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Psychopathy & Serial Murder: Debunking the Monster Myth · Professor Peterson’s Psychology Classroom

0:00
Welcome to Professor Peterson's classroom,
0:06
where the pages unfold.
0:12
So you'll notice that on this title slide, I've named
0:16
this, uh, lecture, this special Halloween forensic
0:19
special, as Psychopathy and Serial
0:23
Murder. And you'll notice the term the myth of a
0:26
monster, because what we're going to do
0:30
over this series that we have today is look
0:34
at behavioral evidence, forensic profiling,
0:38
and clinical boundaries,
0:40
exploring this— what most
0:44
people think is a type of person.
0:48
So our goal for today is
0:52
to construct a definition
0:56
of psychopathy without using the mythical
1:00
or moral-based labels. So who
1:04
are these individuals? We will look
1:08
at the overlap and distinguish the repeated violent conduct
1:13
and the clinical personality traits.
1:15
We're going to look at profiling limits
1:19
and testing investigative hypotheses against rigorous
1:24
empirical proof. Um, and then
1:27
we're going to look at, uh, what's called victim
1:30
eraser, meaning that so much attention
1:35
is provided to the offender mythology that
1:40
we don't remember the humanity of the people that
1:44
they destroyed. And I hope by the end of this lecture
1:48
we start to appreciate the lived lives,
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hopes, and dreams of people who
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have been victimized to these individuals.
2:02
But to do this, let's start with a working definition of
2:06
what a serial homicide is.
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And you will notice that it is a behavior.
2:14
It— that says nothing about the psychological
2:18
makeup of the individual.
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According to the FBI, um,
2:26
their classification for, uh,
2:29
serial homicide is the unlawful killing
2:33
of at least 2 victims by the same offender
2:37
and/or offenders across distinct temporal
2:42
events. Um, and so
2:45
some things that I want to emphasize about
2:50
past understandings of serial
2:54
homicide. They used to use this
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term of a cooling period.
3:01
The— it's a period that the offender needs and
3:05
has to have between committing different homicides.
3:11
Basically, the idea was, is that they they
3:16
needed time to re-fantasize about
3:20
their crime. And once they couldn't fantasize about it
3:24
anymore, that then led them to the next
3:28
homicide. But what, uh, the evidence
3:32
shows today is that is kind of a myth,
3:36
um, that there is no necessary cooling time
3:41
between offenses. And more— and
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the other part is, is that motive requires
3:50
specific case evidence beyond this temporal sequence
3:54
to understand why the individual
3:58
committed multiple murders over time.
4:02
So remember, in this working definition, that what we're talking
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about is a behavior. We're not
4:09
talking about the psychological makeup of the
4:13
individual. And just
4:18
to kind of give some historical sense of,
4:21
um, homicides over, uh,
4:24
since about 1795 when records were started
4:28
to be created, you will notice up until
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the 20th century that serial
4:35
killings were somewhat rare,
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that, um, uh, that they really
4:43
didn't accelerate until the mid-20th
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century, where we see in the 1980s,
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uh, we saw the highest, uh,
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amount or number of, uh,
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serial killers come out. Okay, I do
5:03
want to bring us to today's numbers. So between 2005
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to about 2020, there's been approximately
5:12
between 100 to 150 serial
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killings. The good news is, even though that's
5:20
a kind of scary number, we're still on
5:23
a decline.
5:28
Pathway. So, if we were to put this 2005
5:32
number here, you'll notice that we've dropped to
5:37
about the same number as we
5:40
were between 1925 and 1944.
5:47
Now, before I give some sociological reasons
5:51
behind this, I want
5:55
to give some caveats is
5:59
that these numbers
6:04
can potentially be influenced by accuracy
6:08
of counting. Okay, what I mean by that
6:13
is it wasn't until about the 1980s to
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1989 where we start to see counties
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and city— cities sharing information
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about crimes that occur within their
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districts. And we started to see even cross-state
6:33
collaboration. So what may
6:36
lead— may be potentially part of these numbers
6:41
is the shift in the way that we understand
6:45
and count these numbers. So I want to bring
6:49
that into light before I talk about the
6:54
potential sociological reasons we've seen this
6:59
increase. For some sociologists,
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if you note that the big spike
7:08
started in about 1925 to 1944,
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And sociologists contribute this
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to partly industrialization
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and people leaving more rural areas and
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going into more city-centralized,
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concentrated areas, which brings
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up frustration,
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conflict, and all of these kinds of things that
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can then lead someone to serial
7:46
killing. The other thing that I want to note at this
7:51
point is that serial killing seems to be
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kind of a Western phenomenon.
