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?
DR. Steve-
It is IMPOSSIBLE because they are not contrite- I think you meant impossible. Psycho A ( I need nicknames!) used confession to act out.
And I have thought of this a lot- it contributes much to my belief they are evil.
Oh, in my first reply I realize now I was talking more about their joy of duping, but I experienced their sadism too. I do not cry easily and I recall often my psycho saying some horrible thing and staring at me. Once I KNOW that were waiting on the tears, said: OOOOOOh, you’re not going to cry, are you? In a voice that was their best attempt at sincere, but loaded with anticipation. That time I recall they insisted on driving me home- I wanted a cab- but no they had to take in my pain. I gave them little satisfaction : )
Psycho A- the psycho I knew the best- retold his treacheries now that I think back and often shared in a semi-veiled way the current deceptions and cruelties they were up to. I recall I heard one version of a story from psycho a and then another from a mutual friend..Psycho a had been sharing his act with all he knew.
I have often pondered why my X P, after two months into the ‘relationship’, after he had gained my trust, allowed my to make the fatal mistake of having unprotected sex. I realize my part in this- dont get me wrong, but he knew and did not tell me. I thought it was our relationship progressing. I never in a million years would have thought he would be capable of doing that – at that time.
So, I wonder, did he allow that mistake to happen, because he figured I would eventually find out of his status- and then I would be devastated? Causing me much hurt and pain? To which he would enjoy?
Or was it simply poor impulse control- he wanted the sex, and wasnt about to stop me to use protection?
Either way, I realize it was RECKLESS with my life. A characteristic of a sociopath.
It just seems so carless, reckless, and I can’t help but to think maybe itentional. After all, at that poing the ‘relationship’ was at it’s end. That same night I had drew a boundry with him. I let him know I did not want to be cleaning up after all his ‘messes’ (financial) and he wasn’t going to be able to ‘use’ me. I made it very clear. It was at that point that he changed. We had the unprotected sex that night.
During the 5 days that followed, I was devalued and discarded. But the break was not a ‘bad one’. He seemed to be very honest about his reasons for not wanting the relationship- he admitted being mean to me for no reason, and that he didnt feel good about himself in that he couldnt pull his own weight in the relationship. I told him I understood. We said we still loved each other and would remain good friends. It was sad, but I knew it was for the best.
It was in the two weeks that followed that I began to see something mean and sadistic in his personality. We still had to be around each other at a social event (that’s where we met). I started noticing his flirting and saying things infront of me that were very hurtful- and he knew it would be- and he would look right at me when he would do it, as to gauge my reaction. I later found saw were he reffered to me as ‘luggage to be dumped’ on a forum he posted to.
It seemed as if all my worst fears were coming true: That he never did give a shit, and WAS using me the whole time. I didnt think it could get any worse.
Unfortunately, it did. I found out he is HIV+.
Did I confront him? Yes.
Did he admit it? In a roundabout way, yes, but at the same time- no. (typical of P to skirt around the question.)
It was all about him, and how he hadnt’ done anything wrong, and didnt deserve to be treating this way, blah blah blah…..
It was appartent after a few email and phone conversations that I was chasing my tail in trying to get the truth. As hard as it was, I had to let it go. The anger nearly distroyed me. And I still deal with the issue.
bottom line: He did it. And he walked away. No accountability. No remorse. No guilt.
he basically laughed in my face.
I’m starting to think my experience is like having been a brainwashed member of a cult.
I was looking for love, I was vulnerable. I had just come out of a loveless 17-year marriage when my S and I met. He led me to think he was in the process of breaking up with his girlfriend. (I since have found out he left her under false pretenses, the only m.o. he knows. He was telling everyone, including me, that she had asked him to leave 6 months prior, when in fact that never happened at all. When he left he led her to believe he’d come back. He never did. He never had any such intention.)
He was everything I’d ever dreamed of. He was intelligent, handsome, seemed to be caring, compassionate, protective and kind. Even one of his ex-wives told me to treat him nice, he was such a great guy.
His mom told me he was her favorite (although she has since told me she and her husband basically gave up on him during his teenage years; he was incorrigably defiant, a liar).
And he was so affectionate. My friends said he was a keeper. They envied our relationship. They only wished they had a man who cherished them so much.
And so I tossed away good sense, got involved way too fast, got pregnant immediately, and, yet, even if I had taken more time I don’t see how I could have seen the signs. There were no obvious signs.
Not even any ominous intuition. No underlying rumble or warning that something was wrong. My dad never liked him though, but he was just about the only one.
And my part in this, which I hate to admit, is that I wholeheartedly believed in this “cult leader,” this charasmatic character, my savior. Any time I had a flicker of suspicion, which was rare, he emphatically insisted he was innocent. I could never see, and still have a hard time seeing, how anyone could be guilty as hell and yet sound so innocent. So indignant.
No trembling, no perspiration, no shifty glances. Look you right in the eye and lie lie lie lie lie.
It’s as if I am being deprogrammed; I’ve been kidnapped out of a cult.
Bit by bit, I am examining my beliefs. I thought he loved me; he didn’t. I thought he cherished me; he didn’t. I thought he wanted to grow old with me; he didn’t. I thought he thought our marriage was sacred; he didn’t. I thought he adored me no matter how many wrinkles I had; he didn’t. I thought he needed me, he couldn’t live without me; he didn’t. I thought, I thought, I thought; and he never did, never could, never will.
