Like many people, I’m fascinated by sociopaths. In particular the violent, physically attractive ones–think Ted Bundy and Jodi Arias–make me wonder: What makes them tick? How did they become monsters? How do they behave when they’re flying under the radar, before revealing their violent natures?
As writers it’s our job to dissect what motivates our characters. Many writers fall into the trap of writing psychopaths (a term that is interchangeable with sociopaths) as cardboard, two-dimensional characters. Evil requires a special effort to make it believable. And even to make it, ugh, sympathetic.
Science gives us some clues about ways that psychopaths reveal themselves in speech and mannerisms. A computer analysis of interviews with 52 convicted murderers who tested positive for psychopathy showed that all the men spoke with little emotion, used cause-and-effect statements to describe their crimes, and emphasized basic needs such as food and money.
That finding poses a problem for writers: Unemotional characters who speak in cause-and-effect statements can be boring on the page. So when we’re creating a psychopath, we need to reach beyond the typical behavior. We might choose to make them charismatic and larger-than-life (Hannibal Lecter and the Batman villains, for example). Or we might decide to make them more human. After all, there are lots of murderers who aren’t psychopaths. They might be driven by revenge, a sense of mission, or even a warped value system (Dexter).
This topic has been on my mind because I’ve been reading The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry.The book offers a fascinating insight on psychopaths, as well as the psychiatric industry that treats and categorizes them. The book includes the standardized test, the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, to analyze whether a person exhibits sociopathic traits. Here’s an online cheat sheet to the test. Let us know how you score, if you feel like sharing! Disclaimer: It takes a trained professional to administer the actual test and analyze it, so we won’t start shunning anyone in the grocery aisle who comes back with a high score!
I scored 2 and 2.1, which seems to put me in the slightly below average category, in the green area of the plotting box, where a large number of peoples’ scores fall. I sure don’t feel psychopathic in any way (on most days, at least ;-0
Thanks for sharing! Most sociopaths aren’t violent, so even if one scores above average, it wouldn’t mean we’d have to pack away the knives whenever that person’s around. 🙂
Okay, but just the same, I wouldn’t want this guy standing behind me in the airport queue. Know what I’m saying?
I hate o be the one who writes this, but neither psychopathy or sociopathy are actual diagnosis for mental illness and never have been. They are terms used by some in law enforcement and a lot of writers that seems to describe actual conditions like anti-social behavior disorder.
I can’t find a diagnosis for Arias but Bundy was diagnosed by a Dr. Lewis after extensive interviews as Manic-Despressive and probably killed during his depressive phases. It also appears that he had a complete lack of empathy for others, possibly because his confused identity or lack of with is mother. He was raised by grandparents and was told his mother was his sister.
In writing thrillers I think we need to be very careful with terms or ideas that have no meaning to professionals (metal heath in this case). It can erode the trust our readers have in us. (Note: My first rule of writing is: My readers are smarter than I am)
I think we also need to be careful when we mix up real killers like Bundy and fictional ones like Lecter. Bundy killed people, Lector is a product of Thomas Harris’ imagination and (probably) research). They shouldn’t be gathered in the same set of things.
I avoid both of these terms even though they are popular.
By the way, I took the test and cheated it. According to the results, i’m a psychopath. I scored worse than 83% on both parts. I’m a nut, but not a psychopath. Good personality tests can’t be cheated.
Sorry to rain on this column but inaccuracy in our wiring means we lose readers. I just read a well known writer who had a character click off the safety on a Glock. They don’t have safeties. I trust him a little less in the future.
I think the real stories of pattern killers are better fodder for our stories.
Not at all, Brian, I have my umbrella handy! 🙂 Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I agree with you about the need for accuracy in our writing. See the column “The smell of cordite in the air” http://killzoneauthors.blogspot.com/2009/03/smell-of-cordite-in-air-of-inaccuracy.html#.UdMHDsu9KSM
Brian: Do you have a recent picture of yourself we might send to airport security? Hmmm? And I’m not really in Missoula. My name could be Fred. And that’s not my pic, either.
Brian–
Have you got your own umbrella handy? Talking about misused terms and factual details, you say such inaccuracies “can erode the trust our readers have in us.” Nowhere is this more true than in what writers reveal about themselves in their use of language. “Manic-Despressive,” “metal heath,” “inaccuracy in our wiring.” These howlers seriously damage what may be the validity of the points you’re trying to make. A Glock may have no safety, but spelling does. It’s called proofreading.
Oh, jeez. Run for it Barry!!
Barry,
You prove my point.