7:59
In a lot of cultures that became— become acculturated
8:04
to Western thought, Uh, before then,
8:08
you would see— you would have seen it, serial killing, very,
8:12
very rare. If we look at examples,
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for example, uh, Japan, who has
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acculturated a lot of Western thought after
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World War II, you would be— you
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might find one serial killer
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in Japan before 1970,
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maybe, but it wasn't until the 1970s
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when they really started to westernize their thought that
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serial killing started to steadily increase.
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Additionally, we don't see a lot of
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cases of a serial killer among
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our Native American and Indigenous records
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that we do have for pre-colonial
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times. So one thing I would note is that this
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seems to be kind of a Western phenomenon
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when people take on that Western
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cultural view.
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The other thing that I kind of want to start with is
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an earlier model of how,
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uh, psychologists and criminologists
9:36
viewed, um,
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serial killing. Because it takes a lot
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just to take one person's life,
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but to take several lives over
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periods of time Uh, it was felt that it
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has to take some, um,
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psychological— uh, you'll see here in number 4,
10:02
dissociative process, which I'll get to in a moment—
10:06
to disconnect from human reality,
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human morality, our, our drive for
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life and sustainability in order
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to commit this type of atrocity.
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So earlier models suggested
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that our serial killers start with some types of
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biological predispositions or
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vulnerabilities coming from our biological
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neurological system. So for
10:45
example, they commonly talked about lower levels
10:49
of arousal, We've kind of mentioned
10:53
this in this class about free prefrontal cortex
10:57
differences or damage that inhibit— that
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they are unable to inhibit their impulsive
11:04
responses. And an interaction between
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biological and environmental factors.
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When I talk about those on this level, I mean some
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type of terrogen that has, uh,
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entered the, uh, infant or young child's
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life, such as being born from an alcoholic
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or addicted mom where those chemicals did some type
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of damage to the developing brain, or exposure
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to some type of chemical or something early in
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childhood. This leads to
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kind of what you would maybe think of as the second factor,
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the second contribution, and that is predispositions
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or psychological vulnerabilities.
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So this would include in this model lower
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self-esteem, poor self-control,
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sexual dysfunction of some type, and difficulties
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forming healthy relationships.
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Indeed, some of the earlier models of
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quote-unquote psychopathic serial killers is
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they weren't able to have relationships
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with who their, their victim type was.
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So maybe if it's a male serial killer
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for a female, a common idea
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was, is that they murdered them to take control of
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them, managing their self-esteem and
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managing their inability to get into a relationship
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with them. And so this was— seemed to be a good explanation.
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Indeed, we see this in other forms of
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violence one of the earliest models of domestic
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violence is that the offender
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had extremely, extremely low self-esteem.
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So in order to manage that self-esteem,
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they would abuse and neglect
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and physically hurt someone to push them to
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such a lower state. It made them feel better about themselves.
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I will say that earlier treatments for domestic violence
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offenders did begin with
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the notion,
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the notion of let
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us strengthen the offender's self-esteem.
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And through that, we actually found that many
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offenders already have a very healthy
13:55
self-esteem. And, in fact,
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many of them had inflated self-esteems. And by
14:03
focusing on their self-esteem, they even became reassured
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even more that what they did to other
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people simply was
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okay. All right? So, We will talk a
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little bit more about that later. So we have the biological vulnerability,
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the psychological vulnerability,
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and because of these, they have developed maladaptive
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coping skills where in order to deal with the stress
14:42
and distress of their life, they retreat to a fantasy
14:47
world. And what this does is it reinforces
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and distorts their thinking and isolates
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it. After that, it was believed that
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they went into what's known as a dissociative state.
15:03
When we get to Topic 8, uh,
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we will talk about dissociative disorders.
15:11
A dissociative disorder is something— well,
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disassociation, I should say first,
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is a common experience. Uh, we've all probably
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disassociated from our experiences from
15:25
time to time, especially when we're stressed.
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So if you've ever had that experience where something significant
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happened and you felt like you were
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an outside observer seeing it all happen,
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that's disassociation.
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Disassociative states or disorder is
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when the person come almost completely disassociates
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from their experiences. So one
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is a compulsive type of behavior.
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Uh, the one of the old terms
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for dissociative disorders was multi-personality
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disorder. This is where a person has created
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different personalities to deal with certain,
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uh, events that are currently going on in their life.
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So that's a form of dissociative disorder. One case
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I worked on in Utah is a husband
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had a complete dissociation where he
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took off one day And 3 or
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4 years later, he was found in New York, and he had created
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a whole entire new name. He even
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had new parents, new occupation,
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and he had no recollection whatsoever
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about his married life in Utah.
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And that's what's called complete disassociation,
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okay? But this retreat to the fantasy world
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and then this disassociation then leads to the
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first kill. And probably the best—
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other best example of this idea of disassociation is
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John Wayne Gacy, who murdered
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and violated young men and young boys.
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Okay, in his non-disassociated
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state, he was a respected community member.
