suggest that self-centered impulsivity will be positively related to CWB-I, which includes those discretionary employee behaviors that violate interpersonal norms at work and threaten employees’ well-being (Bennett & Robinson, 2000). Not surprisingly, individuals with elevated levels of aggregate psychopathy have demonstrated a strong proclivity for destructive (Baysinger, Scherer, & LeBreton, 2014), hostile, and deceptive behavior (Cleckley, 1988; Hare, 1999). In addition, individuals with high self-centered impulsivity demonstrate an unrelenting pursuit of personal desires combined with a blatant disregard for organizational norms; distaste for responsibilities, rules, and deadlines; and lack of loyalty to their employer or coworkers (O’Boyle et al., 2012). Moreover, their inability to form meaningful interpersonal connections and their maliciousness towards others should increase the likelihood that individuals with elevated levels of self-centered impulsivity will engage in CWB-I. More formally:

We also hypothesize that self-centered impulsivity will be negatively related to CP. Considered a form of performance distinct from task performance (Motowidlo & Van Scotter, 1994), CP refers to those volitional interpersonal behaviors that go beyond task accomplishment to support the context in which work occurs (Van Scotter & Motowidlo, 1996). Such behaviors include self-disciplined behaviors, such as working hard, taking initiative, following organizational rules (job dedication), being considerate and cooperative, and assisting coworkers with their tasks (interpersonal facilitation; Van Scotter & Motowidlo). Individuals who have high levels of job dedication are motivated to deliberately act in the best interest of the organization (Van Scotter & Motowidlo). Given that such activities facilitate the social context at work, we herein treat CP as representing interpersonal performance (though job dedication rather comprises motivational activities).

Individuals with elevated levels of self-centered impulsivity are hypothesized to engage in less CP. Specifically, such individuals seek immediate gratification of their wants and needs; contributing to the social context in which task performance takes place is unlikely to aid them with their needs in the short term. Moreover, individuals with high levels of self-centered impulsivity are impulsive thrill seekers who struggle to maintain work-related relationships (Harpur, Hart, & Hare, 1994), and high self-centered impulsivity is associated with impulsivity, disdain for responsibilities, and blame externalization (Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005). Thus, individuals with elevated levels of self-centered impulsivity should not be concerned with assisting or cooperating with others (interpersonal facilitation), nor should they be motivated to deliberately support the organization’s objectives (job dedication). Therefore, we hypothesize the following:

While we hypothesize that self-centered impulsivity will be positively associated with CWB-I and negatively associated with CP, we also suggest that fearless dominance will be negatively associated with interpersonal performance only if employees indicate low levels of interpersonal influence. In other words, we suggest that fearless dominance and self-centered impulsivity are not uniformly related to interpersonal performance in the workplace. Socioanalytic theory provides support for this notion.

Socioanalytic Theory

Socioanalytic theory suggests the existence of two basic motives underlying individuals’ personalities: the desire to get ahead and the desire to get along. Individuals who are motivated to get ahead desire power, status, and control over resources (R. Hogan & Shelton, 1998). As such, they achieve this motive by seeking recognition, maximizing their visibility, engaging in competition, and pursuing additional responsibilities (J. Hogan & Holland, 2003). Conversely, individuals who are motivated to get along wish to feel supported, liked, and accepted (R. Hogan & Shelton). As such, they achieve this motive by being friendly, cooperative, and compliant (R. Hogan & Shelton). Not surprisingly, these motives sometimes can represent opposing forces, although they are orthogonal in many populations (Digman, 1997), such that one’s ability to be seen as friendly, cooperative, and compliant runs counter to one’s ability to seek power, status, and recognition (R. Hogan & Shelton).

Nonetheless, according to socioanalytic theory, differences exist both in the strength or extent to which individuals possess these motives and in individuals’ strategies and/or capabilities to pursue these motives (R. Hogan & Shelton, 1998). In essence, motives to get ahead and/or get along reflect an individual’s interpersonal aspirations (i.e., what one aspires to do; R. Hogan & Shelton). However, not everyone who aspires to get along and/or get ahead is equally equipped to do so. Accordingly, whether individuals are successful at pursuing either or both of these basic motives will depend on their social competence (i.e., social skill).

Social skill refers to individual differences regarding how people go about pursuing their motives. As such, individuals who are socially skilled are more capable of translating their basic motives (i.e., their aspirations) into purposeful and, more importantly, successful action (R. Hogan & Shelton, 1998). Given the widespread evidence establishing its role as an important workplace-specific social competency (e.g., Munyon, Summers, Thompson, & Ferris, 2015), we examine whether interpersonal influence, a dimension of political skill, is capable of transmitting high levels of fearless dominance into more well-received peer evaluations of interpersonal performance behaviors.

