A new study by the Columbia Business School is titled, People with power are better liars. The average liar experiences negative emotions, physiological stress and fear of getting caught. Power, however, enhances the same emotional, cognitive and physiological systems that lying depletes. So holding power over others makes it easier to lie. Read People in power make better liars, study shows on Msnbc.com. Link submitted by a Lovefraud reader via Facebook. …
Psychopaths, crime and choice
In 1978, Rodney Alcala of California approached Liane Leedom, who was 17 years old at the time. He struck up a conversation, showed her some of his photographs, and then asked to photograph her. Although he was later convicted of murdering four women and a girl, Rodney Alcala did not kill Liane Leedom. In 1983, Brian Dugan of Illinois abducted and murdered a 10-year-old girl. The next year he raped and murdered a 27-year-old woman, and the following year he raped and murdered a 7-year-old girl. Both of these men are psychopaths. They're both facing the death penalty for their crimes. But last November, at Brian Dugan's sentencing, defense attorneys argued that because the man had a …
Rodney Alcala: The “sociopath next door”
Last Tuesday night, I woke up at about 2 AM unable to sleep. I turned on CNN and there was Rodney Alcala, a man who lived down the street from the house I grew up in, in Monterey Park, California. I was not surprised to see a story about him since I knew of his arrests and convictions for murder. When Anderson Cooper said the police just released hundreds of photographs found in a Seattle storage locker belonging to Alcala, I sat up to take a closer look. Sure enough, at least 4 pictures of me at age 17 were among those found by police and released out of worry that they depict victims. My initial reaction was one of embarrassment, and I eagerly awaited the hours to pass so I could …
The Sociopath Holding Court
(The following is a satirical piece; it is not meant to trivialize sociopaths and the damage they inflict on others. Rather, through satire, the piece is meant to dramatize, in exaggerated fashion, some of the sociopath's notable linguistic, defensive and manipulative machinations.) Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, and particularly you, young lady. I believe you are juror #7? If you don't mind, you are looking strikingly beautiful today; then again, that implies that you weren't looking just as distractingly gorgeous as yesterday, which you were. Already the prosecution raises an objection? My, we're getting started early this morning, counsel? Rough night? I ask …
Psychopaths show overactive dopamine systems
Why do psychopaths go after what they want regardless of the negative consequences they may experience? According to the journal Nature Neuroscience, the answer may be chemical—an overactive dopamine reward system. Read Driven toward reward without regard for consequence on Time.com. Read the scientific study, Mesolimbic dopamine reward system hypersensitivity in individuals with psychopathic traits, in Nature Neuroscience. Link submitted by a Lovefraud reader via Facebook. …
The sociopath’s pseudo insightfulness and sensitivity
Sociopaths who posture as insightful and self-aware are some of the most dangerous predators around. When I use the terms pseudo insightful and pseudo sensitive, I'm referring to the sociopath's manipulative efforts to seem some combination of vulnerable, self-aware, sensitive and compassionate. For some sociopaths this deception is conscious, while for others it is so seamlessly woven into their modus operandi as to feel (for them), at least in the moment, almost authentic. Even the normal individual, low in sociopathic traits, may struggle to distinguish his deception from authenticity when finding himself “performing” in a mode in which he feels masterfully confident and com …
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Last chance to fill out the sociopath survey
If you haven't yet completed the Lovefraud survey about your experience with a sociopath, do it now. The survey will close the evening of Wednesday, March 3, 2010. Lovefraud will submit the results to the American Psychiatric Association. The association is preparing the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5), which mental health professionals use to diagnose mental conditions. It includes a new definition of sociopaths/psychopaths. Our survey asks you to rate how well the definition matches what you experienced in your involvement with a disordered person. We are seeking input from both men and women. Hundreds of Lovefraud readers have …
Staggering statistics about domestic violence
Reading the newspaper on Saturday, two terrible articles jumped off the page. A New Jersey man accused of abandoning his infant daughter at a gas station in Delaware has been charged with killing the toddler's mother, whose burning body was found in an upstate New York park. Read more. A man apparently infatuated with a special-education teacher shot and killed her as she walked into her elementary school Friday, shortly before students began arriving. Read more. These were stories of domestic violence with the worst possible endings. Dr. Liane Leedom has written previously on Lovefraud that, “studies of male perpetrators of domestic violence reveal that 50% are sociopaths and a …
ASK DR. LEEDOM: What is dissociation?
A reader asked the following question this week: Recently, I've started doing more research into sociopaths and have run into a condition with which I'm unfamiliar: dissociation. Do you know if sociopaths/psychopaths have been considered to have this disorder, or if it is part of what makes them who they are? The term dissociation has two distinct meanings in psychology. These two uses of the same word do not necessarily reflect a similar process operating in each. The first kind of dissociation is a response to stress, and peritraumatic dissociation (dissociation during a traumatic event) appears to be a risk factor for stress-related illness. Symptoms of this kind of dissociation …
How Sociopaths Think
When reflecting on the sociopath's style, I often find myself thinking metaphorically. For instance, in an early LoveFraud article (Sociopaths' Cat and Mouse Game) I explored the mind of the sociopath via the metaphor of the cat toying with the mouse. In this article, I probe a different metaphor: the small child abusing the captured insect. But a caveat's in order: Just as I wasn't impugning cats as literally sociopathic in my earlier piece, I'm not suggesting here that all children, including bug torturers, are developing sociopaths (anymore than in my last LoveFraud article I was suggesting that all practical jokers are sociopaths). On the other hand, I am suggesting that there ar …