My score for primary psychopathy was higher than 80.6% of people who have taken this test. 3.3 This means I have a lack of empathy for other people and tolerance for antisocial orientations.
My score for secondary psychopathy was higher than 44.28% of people who have taken this test. 2.4
Maybe that’s why I don’t have such a huge problem unveiling the truth in awful situations. It’s fiction, but if you can’t detach, how can you make your bad guy believable?
Diane: I’ll be right over. Can you make a good slushy margarita? Of course, I’d never complain if I didn’t like it.
I agree, Diane. But then I tested at 3.4 and 2.1.
Send the margaritas this way!
When do we get this party started? 😀
I have no problem with the use of the terms. As writers we take advantage of stereotypes to help do quick character intros. Stereotypes are another word for the psychological term ‘schemas’. A schema is a group of related things that the brain can access faster because they’re networked together than it could if it had to do each one separately, and that’s an adaptation that helps keep us alive. For example, if I have to think ‘Large, fast, sharp claws, big teeth, meat eater, dangerous’ separately, the bear running at me will have arrived, and I’ll be dead. By triggering the bear schema, I react faster and make it up that nearby tree before the bear arrives.
What pops into your head when you think ‘fire fighter’ or ‘police officer’ or ‘lawyer’? The same things happen for readers. Once we’ve triggered the schema, we focus on how this character differs from the schema. We don’t have to redraw the entire thing. That’s just smart writing.
I also have to disagree with Brian about whether good psychological tests can be cheated. If they couldn’t, you’d see a lot more information publicly available about why they have the questions they do and what the results mean. There’s definite bias for folks who take IQ tests more than once, and any psychologist who has experience in interpreting any of the more popular tests can definitely skew the results of their own test.
My psych prof was quick to point out that in the widely used Minnisota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, people who scored high on the hypochondria scale tended to have much higher five year mortality rates and higher rates of diagnoses of nervous system disorders at five years post-test. So while the test was picking up the early symptoms of their diseases, it was incorrectly diagnosing them as fakers.
Kathryn, have you seen the studies of how the most successful leaders of corporations and even the behavior and goals of many large corporations seem to fit the description for sociopaths? I found that fascinating.
Kathy
And mid-level managers and above at the FBI, CIA, and the rest of the alphabet agencies.
I did read about those studies, and there’s a fun chapter in The Psychopath Test book where the author interviews an ex-CEO who was famous for conducting mass layoffs, sometimes to the detriment of his company’s welfare. The guy had statues of all kinds of predatory animals in his garden, I recall. Was he a sociopath? You have to be the judge.
I second Brian’s comments, but as an ex-scientist and writer, I believe we have some leeway with these terms and many others taken from science. Common language uses terms like psychopath and sociopath, even if they don’t fit into the new psychiatry manual. Even so, sociopath is often used incorrectly because it doesn’t necessarily imply violent or anti-social behavior–I’ve known some “sociopaths” who function rather well, although some of them are narcissistic (a related term).
BTW, because of his predilection for cannibalism, Lecter shares certain characteristics with Jeffrey Daumer. Lecter’s last line in Silence of the Lambs is a classic, right up there with “We need a bigger boat” in Jaws.
r/Steve
Yes, it’s important to remember that most people with those traits don’t go around killing people. I have yet to take that test myself–I must be afraid of what it might reveal! 🙂
Thanks for an interesting posting.
Chitrader: We’re all still good here, right? And Brian: Just kidding. Okay? Huh? . . .
Was on vacation for two weeks in Jackson Hole, so I’m on a roll here today with the temp hovering at 100F. Just like with those pesky Santa Ana’s, anything could happen now.
So the thing that really blows me away about the sociopathic mind is the ability of the individual (if we can call him or her that) to see between the lines and shadows of socially accepted norms and rules and reach “GO” in one or two slick moves. Perhaps it is similar to having “full-court vision” in basketball. These folks are always seven or eight moves ahead of everyone else. I’m afraid that most get away free, too. Try explaining “socially responsible” behavior to the CEOs and economic savants, who clear out of town leaving the unfortunate residents to clean up their toxic waste and Superfund sites.
That’s my rant. Sorry. 🙁
I think it’s hard for most people to understand the lack of remorse in these individuals. They’re never plagued by a guilty conscience–whatever benefits them is justified in their eyes.
Kathryn–
I think the best way to understand this is in terms of people who, for whatever reason, never develop a conscience, a system of internal moral government. They remain children all their lives, in the sense of fearing only punishment from a parent (i.e., cop or other authority figure). The rest of us grow up: we internalize the parent, which works to help and sometimes hinder our choices and actions. Or something like that. The character Lindbergh in my new Kindle mystery, The ANYTHING GOES GIRL is such a person. He sees the murders he commits as acts of chance, like being hit by lightning. He is just an agent of destiny, not a person who makes conscious decisions.