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He was involved in community politics. He was a
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respected business owner. Uh, he had barbecues,
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family, all of those things. But then in
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this other state that he'd go into was
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this silent killer. Okay,
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so that's kind of a maybe a more clear example of this disassociation.
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Now, after the first kill though, uh,
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it no longer took the biological processes,
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the predisposition, the maladaptation,
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and eventually not even the disassociation
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was required for the second, third, or fourth,
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uh, kill. Because it tended to mark a critical
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transition. It reduced internal
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barriers of what— whether I should do that or not.
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And the behavior of killing someone is
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hugely reinforcing— I know this sounds strange— to the
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brain. Okay, and it increased
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the likelihood of a continued offense.
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Now, I bring this model up because it
18:50
is still used somewhat to understand
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what certain offenders go through that
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created their killing behavior. However,
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we are going to look at some evidence and we
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are going to establish that this is not universal,
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causal, or predictive pathways for
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a huge majority of the offending
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population. And the additional thing I should say is
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this model is not an empirically validated
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model. It is more of a theory than
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it is something that has been proven through
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scientific research.
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But I wanted to bring it up because it provides kind of that historical
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understanding of these people.
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So to this point, before that, that little historical
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roadmap we took, we defined
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serial homicide as a behavior
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of ending one— someone's
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life at one point in time and then ending another
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person's life in another point of time.
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What I wanted to do now is now separate
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that behavior from the notion of
20:22
psychopath. You're a psychopath.
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And the other term for psychopath
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is also sociopath, um,
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and those are actually 2 interchangeable terms.
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Uh, sociopathology is usually
20:43
used in the world of social work and
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sociology, and those psychopath tends to
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be used in the world of forensic psychology and psychology.
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Uh, your professor prefers the term psychopathy because
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if you look at these 4 aspects of a psychopath
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They don't develop or they don't exist because
21:11
of the social world. They are internal personality
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dispositions. And I'll just
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go through these quick because we're going to look at a measure here in a
21:25
minute of how psychopathy is determined.
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But we have interpersonal facets. Which usually are
21:34
grounded in social manipulation and
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self-presentation, usually using
21:42
things like superficial charm, grandiose sense
21:46
of self-worth. And then in the next category,
21:50
we have affective facets, and this is
21:54
really the inability to experience something we
21:58
call emotional empathy. Meaning that
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they can interpret what a person is doing and why they're feeling the way
22:06
they're doing. They just lack the ability to care
22:10
about it. In the lifestyle
22:14
facet, this is that impulsive and
22:19
stimulation-seeking, um,
22:22
individual. So it's often marked by impulsive
22:25
behavior stimulation-seeking,
22:29
and what's known as parasitic orientation, which we'll get to in
22:33
a minute. And then we have the antisocial
22:38
facet. This is the behavioral control
22:42
and rule violations. So for the person
22:46
who scores high in psychopathy, this usually is denoted
22:50
by early behavioral problems, juvenile delinquency,
22:55
and diverse criminal behavior.
22:59
But how do we determine whether
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a person fully meets these 4 criteria?
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The most well-known tool is known as
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the Hare Psychopath Checklist,
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and this one's revised. This asks a
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series— this asks the evaluator to
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look at 20 items clustered in
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each of those 4 areas.
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And the way that it's kind of scored is
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0 is if there's no evidence that
23:41
the individual engages in this behavior.
23:45
Or this concept. 1 if
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they engage in it persistently in
23:53
maybe 1 or 2 areas of their life, and a score
23:58
of 2 if they engage in these
24:01
behaviors in all aspects of their life.
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You'll notice when we get to the interpretation
24:11
of the total scores that pretty much everyone,
24:16
every normal person, will score
24:19
somewhere between 0 and 20.
24:23
Okay, so this is generally considered non-psychopathic,
24:28
and I'll give an example why. If I
24:32
were to look at my life, I would probably
24:36
score at least a 1 on impulsivity
24:40
and a 1 in irresponsibility.
24:44
Because when I want to
24:47
really purchase something and I'm on Amazon,
24:52
I will impulsively and sometimes financially irresponsibly
24:57
purchase that. But it's only a 1
25:01
because in my other domains of life, like budgeting
25:05
and Paying my bills and all of those things.
25:09
I am pretty consistent about making sure those kinds
25:13
of things happen. And if you look through this list, you maybe will find
25:18
some areas of your life where you do some of this
25:22
in some areas, not in others.
25:26
And so we, we pretty much all will score somewhere
25:31
between 0 to 20.
25:35
21 to 29 are individuals
25:39
who have elevated psychopathic traits.
25:42
Here in a minute, we're going to talk about antisocial personality
25:47
disorder, and individuals with anti-personality
25:51
disorder on the Hare Psychopathy will
25:54
generally score somewhere between 21 to
25:59
29, and then anyone above
26:04
a 30 would be considered a psychopath.