Having been so profoundly deceived it is a slow, excruciating process, one shock wave to be absorbed after another, to think of times together, things he said, where you went what you did what he said how he held you how you kissed, how all of that all of that was a lie.
He didn’t love me. He wasn’t a nice person He wasn’t kind or compassionate or selfless or sweet. He used me. I was his toaster, the fridge, a “useful appliance that he somehow misplaced.”
I wasn’t his soulmate. He doesn’t have a soul to mate with.
And from the outside, it is easy for others, and I don’t mean other victims of sociopaths, to say: you’re lucky, good riddance to him, you need to move on.
But from the inside it’s not so easy. To fill this big gaping wound that was left not by the absence of a man who adored me, but a man who deceived me in the most despicable way imagineable.
Dodged-
You should press charges, he attempted to killyou. And yeah, he planned it. I am so sorry. That is a horrible experience, BUT there is NO way you have sex with someone (protected or not) knowing you are HIV+ and NOT tell your partner, that is a crime as you know.
Gillian:
“I wasn’t his soulmate. He doesn’t have a soul to mate with.”
— that’s sociopaths in a nutshell.
And to address the pain the sociopath causes, I liken it to being frost bitten. Everything they touch, goes dead; only when we remove tehm do we get better. We are objectified by someone with no soul–it’s a stupetfying experience to be manipulated like a chess piece,makes the world look different, makes all irrational fears seem very probable.
Living through such a relationship is the same as escaping a serial killer’s cage.
gennyrabbit,
My S husband was responsible in some (very few) areas and irresponsible in most others. And now that I think about it, it is only because I managed his life so wonderfully that he appeared responsible at all.
He did hold down a job, although if he could have found a way around that I’m sure he would have. And he is intelligent enough to realize he needs to have a job to provide him with the means–and opportunities–to pursue his real interests.
And he appeared to be a good father. He was an involved dad. Back in the early days he and I worked opposite shifts so our daughter wouldn’t have to be with babysitters (and so he’d have oodles of free time after she was asleep, which of course I didn’t realize at the time).
See, everything he did that seemed good, actually had a sinister, ulterior motive. He was a magician. He was home taking care of our daughter. He acted so loving toward her that naturally I assumed that was all he was doing. Why would I think anything else?
He was the typical devoted sports dad. Attended every game he could.
But now I realize he was using her too. To give him cover, make him appear normal, and hopefully bask in her glory.
In other ways he was obviously irresponsible. He took care of the cars, sort of, but that’s about all. He would occasionally help out with yard work and take on various projects, but always in a half-assed, ultimately more costly way.
He was always looking for the shortcut. He was always convinced he found the one way to do things that would save all kinds of time, work and money. I would suggest that if he were right, why didn’t the experts use those methods too. Where they masochistic?
Of course he thought he was way smarter than any expert. He didn’t need to consult anyone or refer to a book.
There was an enormous hole in our downstairs bathroom ceiling for years. He only repaired it when we were wanting to put the house on the market for sale.
The house is in desperate need of painting. Always gobs of chores undone.
But at least he did vacuum! And swiffer! (And now I know why.)
I did everything else. I helped him pass for normal, I thought he was normal, I didn’t even realize what I was doing.
I did all the laundry, most of the cooking, paid all the bills, took care of the taxes, scheduled appointments, balanced the books. He went to work, came home, played the part, then betrayed his family at every opportunity.
holywatersalt,
Yes, like escaping from a serial killer’s cage. I think of my husband as being no better than a rapist. Instead of force, he uses charm.
And actually, being the victim of a rapist is probably easier. At least you know you’ve been a victim, and you know to get away.
Gillian-
A psycho ex-husband of a friend ( I knew them both well) OMG–
he did the same crap. He actually admitted to using their child to attract women. Yes, family is a cover. Surreal.
He played at allowing his wife to be all she wanted, while he cared for hearth,home and worked minimally. Of course, he needed his timeout with his female friends, but took their child…Yuck.
you are right. we become part of their deception. they use us to appear normal to others so they can get away with more things.
i think my xS would use me as a defense as well. you can’t judge her so you can’t judge me. that definitely wasn’t true. it was like i was a barrier he used to deflect suspicion and doubt from him.
You are not wrong. The psychopath I knew clearly took great pleasure in seeing his victims suffer. In retrospect I saw that many of his actions were motivated by the desire for that particular pleasure.
Knowing that someone hurt because of him seemed to bring on or enhance the sense of power and control that he craved. Feeling control over others is what they live for, and nothing provides that feeling for them as efficiently as obvious pain in others.
It is a “belief” only in the sense that they correctly “believe” they will get a thrill out of inflicting physical or psychic pain.
I would like to thank Ms. Andersen for creating this blog for us. My last encounter with the “P” was devastating. After he tried to hit me with a golf club, he called 911 and told the police that I had a gun. The police responded with full force-3 police cars were dispatched to investigate a woman with a gun. I was humiliated. Eventually, the policemen realized that I was the victim: They took his golf club into custody as evidence.