The Interpersonal Influence Dimension of Political Skill

Political skill is a comprehensive amalgamation of social competencies reflecting “the ability to effectively understand others at work, and to use such knowledge to influence others to act in ways that enhance one’s personal and/or organizational objectives” (Ferris et al., 2005: 127). This set of social competencies is composed of four dimensions: social astuteness, interpersonal influence, apparent sincerity, and networking ability. Social astuteness refers to the uncanny ability to observe, understand, and accurately interpret one’s own behavior, the behavior of others, as well as social interactions, whereas interpersonal influence reflects individuals’ ability to utilize such observations and keen understanding to adapt their behavior in situationally appropriate and influential ways (Ferris et al.). The apparent sincerity dimension of political skill suggests that such individuals are able to disguise ulterior motives and present themselves in a sincere and trustworthy manner. Finally, politically skilled individuals are adept networkers in that they are well suited to establish and position themselves among powerful coalitions of influential others. Not surprisingly, single-study and meta-analytic research has established political skill as a powerful and consistent predictor of various types of work performance and other important workplace outcomes (Munyon et al., 2015).

Nonetheless, the political skill dimensions have always been conceptualized as related yet distinct concepts that should operate in theoretically distinct ways. In support, research has found that each of the four dimensions of political skill have unique personal ability antecedents (Ferris et al, 2007; Ferris et al., 2008). Unfortunately, the majority of research on political skill has been conducted at the aggregate construct level despite calls for research examining how the dimensions differentially predict workplace phenomena (Ferris et al., 2007; Ferris et al., 2012). In response to such calls, Wihler and colleagues (2017) found that social astuteness moderated the relation between climate for personal initiative and personal initiative, while interpersonal influence moderated the relation between self-assessed personal initiative and supervisors’ ratings of job performance. They suggested that social astuteness assisted individuals with opportunity recognition, whereas interpersonal influence equipped individuals with the ability to capitalize on opportunities. Evidence across three independent studies provided support for their hypotheses, concluding that individuals indicating high levels of interpersonal influence were able to properly calibrate and present social action so as to be favorably perceived and interpreted by others (Wihler et al.).

Accordingly, we focus on the role of the interpersonal influence dimension because it is the dimension of political skill that best captures individuals’ ability to tailor their initiatives (e.g., to get ahead) in such a way as to yield favorable evaluations from others (Wihler et al., 2017). Conversely, the affective component of political skill, apparent sincerity, captures the ability to appear genuine and trustworthy, whereas the networking ability and social astuteness components of political skill primarily capture opportunity recognition and resource acquisition skills (Wihler et al.). Accordingly, while certain individuals may be capable of appearing sincere and/or may be capable of recognizing (social astuteness) and acquiring (networking ability) resources, we hypothesize that it is those individuals who are interpersonally influential who will be able to capitalize on their social skills by performing in interpersonally effective ways. More specifically, by definition, individuals with high levels of interpersonal influence should be able to behave in ways that evoke positive reactions from others (Ferris et al., 2005; Ferris et al., 2007). Thus, interpersonally influential individuals should be perceived as engaging in fewer behaviors that harm organizational members (CWB-I) and more behaviors that contribute positively to the social context in which work takes places (CP). More formally:

Finally, if interpersonal influence represents a form of social skill that allows individuals in its possession to behave in ways that are situationally appropriate, rapport and liking inducing, and ultimately, interpersonally effective, then it follows that such a skill would be useful in translating the desires to get ahead of those individuals scoring highly on the fearless dominance dimension of psychopathy into effective action.

Interaction of Fearless Dominance × Interpersonal Influence on Interpersonal Performance Domains

Recent research employing socioanalytic theory has found that, in the aggregate, political skill is a useful social competency that helps individuals to package and present their motives to get along and get ahead into organizational successes. For instance, Blickle, Wendel, and Ferris (2010) found that car salespeople who were both motivated to get ahead (as operationalized by extraversion) and politically skilled reported heightened levels of car sales on average compared with their less politically skilled peers. Similarly, research has found individuals’ motives to get ahead and to get along (Blickle, Fröhlich, et al., 2011) were more strongly related to positive performance ratings when individuals demonstrated heightened levels of political skill. We suggest, however, that one particular aspect of political skill (i.e., interpersonal influence) should be related to the social aspect of psychopathy (i.e., fearless dominance) but not to the intrapsychic aspects (self-centered impulsivity, coldheartedness) of psychopathy.