26:09
Um, now I want to be clear, you'll see that
26:13
the upper limit is 40, which is something I
26:17
would be careful of because it's mathematically impossible
26:21
to get a score of 40 So when you
26:25
hear in the popular show or on the news
26:29
where they say this person was off the scale in psychopathy,
26:34
that's impossible to get off the
26:38
scale of 40 because 2 times 20 is 40,
26:43
and you don't score above a 2.
26:47
The other thing that I would note is uh,
26:50
to date of the recorded Hare Psychopathy Checklist,
26:55
uh, we haven't had a psychopath that went clear up
27:00
to 40. In fact, if we were to talk about— in a
27:03
few minutes we're going to talk about Ted Bundy and another
27:08
psychopath, I can't remember, uh, last name of Little.
27:12
Uh, Bundy scored around a 32.
27:15
The other one scored around a 34, 35.
27:20
So, um, uh,
27:24
even our most extreme examples of psychopathic
27:28
serial killers, uh, uh, don't really
27:32
actually meet all these categories to their full extent.
27:37
Now, I want to remind everybody one of the key features
27:41
of each one of these is that to get a
27:44
score of 2, it must
27:47
be present in every domain of that
27:51
individual's life. Okay,
27:55
so something to kind of keep in mind
27:59
when you're thinking about yourself and
28:03
you're like, man, am I, uh,
28:06
am I, uh, let me think cunning
28:10
and manipulative because I got away with
28:14
something the other day, I would encourage you to
28:18
say, okay, that was one situation,
28:21
but can you use that situation and
28:26
come up with evidence that you did it in other domains of
28:30
your life? If so, you can give yourself
28:35
a 2 there. Um, so really be
28:39
careful with this list and remember it. If it's domain-specific,
28:45
uh, it doesn't necessarily meet the full criteria
28:50
for that item. All right.
28:55
The other thing that I want to be very careful with,
28:59
and we will actually see this later, is high school scores
29:03
on the PCLR does not necessarily
29:07
predict future behavior. So having
29:11
a high psychopathic score doesn't
29:15
necessarily mean that person will become homicidal,
29:20
and we'll look at that here in just a minute.
29:27
One of the things that I also want
29:31
to make clear is if you were to have taken
29:35
this class or a class in forensics just
29:40
almost just 10 years ago,
29:44
you would have heard this statement that
29:48
all serial killers are psychopaths, but not
29:52
all psychopaths are serial killers.
29:56
All right, and what this— of course, this model
30:00
implies is that every serial killer is a psychopath.
30:06
But, uh, what we've found with
30:10
more modern analysis, uh,
30:14
is— says something to, to this effect,
30:18
that yes, some serial killers are psychopaths,
30:23
but most psychopaths are not serial killers.
30:26
Okay, and what I mean by that is
30:31
that people who may score high in psychopathology may
30:36
not lead to homicide. They may have
30:40
other criminal behaviors,
30:43
and in some cases,
30:46
they may be doing what they think is right.
30:50
So for example,
30:54
uh, CEOs and top executives of
30:57
corporations tend to score
31:01
somewhat high in psychopathology.
31:06
Reason being is in a democratic capitalist
31:11
society, the idea is, is that you
31:15
do what you need to do to
31:19
be financially successful. And in times,
31:23
that includes, um, not making sure
31:27
that you take care of your employees as good as you should.
31:31
Or it may mean that you need to step on
31:35
other people without caring what's
31:40
going to happen to them to get to that next level
31:44
of what is expected in a
31:48
capitalist democratic society,
31:52
bringing us back to that cultural aspect
31:56
that I talked about later— earlier about
32:00
the potentiality that psychopathy really developed
32:05
within our Western context because
32:09
of those expectations for financial
32:13
success and financial engagement,
32:17
which means taking advantage of or not treating
32:20
other people with, um,
32:24
respect and dignity and all of those kinds of things.
32:27
Okay, so the other thing
32:30
that this emphasizes is the difference
32:34
between personality traits and
32:38
behavioral traits. Okay, so let's take
32:42
a look at this part, uh, for a minute.
32:47
What I want to separate for us today too is
32:51
a difference between psychopathy,
32:54
what's known as antisocial personality disorder,
32:59
and what is known as psychosis.
33:03
Psychopathy is a constellation
33:08
of interpersonal, affective,
33:10
lifestyle, behavioral traits. It is
33:14
not a mental disorder because
33:19
what's required of something being classified
33:23
as a mental disorder is it has to cause distress
33:28
in the individual And they have to recognize
33:32
that their behaviors are destructive
33:36
and maladaptive. Given that
33:41
definition, a psychopath, uh,
33:45
psychopathy is not a mental disorder because
33:48
they don't have the ability, or don't have
33:52
the ability, to see their destructive,
33:55
manipulative personality as something
33:59
that is, um, maladaptive or destructive.
