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.
ps ps–that posted before I was done. In Dr. Leedom’s study of what makes women attractive to a psychopapth and what those women hav ein common is the “weakness” of a caring disoposition, empathy, loyalty, and other characteristics that make us “weaker” for the psychopath to exploit our characteristics against us.
While we think it is good to have empathy, loyalty and caring, the Psychopaths sees those things as weaknesses to be exploited because caring and loyal women are more likely to have pity on them and to be loyal to them even after they start to abuse those women.
So, what we (women) must do is to protect ourselves and not let our caring and loyal dispositions be turned against us as weapons by the predators. We must elarn to strengthen our boundaries and to SPOT THE PREDATOR EARLY ON IN THE RELATIONSHIP. The Psychopath’s camophlage is good, they look so much LIKE HUMANS.
LOL Oxy, you sound like a predator, the way you train your animals, grooming them with intermittent rewards which they can never be sure they will get so they keep trying and trying. that’s what my p was doing to me!
Your observations of lions is very interesting because that is what sociopaths remind me most of.
But here is an interesting twist on lions, tell me what you think.
Kidnapped Girl Rescued by Lions!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4116778.stm
Yea, that was interesting! The explination they gave I think is probably right, the lions were probably well fed at the time, and somewhat confused as to what she was, they would have probably eventually killed her if the cops hadn’t shown up when they did.
Yes, exactly, skylar, on training animals, we become the alpha of the pack (with dogs) and also with the steers which we train as oxen (working steers) or horses. With the oxen and the horses you give them pain, and the relief of the pain is the reward when they do what you want. That’s how a bit in a horse’s mouth works. You put pressure on the mouth (a small amount of pain) and when they turn their head the pain is relieved, so they learn to avoid pain.
With dogs you reward them, but you also convince them that displeasing you has consequences too. With the border collies, I growl at them (like their mother would have when they were pups) when they displease me. If they really badly displease me I shake them by the fur on their neck and growl at the same time (again, like their mother would have) and if they defy me, I bite them on the ear as well as growl. I NEVER hit them. They would not understand that.
You can hit a horse and they will respond okay, but you never hit a donkey as a donkey does not trust you like a horse would, and are much smarter. You just let donkeys get “natural consequences” and it is difficult to train them as they are not wanting to please you so much as a horse will. You have to know the type of animal you are training, and you also have to be “smarter than” the animal and that is not always easy! Brutality is not the way to do it, though with oxen if they defy you or try to hurt you, you must severely chastise them to remain alpha. Thhis isn’t as bad as it sounds though, because if you watch two cattle sparring for the alpha position, they hook each other with their horns prettry badly though they usually don’t draw blood, but they will knock each other down. Usually one bought for alpha is all it ever takes between them or leven with humans. I start with the cattle when they are 2-3 days old though, so I have seldom had any problem that required anything more severe than a fly swatter on a 2,000 pound animal. If they need anything more violent than that, I butcher them for meat. I do not allow any animal on my place that is TRYING to hurt me, hooking me with horns or kicking or biting. Large animals can hurt you accidently frequentlly enough that you dont’ need to risk your life with mean or violent animals.
I am the same way with humans now too, if one is abusive I get rid of them….unfortunately, the law won’t let me send them to the slaughter plant, and their carcasses are worthless, LOL but I do SEND THEM AWAY. LOL
I am not uninformed about the true nature of animals, especially wild animals.
HOWEVER, I also think animals are much smarter than we think, while also instinctual. They pick up clues from scents we give off, fear, etc. that we are only subconsciously aware of. But my experience with lions is that if lions are about to eat something, THEY EAT, and they could have killed the girl and run off with her, even as they heard police moving in. The fact is they didn’t. I’m sure the girl was very afraid of the lions too, but I bet it was a different scent than she gave off with the men.
Contrary to what many people think, animals ARE capable of altruistic moves. However, it is a huge mistake to count on that with a wild animal!!! She was a lucky girl. That’s why it made the news!
We will never know what was going through their heads. But sometimes animals do size up more than we realize.
Some training methods are now are even more positive oriented training, such as the Parelli Horse Training method. It is truly amazing to watch a Parelli trained horse! And to watch the training. I love it!
We are also discovering that the alpha behavior of wolves in confinement, even in a natural setting, is not the same behavior as they exhibit in the wild, where there is plenty of room. Just as human males behave much better spread out, I think, then they do in a frat house. LOL!
Keith Campbell makes a point in his book about male narcissists, saying they thrive in certain environments like college campuses and also retirement homes (where the odds are so good that they “get away with” bad behavior). NOT WITH ME. I don’t care how long it has been since I’ve had a man in the future….any man who is full of himself is not going to get ANY WHERE with me, not even the game of flirting. I have truly lost my appetite for them. TOTALLY.
PS they also thrive where there is a constant turnover of people, like college campuses, or a big city. Think of Sex and the City….in a small town, people would soon have their fill of Mr. Big. After awhile, you really do get sick of them, but of course, they never realize it.