Therefore, we hypothesize that individuals with elevated levels of fearless dominance who are in possession of interpersonal influence should be more capable of translating their unrelenting desire to get ahead in such a manner as to be perceived by coworkers to be less engaged in maladaptive performance (i.e., CWB-I) and more engaged in performance that supports the social fabric of the organization (i.e., CP). The goals of individuals characterized by fearless dominance are getting the attention of others, being the center of social interactions, and achieving their will (manipulation; Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005). This oftentimes manifests itself in an arrogant interpersonal style, egocentrism, and prioritization of one’s own needs and wants before those of others. Those with high levels of fearless dominance do not respect the unwritten interpersonal rules and tend not to abide by common rules of exchange (Cleckley, 1988; Hare, 1999; Lilienfeld & Widows).

Thus, without the social skill to keep these tendencies and off-putting interpersonal style in check, individuals with high levels of fearless dominance should be perceived by others to engage in harmful behaviors in pursuit of their need satiation and quest for special treatment (i.e., CWB-I) and not engage in those behaviors that support the social fabric of the organization (i.e., CP). Conversely, individuals who are interpersonally influential have a subtle yet effective communication style that enables them to conduct themselves in rapport-inducing ways (Ferris et al., 2005). Moreover, they are able to adapt and calibrate their behavior in situationally appropriate ways that engender important others’ (e.g., supervisors, peers) favorable evaluations (Wihler et al., 2017). Therefore, interpersonally influential individuals should be able to appropriately package and/or disguise their attention-seeking and self-serving motives (i.e., motives to get ahead) in ways that do not appear to harm others and that do appear to support the social context as well as the organization’s interests (as opposed to self-interests).

Taken together, while the self-centered impulsivity dimension of psychopathic personality should always be related to negative interpersonal behavior (i.e., CWB-I) or the abstention from positive interpersonal performance (i.e., CP), fearless dominance should be differentially related to interpersonal performance domains depending on whether such individuals are in possession of interpersonal influence. On the basis of the tenets of socioanalytic theory, we argue that interpersonal influence should help those individuals high in fearless dominance present their motives to get ahead in a manner that is, or appears to be, less self-serving and insensitive to others. More simply, high levels of interpersonal influence and fearless dominance should be associated with lower instances of other-rated CWB-I and heightened reports of other-rated CP. Therefore, the following hypotheses are offered:

Participants and Procedure

The study took place in the western part of Germany; 523 employees from a broad range of jobs were personally contacted by 27 psychology students in partial fulfilment of their study requirements. Potential participants were asked whether they would like to take part in an online study of personality and social competencies in the workplace and whether they would ask at least two coworkers to provide a job-related assessment of their behavior at work. Coworkers could be peers, supervisors, or staff. All participants were informed that confidentiality was preserved by using randomly generated codes. Recent research has shown that the diversity of this type of sample can increase the external validity of results (A. R. Wheeler, Shanine, Leon, & Whitman, 2014).

Each participant received an invitation via e-mail that included information about the study, a personal log-in code, and a link to the online study. After completing the self-assessment, including measurements of psychopathy and interpersonal influence as well as demographic information, employees were asked to enter e-mail addresses of at least two coworkers. Next, coworkers were automatically invited via e-mail to take part in the study; during this phase of the study, information regarding targets’ CP and CWB-I was collected. Using pseudoanonymized randomized code (German Federal Act of Data Protection, 2010: §3a), we were able to link target employees’ self-assessments with coworkers’ ratings while simultaneously granting confidentiality to all participants (i.e., targets and other-raters).

Of the 523 targets, 281 (57%) completed the self-assessment. The 281 targets invited 854 coworkers to provide observer-ratings for the study. A total of 443 (52%) coworker ratings were obtained. Coworkers could be invited only if targets fully completed the assessment. The quality of the data was checked in several steps. First, to ensure targets had enough experience with their current jobs and could adequately answer all questions, we excluded from analyses targets with less than 6 months of job tenure and less than 20 hr of working time per week. Second, coworkers were asked to report their relationship with the target employee. The choices were peer, staff, supervisor, or other. All cases (n = 21) where the respondents had no working contact with the target employee were dropped from further analyses. In total, 347 peers, 53 supervisors, and 22 staff members took part in the study. Third, all other-raters who had jointly worked together with the target employee for less than 6 months were dropped in order to preserve the validity of other-ratings (n = 14). Fourth, all target cases with less than two other-ratings (n = 100) were dropped from further analyses because, given the nature of CWB, it is unlikely that one person can observe all possible incidents of CWB-I.