34:04
Okay, anti-personality disorder,
34:08
on the other hand, is categorized
34:11
as a psychiatric disorder by the
34:16
DSM, and it's marked by a
34:20
pervasive pattern of disregard for in violation of
34:24
the rights of others occurring since
34:27
about the age of 15. In fact,
34:31
many people with ASPD usually had
34:36
a conduct disorder before about
34:40
the age of 15, then, and then it became an
34:44
antisocial personality disorder as they went
34:48
from adolescence into adulthood.
34:51
Okay, the, the thing though with ASPD
34:57
is the individual recognizes,
35:01
uh, that their behaviors are destructive.
35:06
They may lack remorse for it because they have
35:10
a hatred towards a certain group or disregard
35:15
for community, um,
35:17
existence, but they recognize that their
35:21
destructive behavior is that,
35:25
and they're choosing kind of to go with
35:28
the destructive behavior instead of trying to fix it.
35:35
Okay, psychosis, on the other hand, is a symptom
35:38
based on clinical syndromes such
35:43
as delusions, hallucinations,
35:46
disorganized thinking or speech,
35:48
disorganized or unusual behavior, and it may be
35:53
episodic or chronic depending on the cause.
35:57
But it's a state of impaired reality testing characterized
36:03
by delusions, hallucinations, or disorganized
36:06
thinking. When we get to, again,
36:09
Module 8, we'll talk about one type of psychotic disorder
36:14
which is schizophrenia, which is— that
36:18
combines delusions, usually hallucinations,
36:22
and the other 3. But other potential causes
36:25
of psychosis are certain medical disorders.
36:30
Uh, people with depression and bipolar
36:34
can have what's called schizoaffective disorder
36:38
along with it, meaning that They also have moments of delusions
36:43
and hallucinations, but it tends to be
36:47
more episodic and not chronic, as you see, as we will see
36:51
in full-blown schizophrenia.
36:55
And there are certain medications,
36:58
prescribed medications, that can also create
37:03
psychosis as a side effect.
37:06
Okay, and definitely people with psychopathy
37:11
or ASPD can also have psychosis,
37:15
but it's a separate kind of issue. It's a more clinical issue
37:20
that would need to be addressed to help the person.
37:29
Okay, so now let's return to the psychopath.
37:33
And if you remember, I mentioned that what they really lack
37:38
is they lack a sense of empathy and concern.
37:43
They do have a cognitive understanding of
37:48
other people's beliefs, intentions, and emotions,
37:52
and they do understand that others have perspectives
37:56
different than their own. That whole theory of mind that
38:00
we discussed on, I believe it was Tuesday,
38:03
about being able to cognitively construct
38:08
the thoughts, emotions, and ideas of other people.
38:13
The difference between someone who is
38:17
psychopathic— and I hope everyone in
38:20
the class— is that they lack
38:24
the affective component of
38:28
being able then to respond to another
38:33
person's emotion. It's almost as if their
38:36
affect— affective emotional system has
38:41
hardened to a rock, that they really just don't
38:44
care or have any emotion that someone
38:48
is crying or experiencing pain.
38:51
And if they find someone who is happy and
38:55
motivated, they use that not to
38:59
effectively connect with them but usually to
39:03
some way take advantage of
39:07
that person.
39:15
Now we need to discuss one of the major myths
39:19
about psychopathy and serial homicide,
39:23
and that is the myth of the killer brain.
39:27
The big myth that has been advertised,
39:31
and I will bring— I'll admit in this class I brought up
39:36
this, uh, kind of myth from case examples,
39:41
that the serial killer has a distinct
39:44
brain damage of some type. And the main
39:48
culprit that has been, uh, uh,
39:52
kind of popularized is that they have damage to their prefrontal
39:56
cortex that inhibits empath—
40:01
that in a normal brain will allow
40:05
a person to have that empathetic,
40:08
affective control over their behaviors
40:12
and response to others. However,
40:16
a recent study done in 2024
40:22
that looked at over 100,
40:25
um, uh, serial killers,
40:28
uh, shows actually zero differences
40:33
between the brain structures and
40:38
systems of people who are non-serial
40:42
killer or non-psychopathic and
40:46
those. And I think the best image to illustrate
40:50
this is in the bottom of the slide.
40:54
You'll note that we have this nonviolent control.
40:59
We have the non-serial offender, but they did
41:03
a violent crime. Maybe they assaulted someone.
41:07
And then we have our typical serial killer.
41:11
Okay? And you'll know that
41:15
there's really no consistent difference
41:21
between the brain of our nonviolent control,
41:25
our single violent offender, and our serial killer.
