When I was married to James Montgomery, who I believe is a psychopath, we once attended a local trade show together. We ran into a woman whom I didn’t know at all and James barely knew. After about one minute of conversation, James started offering to help her with some project that she was working on.
“What did you do that for?” I asked James after we continued on our way.
“What?”
“Offer to help that woman. You hardly know her.”
“Do you know who she’s married to?” James asked. It was a man that he believed could possibly be useful to his plans.
Psychopaths are always on the lookout for people they might be able to manipulate. A study published last year by Canadian researchers seems to indicate they have an enhanced ability to spot and remember potential targets.
The study was called A pawn by any other name? Social information processing as a function of psychopathic traits. It was conducted by Kevin Wilson and Sabrina Demetrioff, of Dalhousie University, and Stephen Porter of the University of British Columbia-Okanagan.
The study
The researchers created a series of fictional characters using photographs of men and women with expressions conveying that they were happy or sad. They assigned biographical traits to the characters indicating that some were successful and some were not, along with other details such as “likes skydiving.”
Forty-four male undergraduate students participated in the study. They were first given a personality test to determine their level of psychopathic traits. Then they were shown the photos and biographical information about the fictional characters. Afterwards, they were asked to recall the characters.
The researchers anticipated that the study participants with high psychopathic traits would best remember useful or vulnerable individuals—the happy, successful male was probably most useful, and the unhappy, unsuccessful female was probably most vulnerable.
The results
Study results indicated that they were partially correct. “Participants with high levels of psychopathic traits demonstrated enhanced recognition for the unhappy, unsuccessful female character; arguably the most vulnerable individual presented in our study,” they wrote. “In fact, the high-psychopathy participants demonstrated near-perfect recognition for this character.”
The researchers called this “predatory memory.”
“Psychopathic traits, even in the absence of overt criminality, are associated with a cognitive style that is predatory in nature,” the researchers concluded. “In extreme cases, this may allow individuals with clinically diagnosable levels of psychopathy to spot vulnerable individuals for future exploitation.”
Remember—the study subjects were not criminals in jail, they were college students. The conclusion we can draw is that people with psychopathic traits are out in the world, spotting potential victims and filing the information away for future use. It’s frightening.
Skippy
Matt – I don’t have a specific comment to address in your posts, but I just have been reading a lot of them for a while now and just wanted to say how much it warms my heart to see how generous you are with fellow posters here, with your expertise, knowledge, and insights.
All in all, this is a remarkable gathering of compassionate, caring people – maybe seeing this rich and beneficent side of humanity is one of the good things to have come out of our traumatic experiences. The EQ of people on this site is truly impressive (which I think makes getting duped all the more bewildering and shame-inducing; but, like everyone, we have our Achilles’ heels). The wisdom and perceptiveness and kindness and good, pragmatic advice on every page of this site is not like any other site I’ve ever visited. It’s a true oasis. Thanks so much for the camaraderie and support, good people.
usedabused
Skippy you are so right. This site is wonderful, it reaffirms that there is nothing wrong with us, the level of communication here is off the chart.
Elizabeth is right that “An S is always at war with the rest of us. As soon as we recognize that it’s war, much of what we thought was real becomes false.” Mine used to say, while we were “stuck” having to see each other while he was living with Jane (a situation he had engineered I now see), that “I am not the enemy.”
He was. He was there to take whatever he could, had no empathy for how it was hurting me, and I had to take drastic measures to extricate myself. I moved cross country. Booting him at that point could have had legal repercussions, so I bailed.
Just wish I had remembered that when he called months later.
Thanks for all the strength in these posts, God Bless.
shabbychic2
I see here that Stargazer said to read another thread regarding an update she posted… but that was Monday, and I was not home Monday, and I don’t know where to look! Are you here tonight star? Or does anyone else know? Thanks! 🙂
Matt
shabbychic2:
I can’t remember where she posted, but I can tell you the substance of Stargazer’s news. Stargazer was notified by her senator’s office that the Army had acted on her complaint against her ex-S (I think we need to rethink that term since they may be our exes, but they are NOT ex-sociopaths) under the UCMJ. Among his discipline was a restraining order prohibitting him from contacting her.
shabbychic2
Matt: Thank you very much! Good news!
shabbychic2
This is weird, and I am not trying to be funny, but that accused Craiglist Killer’s fiancee defended him and said “he wouldn’t hurt a fly”… and that is the same thing Norman Bates was thinking to himself at the end of the movie Psycho.
usedabused
Shabby –
Excellent point. Our ex S/P’s were just not quite as violent as Bates in the physical sphere, but the violence they wrecked upon us was just as bloody.
Rosa
The Craigslist Killer’s fiancee reminds me of myself, of what I used to be.
Those days are over, God willing.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on ME!
usedabused
Totally understand, Rosa. I defended him to everyone in my life who saw through him.
Why is it, though (having been through 3 of these in a few year period), they can spot EACH OTHER a mile away. There was even another one in my life, definitely an S but never did me any personal damage. He & the S hated each other without ever meeting, and both the X S’s both told me the S gal was ripping me off, and of course hated each other.
Wish we could get the same perspective.
ErinBrock
Does this sound familiar?
As our friends and family cried out to us…..’they won’t change’.
Us:
“Oh, but he loves me, (thinking or even saying out loud), you just don’t know him like I do”.
These words usually came out after we were so disgusted and fed up and ready to walk….and they came to us with flowers or some minute nicety…flowing the I love you’s and I will never love anyone like you. I want US to work out. blah, blah, blah…. and we felt either guilty or hopeful that maybe, just maybe we were not seeing the situation clearly?
Oh……the fantasies we lived. Without the Cinderella ending.
How many of us have thought of the possiblitiy that we were involved with the same S’s?
I think we should all exchange names of the S’s that have attempted to ruin our lives and wreak havoc…….at least then, if we ever run across them……we will know to run for the hills!!! (or mess with them to get a jab in on behalf of our LF friends)
I wish all my friends at LF a relaxing and healthy weekend! Take a moment for yourselves and reflect on how fortunate we are to be ‘out of the fire’. As bad as it may be for some of us at the moment…..it could be worse!
Stay positive!!!!
Happy Friday.