Thus, predictor and criterion data were available for 161 of the 281 original target respondents. The final sample consisted of 161 target-coworkers triads, of which 72 targets were male and 89 targets were female. The mean age of target employees was 42 years (SD = 12.15), with mean job tenure of 10 years (SD = 8.91) and an average working time of 40 hr per week (SD = 9.7). Mean hierarchical position of the target employees within their organizations was 57 % (0% = bottom level, 100% = top level).

Those 161 targets with two other-raters were older (M = 41.48 years) than those 42 targets with only one (M = 36.74 years) other-rater or those 58 targets with no (M = 34.36 years) other-rater, F(2, 258) = 8.49, p < .01, η² = .06, and they reported longer job tenure, F(2, 258) = 6.18, p < .01, η² = .05. Therefore, we controlled for targets’ age and job tenure in the statistical analyses. Additionally, scores in rebellious nonconformity (see discussion in the Measures section below) were lower in those targets with two other-raters (M = 1.83) than in those targets with only one other-rater (M = 1.88) or in those targets with no other-rater (M = 1.95)—F(2, 258) = 4.41, p < .05, η² = .03. Finally, scores in self-centered impulsivity were lower in those targets with two other-raters (M = 1.84) than in those targets with only one other-rater (M = 1.87) or in those targets with no other-rater (M = 1.92)—F(2, 258) = 3.57, p < .05, η² = .03. No other group differences in other variables (i.e., interpersonal influence, CWB-I, CP, control variables), including other psychopathy scores (composite score, factors, and scales), were found. As these effect sizes were small (η² = .03), we concluded that there was marginal range restriction in the psychopathy scores in the present sample.

Measures

Statistical Analyses

Contributions to Theory and Research

The purpose of this study was to examine the relations of the individual dimensions of psychopathic personality trait with constructive (i.e., CP) and destructive (i.e., CWB-I) interpersonal performance behaviors. In doing so, we hoped to explain some of the underwhelming effect sizes of the relations with aggregate psychopathic personality and workplace performance behaviors identified by O’Boyle and colleagues (2012). We argued that self-centered impulsivity, characterized by impulsivity, irresponsibility, and instant need satiation (Cleckley, 1988; Hare, 1999), would be related to heightened CWB-I and lower levels of CP, whereas coldheartedness, an affective deficiency (Cleckley; Hare), would not be related to these performance behaviors. Finally, we argued that individuals high in fearless dominance are driven by a strong, ruthless, and unscrupulous desire to get ahead, which, if unbalanced, would be pursued at the expense of peripheral others’ best interests. However, socioanalytic theory suggests that individuals who are socially skilled will adjust their behavior on the basis of what is situationally appropriate (R. Hogan & Shelton, 1998). Interpersonal influence equips individuals with a behavioral flexibility that allows them to develop good rapport with others via their subtle, unassuming, and effective communication style and ability to behave in the most situation-specific, appropriate, and influential way (Ferris et al., 2007); thus, individuals with high levels of interpersonal influence were thought to be better able to pursue their motives to get ahead without being perceived as engaging in negative interpersonal behaviors, such as CWB-I or the withholding of CP.

Results lent strong support for our hypotheses. Specifically, self-centered impulsivity was positively and significantly related to others’ ratings of CWB-I and was significantly negatively related to other-rated CP. Additionally, while the main effects of interpersonal influence and fearless dominance were not significant predictors of CWB-I or CP, the interaction of these constructs significantly predicted the criterion of interest. Specifically, as hypothesized, high levels of fearless dominance and interpersonal influence were associated with significantly less undesirable interpersonal performance (CWB-I). Conversely, high levels of fearless dominance combined with low levels of interpersonal influence were associated with significantly less desirable interpersonal performance behaviors (CP). Finally, while we did not formally hypothesize the null effect, as expected, results did support the notion that the affective deficiency characterizing the coldheartedness dimension of psychopathic personality was not significantly related to the interpersonal performance behaviors of interest.