41:30
So what we have found to this point
41:35
is that the notion of a killer brain,
41:39
the notion of serial killing and homicide
41:44
cannot be reduced to abnormalities
41:48
within the brain, with one
41:51
caveat. An individual
41:56
may have brain deficits
42:00
such as the, uh,
42:03
prefrontal cortex damage that
42:07
may uh, partly,
42:11
um, explain that person's behavior,
42:16
but that person is an anomaly,
42:20
uh, what you would call an outlier from
42:24
the group of individuals where they have committed
42:28
similar behaviors or similar psychopathic
42:32
traits. Okay, so I want to bring that up,
42:36
that we can't take group averages
42:41
and equal it to individual scans.
42:45
And again, this is why in a lot of court of laws
42:49
that neurological evidence really isn't permissible
42:54
because currently it
42:58
is a myth that from a neurological perspective,
43:02
a person will commit a homicide.
43:08
And for me, I just want to bring this
43:12
up, uh, really quick. For me,
43:15
I really wish that there was a difference between
43:19
the brain of someone who commits a homicide and my
43:23
own brain, because that would be very psychologically
43:28
comforting.
43:32
Unfortunately, there isn't. And I want you to think about
43:36
that for a minute— how comfortably comfortable it is to think
43:40
they have a different brain from mine, but in all actuality,
43:44
they don't. And that's kind of my
43:47
scary, uh, Halloween,
43:51
um, uh,
43:54
takeaway I think from today's lecture.
44:02
We also need to be careful of the developmental and
44:06
the trap of hindsight. So there are
44:10
some developmental risk factors that
44:15
increase the probability of
44:19
someone offending
44:24
in a serial violent way. So we can look
44:28
at things like childhood adversity, some neurodevelopment
44:33
factors such as impulsivity or emotional regulation,
44:38
early behavioral problems. You probably have heard
44:42
the triad of the serial killer, and they have harm
44:46
to animals, urinasis, which is bedwetting,
44:50
And there is one other one, but that triad does
44:54
not actually work out, I will just say.
44:57
Environmental influences such as peer, community,
45:00
socioeconomic factors. We will talk about
45:04
social learning in our next section.
45:08
And trauma and chronic stress,
45:11
maltreatment and exposure to violence. All of
45:16
these are risk factors, but I want us to be careful.
45:19
They're not deterministic. The other
45:24
concept that makes these things reassuring,
45:27
unfortunately, is the notion of hindsight
45:31
bias, which we will talk about in the next 2 topics in
45:35
more detail. But it's the tendency to view
45:39
an outcome as it had— it could
45:42
have been predicted after the fact.
45:46
So in our illustration, before the crime, we sit
45:50
here, how did this happen? I don't understand.
45:54
And then afterwards, we kind of go, okay, this— we should
45:58
have known this from the beginning.
46:01
Okay, and this is where I do give
46:04
the caution of true crime,
46:09
uh, retrospective selection in true crime videos.
46:14
Is what they tend to highlight is
46:18
those things that match the model that
46:23
would have predicted that behavior and completely
46:27
ignore any of the other factors to
46:31
make the show more entertaining. Okay, and we'll
46:36
talk about that here in just a minute a little bit more.
46:41
The problem with using these as deterministic,
46:48
in a deterministic way for the individual,
46:52
is illustrated in this slide on
46:56
point 4, is that we can have
47:01
a group of people that have a grouping of these developmental
47:04
risk factors. However,
47:08
what we find is that the majority of them never
47:14
really engage in violent behavior.
47:19
We do find, and this is why these risk factors are
47:23
risk factors and probabilistic,
47:26
we do find that a, some of them, so 100,
47:30
we have 100 here, let us say, And 10 of
47:34
them do have a tendency towards some violent
47:38
crime. So 1 in 10. However, only 1
47:42
out of that 100 might engage in serious violent
47:46
crime, such as homicide.
47:50
So making sure we look at developmental
47:54
risk factors from a group perspective
47:58
should not in any ways drive a determination
48:04
of that person's future.
48:07
And I think this is best illustrated in
48:12
what's known as equal finality and multi-finality.
48:18
Equal finality is when a certain
48:22
cluster of early experiences
48:26
lead to the same outcome for a
48:31
few individual— individuals.
48:34
Or in this case, what this means is one
48:38
person may have experienced child abuse and
48:41
that led them to a serious crime. One other
48:46
person may have experienced substance use and that
48:50
led them to a violent crime. But maybe
48:54
neither of these individuals experienced— oh,
49:00
oh, experienced exposure to violence,
49:03
have neurodevelopment or peer, peer influence.
49:08
Okay, so that's kind of one model
49:12
that one different experience
49:16
can lead to the same outcome.
49:22
Multifinality is when one risk
49:26
factor can lead to several outcomes.
49:30
So we mentioned child adversity with abuse and neglect.
49:36
That may lead one person to become incredibly resilient
49:40
and adaptive and functional.
