Why it's perfectly normal to want to kill your boss

If after a bad day at work you've daydreamed idly about pushing your boss down the stairs, don't worry – you're not alone.

In fact, it's perfectly normal to imagine killing someone – and more than half of us have done it.

Briefly wanting to murder someone may be a good thing, because it could stop us actually doing so, according to an expert on the dark side of humanity.

Criminal psychologist Dr Julia Shaw, an honorary research associate at University College London, said thoughts of killing others were a 'common phenomenon' and an entirely human reaction.

She said: 'There's been research looking at participants and asking them if they've ever fantasised about murdering someone.

'More than half of people generally say yes, they have fantasised about murdering someone.

'Popular targets are your boss, other popular targets are ex- partners – the list goes on, you can picture where your fantasies might go.

'Now of course most of us don't engage in murder ever, luckily.'

While many of us daydream about killing others, only about 1 per cent of the population are believed to be psychopaths – and only a tiny minority of psychopaths will actually go on to be violent or kill someone.

Some evolutionary psychologists argue that a harmless murder fantasy helps us to function better. 

Dr Shaw told the Cheltenham

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