Scientific research

University of Windsor researchers still in need of participants to complete online survey about experiences in relationships with psychopaths Researchers are interested in hearing about your experiences with suspected psychopaths. Use the link below to complete a screening questionnaire to determine if you are eligible to participate in the study: Screening questionnaire For this screening questionnaire, you will be asked about a specific time when someone you suspect is a psychopath made you question your memory for a past event. This may have been because they told you that your memory was incorrect, that the events did not happen, or that other people have doubts about your …

Did a suspected psychopath make you question your memory of a past event?Read More

Is the disordered person in your life antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, psychopathic — or perhaps even Machiavellian or a sadist? You may have struggled to figure out which definition applies, perhaps reasoning that a narcissist isn't as bad as a psychopath. In reality, all of these disorders are bad news — people who have them engage in similar destructive behavior. Now, research from Europe shows that all of these disorders share a common denominator. In a paper called The Dark Core of Personality, Ingo Zettler, a psychology professor at the University of Copenhagen, and two German colleagues, define the "D-factor" at the dark core. They write: All dark traits can be traced back …

‘Dark core of personality’ — what antisocials, psychopaths, sadists and other miscreants have in commonRead More

Editor's note: Please welcome a new contributor to Lovefraud.com — Eleanor Cowan, author of "A History of a Pedophile's Wife."  Born in 1948, the same year women first voted in Quebec, she began her life odyssey with a lovely home, good food, some affection, and soon, the company of nine siblings. These are the details she relied upon, not the nights of sexual abuse, the constant criticism of her mother, nor the religious oppression in her strict family. With the alcoholism of her mother and the chronic absence of her Dad, life slid downhill fast. She became a devout Catholic, an anxious people pleaser  — and a complete stranger to herself. Three drug-rapes into her 20's, she decided to er …

From Moon to Earth — recognizing that my experience was actually abuseRead More

There's a rumor floating around in mental health circles that sociopaths "burn out" with age, that they engage in less antisocial behavior as they get older. Is this true? Lovefraud wants to find out. So we've developed a survey to gather data from you. Were you involved with a sociopath while he or she was over age 50? The individual could have been any of the following: Your spouse or ex-spouse Your romantic partner Your parent Your stepparent Your child Your stepchild Your sibling Another family member A work colleague A business associate A friend, neighbor or acquaintance If you are familiar with how this individual behaved while over the age of 50, please …

Senior Sociopath survey closing soonRead More

When Samantha was six years old, she tried to choke her two-year-old sister as they sat in the back seat of their mother's car. After mom separated them, Samantha said she wanted to kill everyone in the family. The anecdote starts an article in the June issue of The Atlantic, When Your Child Is a Psychopath. The author, Barbara Bradley Hagerty, writes that Samantha was diagnosed with conduct disorder with callous and unemotional traits. She has the traits of a budding psychopath. Hagerty spoke to many of the leading experts on psychopathy and how it develops for this article. It's a good explanation of the state of the science. The article also describes a treatment program for ad …

The Atlantic publishes: ‘When Your Child Is a Psychopath’Read More

Researchers at the London School of Economics say that children born to a single mother have better health, intelligence and social skills when their biological father lives with them. Kids fare no better if a stepfather joins the family than they would if their mother stayed alone. Many studies claim to "prove" that kids are better off when they live with both their mother and father. Unfortunately, these studies rarely determine if the father is disordered. As Dr. Liane Leedom explains, living with a disordered parent is not good for kids at all. In fact, these kids can be seriously damaged. But because of the cultural belief that "all kids should have two parents," many well-meaning …

Study says kids do better with fathers in the home – but doesn’t mention sociopathic fathersRead More