I was recently reading a 2003 paper in the journal Nature called Forensic psychology: Violence viewed by psychopathic murderers which is both interesting and frustrating. Interesting because it demonstrates that, even amongst murderers, psychopathic murderers are different. Frustrating because the authors extrapolate their finding in a way that is ultimately misleading being so narrow as to completely miss the point.
I pick this particular study only because it is rather typical of scientific studies in the field: 1. it neglects to consider what the psychopath gets out of behaving the way he does, and 2. it let’s the psychopath off the hook.
The study
13 psychopathic murderers, 17 non-psychopathic murderers, 39 psychopathic other offenders and 52 non-psychopathic other offenders were given the Implicit Association Test (IAT) .
Briefly, uppercase words (for example, ‘UGLY’) are classified as being ‘pleasant’ or ‘unpleasant’, and lowercase words (for example, ‘kill’) are classified as ‘violent’ or ‘peaceful’, by pressing corresponding buttons. When the same response key is assigned for both the unpleasant and violent words (this is termed the congruent condition), most people find the task easy. But when pleasant and violent words share the same response key (the incongruent condition), most people find this confusing. The association between ‘pleasant—unpleasant’ and ‘violent—peaceful’ is indexed by means of the IAT effect (reaction time for the incongruent condition minus reaction time for the congruent condition).
Result
The psychopathic murderers showed a much lower IAT effect than the non-psychopathic murderers or the other psychopaths in the study.
The researchers’ conclusion
They conclude that there are two groups of psychopaths, one of which has an increased disposition towards extreme violence. So far so good. They also claim the following:
Our results indicate that the reduced violent-IAT effect seen in psychopathic murderers is likely to be due to their abnormal beliefs about violence, rather than to some other nonspecific effect such as poor impulse control and/or deficits in decision-making. Psychopathic murderers have diminished negative reactions to violence compared with non-psychopathic murderers and other offenders.
The fallacy
The great sociologist C. Wright Mills once said: “Every cobbler thinks leather is the only thing,” by which he meant ‘read what I write critically; I’m a sociologist and so I tend to have a sociological explanation for everything.’ Well, our researchers have done something similar. Because their test has found abnormal cognitive associations regarding violence among psychopathic murderers, they take it that this accounts for the psychopathic murderers’ predisposition to extreme violence. The authors’ speak of psychopaths having “deficient social beliefs” and “negative beliefs”, and it is these “abnormal beliefs about violence” (and not poor impulse control and/or deficits in decesion-making) that make them disposed towards extreme violence.
But this factor just happens to be what the researcher’s have been testing; just because they found it doesn’t mean that it is THE predisposing factor. Presumably if they had been testing, say, cholesterol-levels and found a difference they’d say that’s they key.
But it’s worse that that. Something in they way they phrase the matter concerns me. They say (with my reworkings in bold):
- “…due to their abnormal beliefs about violence”.
…due to their pleasure in violence (which is, of course accompanied by abnormal beliefs). - “Psychopathic murderers have diminished negative reactions to violence compared with non-psychopathic murderers and other offenders.”
They have increased positive reactions to violence.
In the British TV show Cracker, the main character, Dr. Fitzgerald is asked why he drinks and smokes so much. “Because I like it!”, he says defiantly. This precisely the point. Maybe Fitz could be shown to have abonormal beliefs about drinking and smoking (he’s a gambler too), but he’s insightful enough to know that it’s not the beliefs that cause the behaviour – he does them because he wants to.
Psychopaths enjoy doing evil; they do it not despite the pain it cause others but because that pain increases their enjoyment.
Leave pleasure out of the picture and we missed an awful lot. Or am I wrong?
Bingo!
Thanks for the reminder—they pass because normal people do not realize, fathom this point. A psycho (psycho A)I know psycho would up the ante by setting himself up to get caught by inviting the other woman to a function with his wife, ideally there’d be more than two women present he was “seeing.”
Another paraded his through church and made her look like his children’s mother though everyone knew she wasn’t and was actually a lay minister. He did this over and over with women.
It was all about the sick prank, that’s it.
My son who is a P-murderer, ENJOYED not only the murder, but still to this day nearly 2 decades later, enjoys bragging about “how much more horrible my crime was than the cops even knew.”
