[Navigation controls] [Image] [Image] [Masthead] [Image] September 4 1996 BRITAIN [Image] [Image] [Interactive Times button] [Search button] PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY [Image] Well brought up psychopaths 'make good stockbrokers' BY JEREMY LAURANCE HEALTH CORRESPONDENT PSYCHOPATHS are made, not born, and with the right parenting can become successful stockbrokers instead of serial killers, a psychologist said yesterday. Although there is a strong genetic component in the development of psychopaths, the influence of parents could determine whether they follow law-abiding lives or go down the criminal road, according to Lisa Marshall, of Glasgow Caledonian University. Results of a study she conducted among 50 psychopaths in Scottish prisons showed that inconsistency in the discipline they received as children from their parents was a key factor in the development of their criminal lifestyles. Ms Marshall, who presented her findings to the British Psychological Society's criminal and legal division meeting in York, said that successful psychopaths needed a career with a high level of stimulation because they were easily bored. They were especially suited to work in the high-risk, fast-moving world of the financial markets, she said. "They need careers where there is a lot of action. They would never do a mundane job. They are cold and quite callous and they are risk-takers. They have to be in a situation where things are changing all the time and they don't have to make long-term plans."Psychopaths are psychologically damaged individuals with anti-social, chronically unstable personalities who show a callous disregard for others. They are often superficially charming but selfish, manipulative and with a grandiose sense of their own worth. They tend to be impulsive and have poor self-control. For the study Ms Marshall gave personality questionnaires to more than 100 inmates of Scottish prisons, of whom 50 were identified from the results as psychopaths. * Professional men who rape deserve longer prison sentences than men who are unemployed or from lower social classes, according to a public opinion survey conducted at Kent University. Medical Briefing: Dr Thomas Stuttaford Copyright 1996. [Image]