As an employer or employee, it is essential to spot the signs of an employee with Antisocial Personality Disorder. Remember that you are in no way able to diagnose another person clinically, but professional help may be needed, especially when it comes to mental health issues.

Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) is a mental health condition characterized by a long-term pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others. Individuals with ASPD often exhibit behaviours that are socially irresponsible, deceitful, and manipulative, and they tend to have little regard for the consequences of their actions. This disorder is associated with a lack of empathy and remorse and challenging interpersonal relationships.

10 Most Common Signs of Antisocial Personality Disorder

  1. Persistent Disregard for the Law: Individuals with ASPD often engage in behaviours that are illegal or against societal norms. They may repeatedly commit crimes or acts that violate the rights of others.
  2. Deceitfulness: Habitual lying, using aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure is a common sign. Deception is often a central trait.
  3. Impulsivity: People with ASPD tend to act impulsively without considering the consequences of their actions. They may make decisions that are risky or harmful without thinking them through.
  4. Irritability and Aggressiveness: Frequent physical fights, assaults, or other aggressive behaviours are expected. They may display a quick temper and be prone to violent outbursts.
  5. Reckless Disregard for Safety: This can involve taking unnecessary risks without concern for their safety or the safety of others, such as reckless driving or substance abuse.
  6. Consistent Irresponsibility: They often show a pattern of irresponsibility, such as failing to honour financial obligations, work consistently, or fulfil personal responsibilities.
  7. Lack of Remorse: Individuals with ASPD often show little or no guilt or remorse for the harm they cause others. They may be indifferent or rationalize their actions.
  8. Difficulty Sustaining Long-Term Relationships: Because of their behaviour, individuals with ASPD often struggle to maintain healthy, long-term relationships. Their interactions are usually superficial and exploitative.
  9. Lack of Empathy: A key characteristic is a marked inability to empathize. They may have difficulty understanding or caring about the feelings and needs of others.
  10. Charm or Manipulation: Some individuals with ASPD can be superficially charming or charismatic, using this charm to manipulate others for their benefit. This behaviour is often self-serving and lacks genuine emotion.

What to Look Out For In The Workplace

A person with Antisocial Personality Disorder will display signs of being erratic and unreliable at work. It is essential to protect yourself from discrimination and manipulation. These employees can harm productivity and the corporate culture created within the company. The Henry Law Firm is an employment law firm based in Ohio, and you may need to consider contacting them if you encounter problems with employees.

An employee with Antisocial Personality Disorder can ruin a team, department, division or entire company because they feed off manipulation and thrive on destruction.

Personality Traits

These employees are often seen as charming and intelligent when it suits them, but they present as cold and aloof to others. They can be well-liked within the company but not have any real friends. They struggle to connect with people on a personal level. Conversely, they are kind to strangers and know how to say the right things at the right time.

Since they cannot empathize with others, they lack emotion and may laugh off situations. They often do not remain in the same job for too long and do not have long-standing, loving personal relationships as they feel no guilt, shame, or love.

They appear harmless until someone or something gets in their way or attempts to expose their self-seeking behaviour.

Lies and Risks

An employee with Antisocial Personality Disorder lies and speaks badly behind other people’s backs. These lies generally have no master plan but are meant to show how much they can get away with. They are quickly bored and, therefore, play mind games and take risks to stir things up. They make repeated mistakes on purpose to make things difficult for others. Also, they are often late for meetings and project deadlines. They struggle to control their anger and can have high anxiety levels.

Manipulation

They only worry about themselves and are highly manipulative to their benefit. Additionally, they use their appearance or sex for self-promotion and often boast about their wild sex life. They may even commit illegal acts just for fun. Their life seems to have no plan. They also make threatening remarks about harming others or themselves. Suicidal threats should always be taken seriously, but sometimes, these employees use these to alter the behaviour of others to their benefit as they have no intention of following through.

They have big egos and love to share their insights, but they are never interested in advice from others.

Most of these employees are never clinically diagnosed as they blend in with society even though they struggle with mental health issues. If these issues affect the working environment and other employees, they must be documented and investigated to prevent long-term harm.