They do what they do because they not only enjoy doing it, but enjoy remembering it, bragging about it later. Impressing their friends with what “bad A$$es they are”—many serial killers actually keep items to remind themselves of the murders.
I liked your analogy tha tif they had been testing for cholesterol they would have decided that was the key—so much for “scientific” causality. John was a soldier, John was 6 ft. tall, therefore all soldiers are named John and are 6 ft tall.
OxDriver – One of the (many) reasons psychotherapy doesn’t work with psychopaths is that, unlike regular folks, they get pleasure out of telling their atrocities. They don’t get things off their chests, they get turned on. Most folks find it painful to talk about their wrongdoings – for the psychopath it’s like catnip.
holywatersalt – I’m no theologian, but is it technically possible for a psychopath to get absolution through confessing to a priest, do you think?
Wikipedia: “In order for the sacrament to be valid the penitent must do more than simply confess his known mortal sins to a priest. He must a) be truly sorry for each of the mortal sins he committed, b) have a firm intention never to commit them again, and c) perform the penance imposed by the priest. Also, in addition to confessing the types of mortal sins committed, the penitent must disclose how many times each sin was committed, to the best of his ability.”
Our hypothetical psychopath in the confessional has no remorse, but enjoyment in the telling (that seems like a sin in itself!); certainly no intention not to sin again.
once i asked someone i knew what compelled her to be cruel and do the things she did and she said “because i want to and because i can.” and that really haunted me for years. they do it because the enjoy the process and the results and because they know how.
gennyrabbit – Quite right. Thinking about the horrors psychopaths perpetrate, one of the most frightening things for me happened in the movie ‘Bundy’. Driving along the road he suddenly swerves across the road and stops outside a motel. He loads a massive pot-plant into his VW and drives off. It’s very far from the worst thing he did, of course, but it captures so nakedly the “because i want to and because i can” that you mention.
An let no-one try to tell me about low impulse control. Had there been a police office parked there Bundy would have driven on by. They can stop themselves if they choose to.
NB The psychopath chooses to do evil.
Dr. Steve, I think you nailed it on the head, it isn’t about “impulse control” to me either, I think that like you said, if there had been a police cruiser outside the motel he would have driven on by, they CAN control their impulses unless they are so enraged that they are literally “out of control” with the rage, but under normal circumstances they CAN control but CHOSE NOT to control their impulses.
Ted Bundy, as I understand it, had a great social personality, and great social skills which he used to lure his victims to him and play on their sympathy for his “wounds” —Charlie manson on the other hand used his sick charisma to persuade others to do his bidding, but most “normal” people would not have fallen for his “charm” (for lack of a better word) LOL
My son has good social skills, but at first he was more like Manson, getting others to do his bidding, later he developed more social skills and cunning and manipulation with our family at least…he learned to quote scripture like a priest, but his paramoralisms in the end were so shallow that after the mask was off they were fairly easily seen through.
It did not stop him from trying again and again in his letters to others (family friends, ministers etc) and letters to my mother to get us to let him renew his con job, though.
It was very interesting to see the panic in his correspondence after NC was instituted and his commissary money was cut off–which was his life-line in prison. He was frantic to regain control over the family, and to dictate how we responded to him. I may be somewhat preverse in my enjoyment of that, because that apparently is the only way to “punish” a psychopath, and even then I am not sure that “losing” in their games is actually punishment, because they get the same “high” from risktaking that loses as they do from risk taking that is successful.
Winning and losing seem to be the same to them it is the”high” of the risk, the thrill of the chase, even if the prey gets away that seems to be the “reward” for them.
Sometimes though, I feel like a person who has actually been “abducted by aliens” because the “normal” person who has never had a personal, up close encounter with a genuine psychopath has NO idea what kind of EVIL there are in people. They have read about hitler, and other psychopaths on a grand scale, but somehow it never really sinks in that the PSYCHOPATH NEXT DOOR is as real as Hitler.
years ago I knew Charles “Jackie” Walls III from Lonoke, Arkansas, who was convicted of 1,500 child sexual abuses over a 20 year period (he is now in Arknasas prisons doing life wihtout parole) I Knew Jackie was a jerk, and I didn’t like him, I knew his wife, kids, parents, etc. and they were all fine folks. I had NO idea what kind of a monster he was until one of the boys he molested killed his parents and sister and then eventually told what had happened. He had confessed about Jackie’s abuse, and Jackie had instructed him to kill his family so the story wouldn’t get out.
