There's actually two considerations, the obvious one is "Do I like the picture?", but a more important one in many cases is "Can I see the icons above the background clutter created by the picture"? In the not-quite-Hello-Kitty version the answer, for about two thirds of the screen, was "No". So I've now switched to a fairly bland pic of a sunset that has muted, graduated colours that allow the icons and widget displays to be visible. Probably counts as corporate bland, but the usability is greatly improved.

I was stunned when I helped a family member set up their Android phone from a major vendor. A ton of Google crapware preloaded, and you couldn't do anything without signing up for Google everything (I didn't even know Android had an anal-probe permission before then). When I got my Chinese Android phone ($140, 5.5" IPS screen, unlocked, dual-SIM, quad-core 1.3GHz, etc) it had no preloaded crapware and, apart from Google Play which is needed to install apps (well, unless you want to jump through all sorts of hoops) didn't ask to sign me up for anything. The sole annoying thing about it was that the Chinese vendor's taste in wallpapers doesn't necessarily match Western tastes (it wasn't quite Hello Kitty, but close), but that was quickly fixed.

So it seems like the trick is to buy from vendors motivated by good honest greed (the product is the phone they sell you) rather than strategic business alliance blah blah considerations (the product is you).

It also depends on what talent, or aspect of personality, you're looking at. One case which has been heavily studied, because it has such a large impact on society, is psychopathy. The answer to the question of "is it nature or nurture" is "yes". In other words an at-risk child doesn't necessarily develop a full-blown personality disorder (= psychopathy) unless the conditions are right, and conversely a child treated a certain way doesn't necessarily automatically develop a personality disorder (that's in most cases, in some cases they're lost no matter what anyone does). So having the needle swing back to "it's both" won't surprise people who have looked at nature vs. nurture in other areas.

Are you certain that Microsoft has smart phones? I'm pretty sure I'd have seen one being used by someone by now if this were true.

I get that all the time because of my European surname, I mean how hard can it be to pronounce Echsteinlefahrtengruber? With my Serbian wife I can understand it, Grzplstcknfltmrzovic can be a bit of a mouthful the first time you see it, but anyone should be able to get my name right.

Yep, I've been noticing that too. If you have a stock Android phone (as 99.9% of users do, figure freely pulled out of my ass) then you pretty much need to sign up for Google Everything in order to use any of it. Even if you specifically avoid the endless prompts to hand your soul to Google on initialisation, you quickly find that nothing much works (you can't install apps, can't get mail, etc) unless you let Google into your life, and then a week later you're off taking a dump and your phone bongs and it's a notification from Google that based on their tracking of your movements you need more fibre in your diet...

Ah, OK. I'm guessing it would also depend on the degree, since it's not black-and-white, someone with a score of 10-15 on the Hare Checklist (PCL-R) would probably be an effective (if perhaps not very popular, depending on how high-functioning they are) manager, but once you're getting into the 20+ range you're asking for trouble. Mind you that would also depend on the job, in the financial industry (banking, share trading) a 20-25 or more would probably just make you one of the gang, while a manager in the services industry with that score... shudder.

Why would you screen out non-psychopathy? Any company clueful enough to be aware of this problem certainly isn't going to want to hire managers with psychopathic (strictly speaking, antisocial personality disorder and related disorders) tendencies.

Deterring what, exactly? Bruce Forsythe, Cilla Black, Peaches Geldof, Jeremy Beadle, the entire cast of Geordie Shore, who needs nuclear weapons when you've got that as a deterrent.

You really need to distinguish between cases where this is endemic and where it's caused by certain individuals. The linked article 10 Sure Shot Ways to Lose Your Team describes at least some behavioural traits that would correspond to one of the group of personality disorders for which the people who exhibit them are popularly referred to as sociopaths, and in their more extreme forms, psychopaths (unfortunately Hollywood has pretty much mangled most people's understanding of what that really means). This is why some companies specifically screen any management-level interviewees for psychopathic tendencies, they may appear to be (that is, create the illusion of being) effective managers, but they're actually very destructive to the company in the long term.

My reaction to reading the abstract was "And this is news?". What's next, "Cat stuck up tree"? I suppose if it was "Cat with vaguely Apple logo-shaped patch on fur stuck up tree" it'd probably make it too.