Interestingly, while we did not find support for the main effect of interpersonal influence on CWB-I (Hypothesis 3) or CP (Hypothesis 4), we did detect a significant U-shaped curvilinear association between interpersonal influence and CWB-I. Following Le, Oh, Robbins, Ilies, Holland, and Westrick (2011), we computed the inflection point (Interpersonal Influence_inflection = −0.05), which describes a standardized score that reflects the value of interpersonal influence where the relation between interpersonal influence and CWB-I starts changing direction. The form of this curvilinear relation is shown in the online supplementary materials. Accordingly, results indicated that employees with low and high levels of (self-reported) interpersonal influence were rated by others as most engaged in interpersonally counterproductive activities.

More specifically, low levels of interpersonal influence were associated with heightened levels of CWB-I. This finding is consistent with the view that low skill in establishing good rapport with others and inability to adapt one’s behavior to what is situationally effective would be linked to inappropriate interpersonal behavior. On the other hand, moderate levels of interpersonal influence were associated with the lowest levels of CWB-I. Finally, high levels of interpersonal influence were also associated with more CWB-I. One reason for this could be that individuals who rate themselves as in possession of high levels of interpersonal influence may be especially off-putting. For instance, in efforts to establish good rapport with some individuals, employees might make fun of or say something disrespectful to others. Indeed, corresponding findings have been found in the school context, indicating that students low and high in perceived popularity tend to behave more aggressively towards others than do those with intermediate perceived popularity (De Bruyn, Cillessen, & Wissink, 2010; Walcott, Upton, Bolen, & Brown, 2008).

Finally, we also found a curvilinear relation between coldheartedness and CP, though in an inverted U-shaped manner. That is, intermediate levels of coldheartedness were associated with the highest CP ratings by others, whereas (especially) low and high levels of coldheartedness, respectively, were related to less CP. Interestingly, a similar pattern has been found recently for the relation between Machiavellianism and different forms of organizational citizenship behavior (Zettler & Solga, 2013). These results might be interpreted similarly, as coldheartedness shares some characteristics with Machiavellianism (e.g., callousness or ruthlessness towards others; e.g., Furnham, Richards, & Paulhus, 2013) and CP shows some overlap with organizational citizenship behavior (e.g., Motowidlo & Kell, 2012). More specifically, more moderate levels of psychopathic personality traits may be beneficial in today’s organizations as employees need and want to gain support from others, secure their interests in negotiations, and promote their individual interests (Zettler & Solga).

Taken together, this study provides a few notable contributions to both the psychopathic personality and political skill literatures. First, this is one of the first studies to examine employees’ psychopathic personality trait within a real workplace setting. This is an important contribution as most of the research on psychopathic personality has been conducted within forensic settings (e.g., utilizing incarcerated prisoners, psychiatric patients; Cooke & Michie, 2001) or via designs employing students (e.g., Baysinger et al., 2014) or has employed meta-analytic techniques to summarize findings from past “dark triad” studies largely examined within nonrepresentative populations (e.g., military personnel, police officers; O’Boyle et al., 2012).

Relatedly, we examined the different dimensions of psychopathic personality trait tendencies and their relations with workplace behavior. As expected, self-centered impulsivity was strongly related to undesirable workplace behaviors, including high levels of CWB-I and low levels of CP. Fearless dominance was related to negative workplace behaviors only when individuals lacked an important social skill, namely, interpersonal influence. Therefore, these findings contribute to the psychopathic personality literature in that they provide support for the notion that the fearless dominance, self-centered impulsivity, and coldheartedness dimensions of psychopathic personality manifest themselves differently in the workplace. Unexpectedly, coldheartedness was related to CP in an inverted U-shaped manner. This is especially informative in light of the lackluster meta-analytic estimates of the relations of (aggregate) psychopathic personality with job performance and counterproductive behaviors (O’Boyle et al., 2012).

Along these lines, this study contributes to the political skill literature in that findings provide support for the marked effect of a facet of political skill on one’s own self, as well as how peripheral others experience or perceive politically skilled persons (Ferris et al., 2007; Ferris et al., 2012). More importantly, this study contributes to the political skill literature in that we examine one particular dimension of political skill, namely, interpersonal influence, as a type of social skill that allows individuals high in fearless dominance to more effectively package their agentic desires in order to better get along. In doing so, this study answers calls for research examining how the dimensions of political skill differentially affect workplace outcomes (Ferris et al., 2012) and contribute to the limited body of research that has begun to do so (e.g., Wihler et al., 2017).

