Every day, my breakfast is topped with curry powder, which contains turmeric, which is bitter. I must have my coffee in the morning. For lunch I usually eat a salad containing arugula and radishes. I love using fresh herbs from my garden, such as parsley, basil and cilantro. And I'd love to eat dark chocolate every day, but I resist that. All of the foods I mentioned are bitter, so I must be a sociopath. Researchers from the University of Innsbruck in Austria say that they've found an association between people who say they like bitter foods and antisocial personality traits. According to reports on Science Direct and Medical Daily, almost 1,000 people all Americans were handed long lists …
Therapy Satisfaction Survey: Did you seek counseling because of a difficult relationship? How did it go?
If you've found your way to Lovefraud, most likely it's because you experienced an abusive or destructive relationship. Did you also seek professional counseling? If so, Lovefraud wants to know about your experience. We are collecting data for a scientific research paper about the experiences of people who seek therapy in the context of an abusive relationship. Your relationship could have been with anybody: Partner Parent Sibling Boss Other The survey will ask you questions like: What aspects of the therapy were helpful or not helpful? Did you engage in couples or joint counseling? How satisfied were you with the services you received? It has multiple-choice questions and some questions …
Overt and covert narcissists
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. …
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. …
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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Early warning sign that a baby could grow up to be a psychopath
Recent research suggests that babies who prefer to look at a red ball, rather than a human face, may be at risk for developing callous-unemotional personality traits. These traits, when seen in children, can precede the development of full-blown psychopathy. Researchers at King's College in London studied five-week old babies. They hypothesized that babies who paid more attention to an inanimate object, rather than a human face, would show higher callous-unemotional traits when they were two and a half years old. The researchers were right. Callous-unemotional Psychologists who study the origins of antisocial behavior have noted that people who turned out to be psychopaths as adults often …
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Machiavellian brains light up with the opportunity to exploit others
It's called the Dark Triad narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. You definitely want to avoid people who have these traits and personality disorders. Machiavellianism is a term used to describe those who manipulate and deceive to get their way. A recent study shows that these traits are hardwired into the brains of people who act this way. The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Pecs in Hungary. They tested the research subjects for Machiavellianism, and divided them into "high Mach" and "low Mach" groups. Then they used fMRI machines to observe the subjects' brains while they played a "trust game." The "high Machs" showed higher neural activity when their partner …
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When everybody yawns, psychopaths don’t
So you're out with friends, or worse, at a business meeting, when you see someone yawn. Soon, you're yawning too. Why does this happen? Researchers believe that yawning is contagious because it is linked to empathy, and most humans have lots of empathy. This behavior is deeply rooted in our evolutionary history. Many mammals yawn. And yawning by one member of a group often begets yawning by another member of the group. This happens among people and also among dogs and chimpanzees. But it doesn't happen among psychopaths. Research on yawning Brian K. Rundle and colleagues at Baylor University in Texas recently published a paper entitled, Contagious yawning and psychopathy. The bottom line: …
A “psychopath gene”?
Psychopathy is highly genetic people can be born with a predisposition for the disorder to develop. Scientists have identified a gene that's linked to increased risk of violent or aggressive behavior. It's the MAOA gene also known as the "warrior gene." This doesn't mean that this gene causes psychopathy the disorder develops due to a complex interaction of heredity and life experiences. But this may be a piece in understanding the psychopathy puzzle. A single gene has been linked with being a psychopath and it's very controversial, on Finance.Yahoo.com. …