49:43
To another one, it may lead to mental health difficulties.
49:48
To another, it might be substance abuse problems.
49:51
To another, it may be a nonviolent crime.
49:55
And to another, it may lead to
49:58
a serious violence offense. In this case
50:02
of multifinality, one risk
50:06
factor has multiple potential outcomes,
50:11
okay? And this is why we need to
50:15
look at the key implications of risk factors.
50:19
Development is not— is
50:24
probability. It is not deterministic.
50:30
And we have to consider the whole pathway.
50:34
We have to look at protective factors and avoid simple
50:38
explanations for people's behaviors,
50:41
that they did it because they just wanted
50:46
to. No, it's probably from,
50:50
uh, different combinations of outcomes
50:54
that led them to a path to
50:58
who they are today.
51:04
So this leads us to
51:10
a discussion about what do we do with
51:14
serial killers. I mean, how do we view them and
51:19
then, um, sensationalize them?
51:23
And the 2 cases that I chose was the case of Ted Bundy
51:28
and Samuel Little. And this is where
51:32
we can look at the notion of persona versus
51:37
visibility and linkage.
51:41
Because Ted Bundy is assumed to be
51:45
a mastermind super manipulator
51:49
because his public persona was very charismatic,
51:54
uh, to a lot of people. He was very good-looking,
51:59
uh, he was educated, uh, he was politically
52:03
involved. He had kind of this romantic uh,
52:07
uh, image and was often portrayed as
52:10
normal or harmless.
52:13
Indeed, when we look at the trials
52:17
of Ted Bundy, there were women who would show
52:20
up confessing his innocence
52:24
and saying that they got the wrong person because
52:29
this is what was given publicly But
52:34
this is the true Ted Bundy,
52:38
is one— he committed many homicides.
52:42
There's evidence of premeditation,
52:45
deception, escape. We see
52:49
this idea of use of different identities and stealing
52:53
identities of other people. He had a long
52:56
history of rule violations and calculated
53:00
Uh, behaviors, and he specifically targeted,
53:05
uh, his women. Yeah, um, uh, if you currently
53:09
have long hair split down the middle, more brunette,
53:14
uh, Ted Bundy would have been— I'm not even gonna say it— he
53:19
would have, um, thought about what he could do.
53:23
Okay, he had a very specific— he was
53:26
cold calculated and ruthless.
53:31
Now let's take the case of Samuel Little.
53:35
He confessed to over 93 murders,
53:40
and only by 2019 the
53:44
FBI has confirmed about 50 victims
53:47
across 16 states. This makes
53:52
Samuel Little the most prolific serial killer in
53:57
American history. The thing is,
54:00
is that, uh, he doesn't look like,
54:04
you know, someone you would suspect
54:08
to be a serial killer. Yes, he had drug issues,
54:13
uh, he had developmental issues,
54:16
um, but, uh, and financial
54:20
issues. He was actually arrested in a homeless
54:25
facility for a drug charge. They knew nothing about
54:29
him murdering a bunch of people until they brought
54:33
him in for interviews.
54:36
But this is a person who was very systematic.
54:40
One, he admitted that he picked individuals
54:43
that were marginalized. So, for example,
54:48
he targeted women experiencing homelessness,
54:52
Prostitutes, or substance users.
54:55
And if you look at those individuals' original
54:59
death records that showed that they had an overdose,
55:02
or they had a substance abuse-related
55:07
issue, and they were— many of them,
55:11
I think it was actually 20 out of the 50 that they eventually
55:15
confirmed, weren't even listed
55:19
as a homicide. Crimes also occurred
55:24
across multiple jurisdictions, which limited data sharing.
55:28
Many deaths were initially classified, as I said, as overdosing,
55:34
and there was a lack of consistent recording and what's known in
55:38
the forensic world as modus operandi.
55:43
And that is the way the person goes about,
55:47
um, their offending behavior.
55:51
All right, so a kind
55:55
of unrecognizable person. Not many people
55:59
actually, uh, people in the United States,
56:02
when someone says, hey, Ted Bundy,
56:06
it's almost instantly recognized.
56:10
But when someone says Samuel Little, uh,
56:14
a little less is known about it. Okay, so what
56:18
are— is the key takeaway between comparing
56:22
these 2 offenders? One is conduct
56:27
and appearance can vary differently. You can have a
56:31
charismatic persona, persona, but does not rule out serious criminal
56:36
behavior. System factors influence
56:39
recognition. Patterns may remain hidden without
56:43
consistent data sharing and collaboration.
56:47
Notoriety and visibility are influenced
56:51
by context. Some offenders receive extensive
56:55
media attention while others remain even unknown for decades.
57:00
You will note that Um, Sam Little's,
57:04
uh, offending behavior, uh,
57:07
started in the early 1980s,
57:11
and it wasn't until 2010 that he was actually
57:16
arrested or started confessing.