Finally, this study provides additional support for socioanalytic theory in that results indicate that those individuals who are socially skilled are more capable of translating their basic motives (i.e., to get ahead) into purposeful and, more importantly, successful action (R. Hogan & Shelton, 1998). Additionally, this research demonstrates that the basic tenets of socioanalytic theory hold true even for individuals characterized by some of the more aberrant personality traits and contributes to socioanalytic theory by extending research to examine social competencies as capable of attenuating maladaptive behavior.

Practical Implications

These findings present practical implications with regards to selection, training and development, and performance management. Most notably, while we found that interpersonal influence helps individuals with high levels of fearless dominance to effectively package such tendencies, we still would suggest that on the whole, high levels of psychopathy are not desirable employee characteristics. For instance, while coldheartedness was related to the interpersonal performance behaviors in an inverted U-shaped manner, from an employee morale standpoint, most organizations should benefit (e.g., from greater affective commitment, social support) when their employees show care and concern for others. However, in certain occupations, positions, and/or at certain hierarchical levels, some tendencies associated with psychopathic personality may be very useful (Dutton, 2012). For instance, in occupations that require composure under pressure and/or quick and decisive action, individuals with higher levels of coldheartedness may be better able to make hard decisions (e.g., those involving employees’ employment status). Conversely, those individuals demonstrating high levels of self-centered impulsivity and coldheartedness may be especially ill suited for positions that require patience and thoughtful action, interpersonal sensitivity, and compassion (e.g., nursing). Therefore, we would suggest that organizations consider screening on psychopathic personality trait components when hiring for certain positions in which the possession of these tendencies would be especially detrimental.

From a legal standpoint, it is important to note that (at least in the United States) it is illegal for organizations to discriminate against workers on the basis of a disability. Psychopathic personality, however, has never been classified as a disorder (cf. the DSM–5). Moreover, we are advocating that organizations may be interested in identifying the 5% to 10% of the population with subclinical psychopathic personality tendencies who are most likely to be capable of functioning in a work setting. Individuals who have subclinical psychopathic personality tendencies have similar personality profiles as those individuals with clinical psychopathic personality tendencies but at less extreme levels (Hall & Benning, 2006; LeBreton et al., 2006). This distinction allows organizations to avoid any potential complications associated with using personality inventories (e.g., PPI-R) as a part of preemployment questionnaires.

Nonetheless, the use of personality inventories to identify individuals with clinical levels of psychopathic personality traits would be considered a violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 (amended in 2008) because the survey would be considered a preemployment medical screening (Wu & LeBreton, 2011). Therefore, it is critical that organizations that wish to screen for these tendencies during the hiring process utilize an appropriate instrument for doing so because some psychopathic personality inventories have been purposed and validated as clinical screening tools (e.g., the Psychopathy Checklist–Revised; Hare, 2003). The assessment tool used in this study to assess psychopathic personality tendencies, the PPI-R, is a validated instrument for capturing subclinical levels of these tendencies. Therefore, the use of the PPI-R and other subclinical inventories to capture psychopathic personality tendencies would be defensible under the ADA, whereas the use of clinically oriented inventories would likely violate the ADA.

Furthermore, while personality is sometimes considered innate and unmalleable, social skills are thought to be trainable (R. Hogan & Shelton, 1998). Thus, findings from this study also have implications from a training and development standpoint. For existing employees found to be in possession of any of the psychopathic personality tendencies, it may be beneficial to provide them with opportunities to train and develop interpersonal influence skills as well as other skills captured under the aggregate political skill competency. Such training could include exercises to emphasize the importance of building rapport with coworkers, increase behavioral flexibility, develop employees’ own self-awareness, gain an understanding of how a target employee is perceived by others, and demonstrate empathy and concern for others. Such training could contribute to a more positive work environment. Moreover, it is important to point out that regardless of whether individuals exhibit higher levels of psychopathic tendencies, political skill in the aggregate (Munyon et al., 2015) and interpersonal influence (Wihler et al., 2017) both have a remarkable impact on organizational outcomes for those in its possession and peripheral others. Therefore, from a practical standpoint, organizations may benefit from incorporating political skill training into existing leadership development and fast-tracked employee development programs.