Part of the rise of the narc in our society I think is that we live in cities. I have given that up. Thank god for telecommuting.
I agree with you, JAH that living in cities where most people around you are “strangers” helps psychopaths thrive. Out here in the boonies, we pretty well know each of our neighbors AND their families and a “reputation” is something that gets around. You soon learn whom you can trust and who you can’t. since there is less turn over in my neighbors, though the last couple or three years there has been a HUGE influx of “oil field trash” come into the community with the huge natural gas drilling that is going on in our area, complete with hundreds of illegal aliens, convicts, etc. that we have no idea who are, so lock your doors folks! For many years I literally did NOT KNOW where the key to my front door is, I never locked it, I left the keys to each vehicle in my yard inside the vehicle, never locked the doors, did not lock up my work shop, etc. NOW EVERYTHING IS LOCKED AND THERE IS A SECURITY SYSTEM ON THE HOUSE—which predated the psychopathic attack even. Gates on the road are up and they are kept locked at night and when we are gone.
I’ve had problems with oil workers cutting fences to get in and other things. I did get one guy fired over that and got it across to the company that I would NOT tolerate this kind of behavior.
Since the oil companies will be here for the next 30 years or so I am having to learn to live with it, but I lived in big cities long enough to know how to handle it. As for locals, I know who is who, and they know who I am, and I don’t have problems with locals. I generally stay away from the ones I might have problems with, and they know better than to come here giving me problems. The JOKE here is that “he just needed killing” is still a valid defense! And sometimes it actually applies, in the case of the Trojan Horse Psychopath, child molester and ex-convict, if he violated the no-contact order and came here, it WOULD be a valid defense and NOT a joke.
In the city, where the cops don’t know you, and don’t know the bad guys personally, a psychopath can “disappear” and find a new victim pool by moving 2-3 blocks away or changing jobs. Not so in the country where not only the neighbors know you, everyone in the county does, and the cops do too.
ps. One of the “funny” things is though, that a psychopath who moves into the country from the city thinks they are hiding out in the country, but tehy dont’ realize that a “new” person who moves into the neighborhood is WATCHED LIKE A HAWK for several years and anything that is odd about them, or patently dishonest is soon BROADCAST all over the neighborhood but because the ydon’t “know” all of us, they dont’ realize that EVERYONE here is curious and learns about them. My neighbor, the psychopath called Crazy Bob came here and thought he would be accepted immediately, and didn’t even get it that by the time he had been here 2-3 weeks, NO ONE liked or respected him and his tales of :”great deeds” and his own “importance” were the joke of the neighborhood and the “name” of “Crazy” was attached to his first name forever. He eventually left the area though he still owns the land across the road from me, and apparently one of his “crazy” friends has moved in over there to live in it, everyone in the area knows exaactly what is going on over there. He is treated like a pariah if he comes around, and even the local vet will not treat his animals because he doesn’t want to have to deal with “Crazy Bob”—
I had a crazy Bob neighbor, too. He used to trap my cats and one time showed up on my porch spitting nails because my kids had inadvertantly thrown wild grapes over the fence into his yard. He stood there shaking with a fist full of grapes raised above his head, squeezing, til the juice started running down his arm. Okay, the juice didn’t really run down his arm, but I took a little poetic licence. just to make the story good. Ha.
One time I had a cow running a high fever and my vet thought the stress of hauling her to town might do her in, so he came out to the farm after 5 and treated the cow. We got to telling “crazy Bob” stories of the OUTRAGEOUS THINGS he ahd done in the county. I would tell a GOOD onoe, and the vet would tell a better one, and then I would top that story and so on. At 10 p.m. that night the vet said “I better get home or my wife will kill lme!” We had stood on the runway telling crazy bob stories for 4 hours and never ran out of stories. the outrageous things this man has done and the ENTITLEMENT he displayed was something ELSE.
Everyone in the county knows who “Bob” is just by his first name (which of course is a common one) no one needs a last name to identify him.
After my husband’s death, almost one yr to the day, Bob sued me for $50,000 for HIS mental suffering and damage because my husband :”trespassed” on his land to burn to death. I WAS SO SHOCKED AND HRUT by this suit that for months afterwards I was DEVESTATED and the community was so MAD AT HIM for attacking me thaty I actually had men of the community come to me and OFFER TO KILL HIM, and believe me, I SO WANTED to say “yes”—-but eventually I realized how this hate for this man was EATING ME and not hurting him. He is fortunate that I have a conscience, even if at that time I had suppressed it as much as I could.
He is a real piece of work. I can laugh at him now, though, and see him for the PITIFUL PIECE OF CRAP that he is.
He wants so badly for people to admire him and look up to him, that he is actually laughable—he tells such outrageous and UNbelieveable lies of being CIA, FBI, etc etc that everyone who knows him thinks he is laughabble. The name “crazy Bob” (well, you can GUESS where it came from and who started it) just eats at his craw ROTFLMAO so I do sort of chuckle about that one, I guess that is the best revenge I could have on him. LOL