57:19
And there's some evidence that he started his, um,
57:23
murder sprees actually in the 1960s.
57:28
Both cases highlight the limits of intuition.
57:32
Accurate understanding depends on systematic investigation
57:37
and evidence, not on appearance or single-case
57:41
narratives.
57:44
The other myth that I want to kind of bust today
57:50
is the notion that a crime scene
57:54
can tell us something about the offender.
57:59
And the most common myth is that an organized
58:03
crime scene denotes that the person was
58:06
calculative, intelligent,
58:09
probably has a high income
58:14
or, or, or a professional job,
58:18
and that a disorganized crime scene denotes
58:24
that the offender probably had lower intelligence,
58:28
maybe working class, blue collar,
58:32
was not very calculating. And it was assumed
58:37
that you could look at the crime scene and
58:40
determine the type of person that committed that crime.
58:46
But research done in 2004 and
58:52
was not actually accepted until about 10,
58:56
15 years later, showed that
58:59
really you cannot tell much about
59:03
an offender by the crime scene.
59:07
As this plot denotes on
59:11
dimensions of victim interaction,
59:15
and planning, weapon, and mobility.
59:19
So there really is no consistent
59:23
cluster of an organized
59:27
versus a disorganized offender. That in— indeed,
59:32
there are no distinct clusters. And why does
59:36
this matter? Crime scenes are dynamic and shaped by many situational
59:41
factors. Such as panic, interruption,
59:44
victim resistance, location, and opportunity,
59:48
which can be altered very rapidly in the
59:52
situation. So, we have to be careful about
59:56
behavioral crime scene profiling. It can
1:00:00
generate investigative leads, or what are known as hypotheses,
1:00:06
but they are in no way diagnostic or legal
1:00:09
proof.
1:00:13
Okay, all right.
1:00:18
And then I just want to, uh, because we're getting near the end
1:00:22
here, um, I want to talk about
1:00:26
probably the 2 most, um, true crime,
1:00:31
uh, personality features that the expert identifies
1:00:36
while they're watching an offender
1:00:40
interview. One is known as
1:00:45
image management, or what is also called
1:00:49
impression management, which we are going to talk more about in
1:00:54
this section in social psychology, and pathological
1:00:59
lying. So, they will sit and watch an interview,
1:01:03
and they will say, look, he is engaging impression management,
1:01:07
and trying to shape the narrative for what
1:01:10
they think the author should— the officers
1:01:14
would hear to make him appear a certain way.
1:01:20
The problem with this is, is it causes what's called a false
1:01:25
positive problem because we all
1:01:29
engage in image and impression
1:01:33
management. Think of a job interview.
1:01:36
I'll highlight my strengths. I'm going to engage in impression management.
1:01:41
First dates. I'm going to impress. I want to present
1:01:45
the best version of myself. Social media.
1:01:49
I want to curate this story about me that is
1:01:53
desirable. Academic and professional.
1:01:57
I emphasize my desirable qualities.
1:02:01
So denoting that in
1:02:05
a high-stakes situation someone
1:02:10
is going to engage in impression management is
1:02:14
not an offender psychopathic trait.
1:02:19
That's a trait that you'll find people engage in
1:02:23
across a lot of contexts.
1:02:26
The other common thing that is heard from the experts is
1:02:31
they're a pathological liar. The problem
1:02:35
with that is, is that in order to call
1:02:40
someone a pathological liar, you have to
1:02:44
denote that that lying occurs in every
1:02:48
single domain of their life in order to
1:02:52
make it pathological. Therefore,
1:02:55
an offender lying to and consistently lying
1:03:00
to police officers in an interview does
1:03:04
not establish pathological lying.
1:03:09
What it establishes is that they are lying in
1:03:12
that context in order to deny their
1:03:16
crime. So, And we all
1:03:21
engage again, just like impression management.
1:03:25
We all engage in lies in some cases
1:03:30
to avoid consequences. I didn't do it.
1:03:34
Protecting others. I don't want them to get in trouble.
1:03:38
Impression management. I exaggerate to seem more capable
1:03:43
of myself. Or we might use social comfort to lie. I go
1:03:47
along with the story to work to avoid conflict.
1:03:53
And so what I hope, uh, by giving these
1:03:57
2 examples is that when you watch a
1:04:00
true crime series, that you don't pathologize,
1:04:05
pathologize instantly that,
1:04:09
oh yes, that person must be a psychopath Because
1:04:13
they engage in image and impression management,
1:04:17
and they are constantly lying in that interview.
1:04:21
Because just by those interviews, that cannot be
1:04:25
established.
1:04:33
So kind of to, uh, so one other
1:04:37
thing, and well, we'll get to this when we get to Section
1:04:41
8, but I'm gonna stop here because we just don't have time
1:04:46
for another case scenario.