With that being said, because CWB-I was measured via peer reports, there exists a possibility that political skill might help conceal the deviant acts of those individuals with elevated levels of fearless dominance. If this were the case, one could view fearless dominance as the penchant to engage in destructive acts and interpersonal influence as the means to go about doing so undetected; subsequently, training individuals high in fearless dominance to be more interpersonally influential would disrupt the social climate of the organization and impede organizational members from accomplishing tasks. However, note that CWB-I typically takes place in public as it comprises behavior towards others. Of course, some deviant acts related to CWB-I, such as playing a mean prank on someone, can also be done in private, but most behavior in the realm of CWB-I includes interactions with at least one other person (e.g., cursing at someone, publicly embarrassing someone, saying something hurtful to someone; see Bennett & Robinson, 2000). Thus, by focusing on CWB-I, we mitigated the concern that high levels of interpersonal influence help those high in fearless dominance to “successfully hide” their counterproductive acts instead of shaping behavior in a more socially skilled manner. However, even in the case that high levels of interpersonal influence help those high in fearless dominance to disguise their destructive acts (which seems relatively unlikely with regard to CWB-I), it is likely that at least some coworkers would eventually take notice. Thus, future longitudinal research should explore this possibility.

Finally, from a performance management system view, organizations might consider redesigning their reward systems so that in addition to task performance, behaviors that support the social context in which task performance takes place (i.e., CP) are formally rewarded. Reward systems that emphasize other-serving behaviors not only would acknowledge truly altruistic “good citizens” but also might entice other individuals with less genuine motives to engage in behaviors that support the health and vibrancy of the social context in which work gets done. Specifically, we would argue that individuals with elevated levels of fearless dominance might view CP as a way to further their self-interests if engaging in these constructive interpersonal performance behaviors was formally rewarded by their employer. Performance management systems designed as such would stand to benefit employees (e.g., by expanding the ways they can contribute meaningfully to the organization) as well as the employing organization (e.g., by increasing morale).

Strengths and Limitations

Importantly, our findings should be interpreted with careful consideration of the following strengths and weaknesses. In terms of strengths, several aspects warrant trust in the observed findings. First, we employed a multisource design in which independent variables were collected from focal individuals and criterion variables were collected from two observers (e.g., coworkers, supervisors). Following recommended practice, we asked observers to provide ratings of targets’ CWB-I, as doing so helps to rule out common method bias (Fox, Spector, Goh, & Bruursema, 2007). Moreover, we felt that such individuals were well suited to validly assess the incidence of targets’ CWB-I because they were in close contact with targets and had worked together for at least 6 months. This should have helped us to at least mitigate common issues that arise with CWB research, such as low base rates (Barbaranelli et al., 2013) and range restriction (Greco et al., 2015).

In addition, participants were ensured that the ratings that they would be asked to provide would have no impact on job decisions. As indicated by Podsakoff, MacKenzie, and Podsakoff (2012), these assurances likely increased individuals’ motivation to respond accurately. Additionally, the multisource research design provided researchers some assurance that study findings were not due to common method bias. A related strength concerns the strong interrater agreement among observers’ ratings of target individuals’ CWB-I and CP. In addition, given that target individuals nominated those individuals who provided the other-ratings, we were concerned about the possibility of a selection bias. However, where possible, we explicitly tested for skewness and kurtosis of the scales as well as for the appropriateness to consider them independently; results indicated that our data were not particularly biased in any way. Finally, the inclusion of the quadratic main effects as control variables when testing interaction effects represents a notable strength, as Dawson (2014) suggested that failure to account for the nonlinear main effects could result in falsely detected moderation especially when the independent and moderator variables are correlated.

In light of these strengths, we also wish to point out some notable limitations. Namely, despite being collected from multiple sources, the data are cross-sectional; therefore, we were unable to draw causal inferences from study findings. Additionally, the other-ratings were predominantly provided by target individuals’ peers (n = 275) as opposed to supervisors (n = 43). Collecting data from other vantage points (e.g., staff) may reveal that certain raters experience interactions with individuals with elevated levels of psychopathy differently than others. Another limitation is that the interrater reliability, or ICC(1, k), of CWB-I was below the recommended threshold of .70 (LeBreton & Senter, 2008), indicating a rather low level of agreement among others’ ratings of focal individuals’ CWB-I. However, our results remained the same regardless of whether we included data of only one other-rater or both other-raters of CWB-I. Given the nature of the construct, it is unlikely that one person can observe all possible incidents of CWB-I. For instance, it is quite possible that employees target CWBs toward certain, but not all, coworkers. Therefore, we believe that the use of two other-raters provides a more valid picture of focal individuals’ CWB-I.

