Scientists are actively working on solving the mystery of what is different about the brains of people who have traits of sociopathy/psychopathy. Notice that I say “traits” because virtually none of the studies only include subjects who score above 30 on the PCL-R. These studies then by definition are about sociopathic traits and not psychopathy (see my post from last week). When I first realized that I had to understand sociopathic traits in order to properly raise my at-risk son, I studied the traits and organized them according to what I understood about human motivation and the organization of the brain. In my opinion, sociopathic traits form three categories, I call The Inner Triangle. The Inner Triangle consists of Ability to Love, Impulse Control and Moral Reasoning. To read more about the Inner Triangle visit The Inner Triangle.

An article in last week’s New York Times magazine contained the following amazing statement: “Repeating a claim, even if only to refute it, increases its apparent truthfulness.”

Although the article had nothing to do with sociopaths, the statement made me think of my ex-husband, James Montgomery. Among his many lies, Montgomery claimed to be a member of the Australian military, a decorated Vietnam War hero, and a member of the Special Forces. None of this was true, but from what I can tell, he’d been making the claims since at least 1980 (we met in 1996). They’d been repeated many times, for many years—which apparently enhanced their believability.

Like most of us here on Lovefraud, I felt like a complete fool for being so totally deceived. Why couldn’t I see the lies? But it turns out that I have plenty of company. Psychological research indicates that in general, people can distinguish truths from lies only about 53 percent of the time. That’s not much better than flipping a coin.

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) .

There is a form of writing which has been shown to have remarkable effects on research subjects’ well-being, social functioning, and cognitive abilities. The best-known of the scientists who study ‘expressive writing’ is James W. Pennebaker, chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas. Pennebaker and several others around the world have found that a short series brief exercises of this particular form of writing about emotional upheavals can improve physical and mental health.

An early study

It really bothers me that researchers haven’t developed a measure to help people figure out if their loved ones are sociopathic. Instead, measures have been developed and the public is told NOT to use them to “diagnose” anyone. What good is research if it doesn’t teach people how to protect themselves? It would not be too difficult to identify a group of sociopaths, then determine a few easy questions related to the disorder most of the sociopaths answer yes or no to (that is sensitivity). The questions would be even better if non-sociopaths were unlikely to give the same response (that is specificity).

In a recent study (Comp. Psych. 48, 529), Dr. Heather Gelhorn and her colleagues from the University of Colorado have determined the four questions that identify sociopaths with a good degree of accuracy (sensitivity and specificity). Additionally, there are some other questions that also help. The best part is that these questions are easy to ask so you don’t have to have a Ph.D. or an M.D. to ask them.

Question: Why do people engage in aggressive behaviour (some, as we know, rather more than others)?
Answer: Because they enjoy it.

There’s a bit of a flutter on the internet (see here and here) about research coming out of Vanderbilt University. Studying mice, Maria Couppis and Craig Kennedy have found that aggression can be as emotionally rewarding as food or sex.

The neurotransmitter dopamine has been implicated in nearly every experience we consider rewarding, such as love, drugs, eating, and sex. Indeed, the mesolimbic dopamine pathway is referred to as the reward system of the brain. Dopamine is necessary for reinforcement, e.g. the ex-smoker’s craving brought about by the whiff of cigarette smoke.

Now a direct connection has been drawn between dopamine and aggression. In the experiement the male home mouse continually pushed a button to let in an intruder mouse which it then aggressed. When treated with a dopamine antagonist (blocking the activity of the dopamine) the home mouse decreased its button-pushing. (For a discussion of the experiment see here.)

A reader says: “I kept wondering what was going on in his head. I could never follow his thinking. I think he might have been into alcohol and drugs and that in itself messes the brain, and along with his other personality disorders, sure makes for a confusing relationship.”

The thinking patterns of the psychopath are indeed weird. It seems there are biological and intentional reasons for this. In others words, he is unable to think very logically PLUS he intends to mislead. No wonder he is hard to follow!

Below I list several factors which together make the psychopath a most bamboozling character.

The odd speech of psychopaths
The psychopath makes “frequent use of contradictory and logically inconsistent statements”, says Robert Hare in ‘Without conscience.’ E.g. “A man serving time for armed robbery replied to the testimony of an eyewitness, “He’s lying. I wasn’t there. I should have blown his fucking head off.” It is as if, says Hare, they have “difficulty monitoring their own speech”.

Allow me to introduce the “Babe” who could be Drew Peterson’s next wife. She is Kumari Fulbright, a young lady who participated in the Miss Arizona pageant as Miss Pima County in 2005, and Miss Desert Sun in 2006, who also reportedly serves as a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Raner Collins. Here, she is pictured as Miss May in a calendar for Subguns.com (www.title2media.com, photo used with permission). See ABC News for the complete story.

But Drew Peterson and the rest of you guys had better watch out because sweet little Kumari “is accused, along with three men, of tying up her 24-year-old ex-boyfriend with plastic cable and duct tape, and holding him captive for hours in two different Tucson homes.” The authorities allege that while she held her ex-boyfriend captive, she “bit him several times while he was bound, stuck a butcher knife in his ear … said she was going to kill him, [and] pointed a pistol at him.” We all wish the victim here a speedy recovery.

The journal Nature has an article on neurological research being done in the Netherlands on psychopaths’ empathy or lack thereof. The researcher, Christian Keysers, is primarily interested in the neurology of empathy and so wants to compare regular folks with two groups characterised by problems with empathy: autistics and psychopaths.

Do psychopaths cut off the emotional component of empathy when mirroring the other person’s emotions begins, or fail to mirror the emotions of others completely? When identifying with the victim or the perpetrator, which areas of the brain are activated in those who are normally vs abnormally empathic? The article can be downloaded here.

What interests me are the the images which have been chosen to display to the subjects in order to measure their responses. Pictures of neutral, angry, fearful, etc. faces have been rejected by the reseracher on the grounds that only particular areas of the brain are activated by viewing faces.

Shame, along with guilt, embarrassment and pride, is a moral emotion. Shame is the emotion we experience when we discover a defect in ourselves. The expression of shame is a submissive response. It is an acknowledgment to others of the defect and the decline in our status that results from the defect. This submissive response shows to others our attempts to conform, improve ourselves, apologize, and make amends.

Early experts in psychopathy documented that the absence of shame is part of the disorder. According to Dr. Cleckley, author of The Mask of Sanity, psychopaths are incapable of feeling shame. Because they do not feel shame, they blame everyone else for their problems. “The psychopath apparently cannot accept substantial blame for the various misfortunes which befall him and which he brings down upon others,” Cleckley says. “Whether judged in the light of his conduct, of his attitude, or of material elicited in psychiatric examination, he [the psychopath] shows almost no sense of shame.“