This man devestated a wonderful family, his nephew whom he had molested killed himself, a young boy went to prison for life, 3 members of that family were dead, and Jackie to this day is totally unrepentent. The prosecutor said that if she could have asked for the death penalty she would have.
Jackie sat in the court room with a smirk on his face. I have seen that smirk on the faces of my son and his friend that he recruited to kill our family. I’m sure that my life has changed and my outlook has changed from seeing that smirk, from seeing TRUE EVIL in the face of the other Ps and also in myh own son’s eyes. I BELIEVE. But if you try to share this information with other “normal” people, they look at you like you have told the you were abducted by aliens from Mars. They can’t really BELIEVE. Not truly.
It’s been hard for me to see that my P husband enjoys hurting people. I think his focus is mainly self-gratification; the pain he causes others is merely incidental.
But maybe I’m still in denial. I certainly have been about other things, which I have since come to accept as the truth. His lack of conscience for one. When I think back over the years we’ve been together, I realize there were many times that, had the facts been known to me, his behavior would have been a blatant, in-your-face outrage. Perhaps knowing that gave him pleasure.
For instance, years ago he and I went to one of his company Christmas parties on board a yacht in Newport Harbor. Also attending the party was a gorgeous woman he had convinced me he hated–she was plastic, phony, a bitch–but with whom he was actually having an affair. She sat on the opposite end of the boat from us. I don’t think he introduced us, but I vaguely remember her walking about, getting on the dance floor with her husband. I’m sure she and my husband got a big charge out of the whole situation, stealing glances, secret smiles, while their spouses sat stupidly by.
I also now know he had sex with many other women in our house. In our bed. Once or twice a month I would go to my mom’s, spend a few days helping out with my grandson who lived nearby. Then I’d come home to a bed on which my husband f****d another woman but a few hours before.
Recently I asked him if that gave him some sort of thrill. He said, no, actually, it was kind of chilling.
Well, I don’t believe that. Most everything he says is a lie; this probably is too.
The other day I asked him (after he admitted many women he met on an “adult” website were at our house) how he dealt with all the evidence. He said, he did all the vacuuming, remember? I said, yeah, but he didn’t vacuum that often. He said he did it more than I realized.
I have to think that the danger involved, the possibility that I might come home early or might come across some evidence (which in fact did happen–two times–but he offered plausible explanations, of course), all added to the adrenaline rush or whatever it is he gets out of his behavior.
In terms of how he acts with other people, I don’t see that he gets enjoyment out of hurting them, but he definitely likes to be dominant. He can’t stand to appear unknowledgeable about anything. He will bullshit and lie before he’ll admit he doesn’t know as much as somebody else. I hate that. He always acts so superior. He actually is superior in many ways, so to some extent his behavior is understandable. But, still, he has a way of making others feel inadequate or uncomfortable. He has to be the top dog. He was always telling me how he, an ER nurse, was a far better diagnostician than many of the doctors.
I don’t know. I don’t see him as a sadist. Although he definitely does cause pain. More than anyone else I have ever known in my life.
Gillian,
Why would a man who “loved” you treat you this way if he wasn’t “getting something” out of it? He KNOWS this causes you pain, and he continues to do it.
gillian, i empathize with you about your P husband’s sneaky behavior. My xS was an expert at sneaking and thievery and would gloat about it as well in order to demonstrate what he could get away with without me knowing. i don’t know if you are like me but you sound a apathetic about it almost and that is like me. it makes you a more defenseless because they take away predictability.
something i noticed sociopaths do is brag and play a “big man” or actually “greater [than in actuality] man.” that is to make up fr his inadequacies (via a big mouth) in either his or your eyes. bragging that an ER nurse is more knowledgeable than a doctor? well i think most patients would readily disregard that idea. the superiority thing is like a mask and behind that mask lies the goofiest most inept inferior face you have ever seen. you would be surprised at how ugly and stupid he is capable of looking. you wouldn’t even recognize him. i doubt he is as superior as he has told you he is.
just because he seems like my xS in a lot of ways i wonder if he fails to do his share on a basic necessity level. paying the rent, paying the bills, taking care of the kids. these things can seriously tell you what kind of man you are dealing.