In addition, a limitation of this study deals with our inability to collect data on the other components of the dark triad, Machiavellianism and narcissism. However, we were concerned that doing so may have provided respondents with sufficient information to infer the purpose of the study. Therefore, out of concerns for validity, in light of the trade-off between survey length and respondent fatigue, and the empirical evidence that suggests these constructs are related but distinct (O’Boyle et al., 2012; Wu & LeBreton, 2011), we chose not to collect data on Machiavellianism and narcissism. Finally, data were collected in the German work force; while the German culture is similar in some regards to other Western cultures (Erez, 2011), the generalizability of these findings to other cultures is tentative pending additional research.

Directions for Future Research

There exist numerous opportunities for future research, especially with regard to psychopathic personality trait at work. First and foremost, this research examined only two types of performance: CWB-I and CP. However, it would be interesting to examine whether the Fearless Dominance × Interpersonal Influence interaction is consistent across sales and other sorts of performance domains. Moreover, what other social competencies may help individuals with psychopathic personality tendencies to package and pursue their motives more successfully? Conversely, are there individual differences (e.g., organizational cynicism, hostile attribution bias) that amplify the deleterious effects of psychopathic personality tendencies?

Additionally, future research should more closely examine the relation between interpersonal influence and CWB-I. While we failed to find support for the hypothesized main effect of interpersonal influence on CWB-I, results did indicate the presence of a U-shaped curvilinear association between the two variables. Therefore, more precise theoretical development is needed with regard to the relation between interpersonal influence and CWB-I. Moreover, additional empirical examinations need to be conducted in order to determine whether the curvilinear effect that was detected is generalizable to other samples or whether the finding is specific to these data. Recently, curvilinear relations have received increased attention not only in the management literature in general (e.g., Blickle, Meurs, Wihler, Ewen, Merkl, & Missfeld, 2015; Grant & Schwartz, 2011) but also with regard to political skill in particular (Zettler & Lang, 2015).

In addition, recent research examining leadership from a socioanalytic perspective found that politically skilled leaders who desired to get ahead engaged in more structuring behaviors that, in turn, were related to followers’ satisfaction and institutional effectiveness (Ewen et al., 2013). Along these lines, it would be interesting to examine the mediating mechanisms through which the interactive effects of fearless dominance and interpersonal influence engender effective and/or constructive organizational behavior. Additionally, it would be interesting to examine the affective workplace experiences of the individuals high in psychopathic personality trait tendencies. Do individuals with elevated levels of psychopathy experience job satisfaction or do they experience satisfaction only by pursuing self-interests? Can and will individuals with elevated levels of psychopathy demonstrate high levels of work engagement and, if so, under what conditions? Relatedly, within the workplace, are there certain contexts that we find individuals with psychopathic personality tendencies self-selecting into and subsequently thriving in? For instance, perhaps individuals with more elevated levels of psychopathic personality tendencies seek out the uncertainty and ambiguity characteristic of highly political organizations, as such contexts provide them with more opportunities to pursue self-interest and amoral conduct.

Furthermore, while the current research relied primarily on peers’ (e.g., coworkers) ratings of targets, future research should examine targets’ psychopathic tendencies from other individuals’ perspectives (e.g., auxiliary staff, subordinates, and customers). Individuals with elevated levels of psychopathy may be perceived differently by other individuals on the basis of the perceived power differential, perceived distance, and relational demography between the target and the observer. For instance, future research should examine whether and, if so, why individuals with psychopathic personalities may be better suited to exploit auxiliary staff members and individuals lower in the organizational hierarchy. From the criminal research on psychopathy, evidence suggests that individuals with clinical levels of psychopathy are able to pinpoint and exploit more vulnerable targets (S. Wheeler, Book, & Costello, 2009). However, in the workplace, little is known about what those individuals with elevated levels of psychopathy actually do within the confines of the organization to exert influence over others.

Additionally, it would be interesting to examine subordinates’ perspectives of supervisors with elevated levels of psychopathy. For instance, one of the most polarizing, yet widely effective, leaders was Steve Jobs, who embodied the quintessential psychopathic dichotomy: cunning and seductive, yet ruthless, lacking empathy, and hostile (Dutton, 2012). How does one reconcile psychopathic personality within the context of leadership? Are the dimensions of political skill the key differentiating factor here as well? Future research should examine this possibility as well as other implications of leaders with elevated levels of psychopathic tendencies. Another interesting direction for future research involves the quality of relationships between individuals with psychopathic tendencies and their coworkers. ² For example, it might be interesting to investigate the closeness of relationships (and the resulting number of peer responses) as well as the lunchtime (e.g., combined breaks) or leisure time behavior of employees with elevated levels of psychopathic personality tendencies. As is apparent, there exist numerous opportunities to examine psychopathy within the organizational sciences.