According to an article by Scott Barry Kaufman on the Scientific American Blog, there are two types of narcissists: "While the 'overt' narcissists tended to be aggressive, self-aggrandizing, exploitative, and have extreme delusions of grandeur and a need for attention," he writes, "'covert' narcissists were more prone to feelings of neglect or belittlement, hypersensitivity, anxiety, and delusions of persecution." Researchers have developed the Maladaptive Covert Narcissism Scale. It has 23 statements, and people are supposed to rate the degree to which the statements describe them. Kaufman includes the scale in this article does it apply to anyone you know? 23 signs you're secretly a …
How your brain enables you to be deceived
When we finally catch on that everything a sociopath told us was a lie, most of us are furious with ourselves for not seeing the deception. We should cut ourselves some slack. A documentary that aired on the History channel explains why our brains misinterprets what we observe, and/or totally misses what is going on around us. "We believe first, and ask questions later," says science writer Jeff Wise in the show. Your Bleeped Up Brain: Deception, on History.com. Link provided by a Lovefraud reader. …
How did you get caught by a sociopath? Find answers in the new Red Flags of Love Fraud Workbook ebook
As I learned more and more about the depths of my one-time husband's deception and betrayal, one of the things I kept asking myself was this: How did I get myself into this mess? I was a college-educated journalist and business owner. I'd been dating for more than 20 years. Yet nothing this man promised me was real, and I couldn't see it until it was far too late. How did this happen? Since my personal experience, and hearing from thousands of Lovefraud readers, I've discovered that we all have vulnerabilities, and sociopaths are experts at finding them. Recognizing our own vulnerabilities will help us understand why we were targeted, and what we have to do to recover. More importantly, …
Con man Patrick Giblin, released from prison after scamming 132 women, sentenced to 2 years for more violations
By Donna Andersen CAMDEN, N.J. Patrick Giblin, 51, of Atlantic City, New Jersey, was sentenced to two years in federal prison yesterday after violating the conditions of his supervised release. Despite promising to change his ways, Giblin had gone back to scamming women he met through dating websites and gambling in casinos. Giblin was originally sentenced on April 17, 2007, to 115 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to 10 counts of wire fraud. Between 2000 and 2005, he defrauded 132 women out of a total of $320,241. Read Lovefraud's original coverage of this outrageous case here: Patrick Giblin trolls phone dating lines, taking money from 132 women Giblin was also ordered …
New York man allegedly plants spyware on wife’s iPhone before filing for divorce
A matrimonial judge in Brooklyn, New York, has ordered the husband in a divorce case to allow his computers and cell phones to be inspected for evidence that he intercepted his wife's confidential communications with her attorney. In the case of Crocker C. v. Anne R., Justice Jeffrey Sunshine ordered sheriffs to seize Crocker's electronics without notice. According to the New York Law Journal, a technician retained by the wife's attorneys had discovered three spyware programs in her phone: Pangu, which is used to circumvent the iPhone's anti-spyware protection (called "jailbreaking") mSpy, which enabled access to emails, text messages and call history, along with GPS …
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Men, women, leadership and personality disorders
Why are there more men in business management then women? In the Harvard Business Review, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, professor of business psychology at University College London, argues that it's because we can't distinguish competence from confidence. Who exhibits tremendous confidence? People with personality disorders narcissism, psychopathy, histrionic. And statistically, more men are disordered than women. Chomorro-Premuzic also points out that the characteristics that enable disordered people to get the job are also the characteristics that make them fail. Why do so many incompetent men become leaders? on HBR.org. Thanks to the Lovefraud reader Ann Stevenson for sending the link. …
New weapon against domestic abuse: GoPro camera
A former Army Ranger from Dunedin, Florida, wore a GoPro camera on his belt while picking up his two-year-old twins from his former wife. It was rolling while the woman grabbed his genitals. With the video as evidence, Corinne Novack, 37, was charged with domestic violence. Soldier uses GoPro to prove wife's domestic abuse, on WTSP.com. Link supplied by a Lovefraud reader. …
Mission almost impossible: Finding mass shooters before they kill
It's become all too familiar all of a sudden, someone opens fire on people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the aftermath, the question is asked: Didn't anyone know that the shooter was disturbed? Sometimes, unfortunately, the answer is no. Matthew Goldenberg, assistant professor of psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, explains why it's so hard to identify potential mass murderers. Can we pick out the mass shooters before they kill? on LATimes.com. A guide to mass shootings in America, on MotherJones.com. …
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Researchers say a wide face predicts psychopathic traits in men
Wow might there be a way to spot a psychopathic man just by looking at him? Researchers from Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, have published a paper showing that a man's facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) predicts psychopathy. In a study that included undergraduate students and prison inmates, the researchers found an association between the fWHR and the psychopathy traits of fearless dominance, self-centered impulsivity, and with overall psychopathy scores. According to the Daily Mail, "Last year, a separate study found both men and women with wide faces tend to be more aggressive, dominant and angry." What's interesting is that this research apparently began with monkeys. …
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Gaslighting in real life
Here on Lovefraud, we often talk about "gaslighting," which is a strategy employed by sociopaths to exert control over their targets. According to Wikipedia: Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which information is twisted or spun, selectively omitted to favor the abuser, or false information is presented with the intent of making victims doubt their own memory, perception, and sanity. Instances may range simply from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred, up to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim. The term comes from the 1944 movie Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman. In this movie, the villain, G …