Both of my parents died at early ages. I’m left with my internal conscience, which does lack somewhat, but for the betterment of my own life. I do have a moral code in that I don’t go around harming people. On the same note, I don’t bother myself with my surroundings and how my behavior is having a negative affect for those more sensitive and aware.
If I’m not breaking the law and there’s collateral damage to you in some way, get the hell out the way fool!
Does this all make me anti-social or to some degree a sociopath? Because I’m really a nice person to those people who understand me. To others, they might find me to be stoic, uncaring, narcissistic, and what my husband likes to call me…oblivious.
Yes, I am a child at heart. But, aren’t we all? 🙂
After the survey a message popped up that said “Stay where you are, armed officers are on the way to help you.”
anyone else get that?
Hey! Stay calm and start counting your fingers, Basil.
Everything will be okey-dokey real soon now.
I’ve known my fair share of folks who could be considered psychopaths and had plenty of first hand acquaintance with folks suffering from a variety of mental issues that could be classed as psycho/sociopathic. I’ve also gotten to know a number of people who have had jobs that required extreme levels violence to reach the end of the work day.
The deciding factor I’ve come to recognize between psychos vs. warriors is not the act of violence itself, but the derivation of pleasure from the violence. The warrior is not necessarily unhappy with the killing, but usually prefers not to hurt someone if it’s not necessary. The psycho gets a hard-on when the screams start.
then there’s the other side of nuts, like the guy who came into the office last week to get VA benefits for his military disability. They found him in the system but there were no injuries related to his claim. The VSR (vet service rep) got out the forms to start a new claim and the guy goes into detail about injuries received in combat actions in Mesopotamia.
VSR – “Mesopotamia? Do you mean Iraq?”
Vet – “No, it wasn’t called that when I was there.”
VSR-“Okay, your file doesn’t show any combat action during your enlistment.”
Vet – “Oh, well it might not be in the record you have.”
VSR – “Do you a copy of a different record.”
Vet – “I don’t know if it still exists.”
VSR – “Tell me the unit you were in and what dates you were in it. I can look up the records and verify your name is in their rosters.”
Vet – “Legio XV Apollinaris, and it was 3-7 AD.”
VSR glances around desk to locate panic button, “I think you’re in the wrong office for your particular disability.”
That’s amazing! That kind of delusion seems like it would be so much more interesting than your typical shaggy guy ranting on the street corner. It’d be fascinating to talk with someone like that and explore all his ‘memories’ of that time and place. The beginning of an interesting historical novel, perhaps?
Interesting post! I especially like this as just a few days ago I watched the Jodi Arias movie on Lifetime. (Hold the commentary – LOL) It was actually fairly close to the actual case, which I followed very closely. Yet, I was intrigued with how much they made Jodi seem psychotic. Well, she is, but still.
I have to say, getting into your psycho’s head (or character as the case may be) is very interesting. As a reader (as well as an author and editor) I just don’t want to feel cheated out of knowing or experiencing what my characters are going through. Recently I actually stopped reading a book because I felt shortcutted.
On another note, this is interesting aspect to get into as well. I just switched to writing romantic suspense and have been told by editors and agents that I am writing more of a thriller with romantic elements story rather. I get into my bad guy’s head and apparently that is what switches it up. I don’t know if that is the case on what changes the novel into two different genres, but I am having a heck of a time finding out.
Test results 1.9 and 2.6 Have no clue what that means, but it was a fun ride!
DC
http://www.authordcstone.com
The Jodi Arias case is fascinating, isn’t it? Is it true that the victim allowed her into his apartment on the final day for sex, even after all the psycho-stalker stunts she pulled? I’m sure she thought that was why he was using her, and justified her killing him, in her mind. But then, I might be biased. See my score on the Psychopath Test, below. 🙂
Yes! She came under his understanding and pretense that she was going to say goodbye and go back home to Palm Springs. Then, being the man he was with her, he ended up taking her to bed. She flipped out when she saw a text from his “girlfriend” and the rest is history. The case completely has me intrigued and I’d love to recreate portions of it in a book. What’s even better is the way the detective pieced everything together. So we’ll done, and if you haven’t had the chance, I’d recommend reading his report. Phenomenal!
Okay, I just took the test. In primary psychopathy I scored higher than 84.71% of people. In secondary psychopathy I scored higher than 74.89%. I feel a strange lack of remorse over these results…is that a bad thing? 🙂
Remember a couple weeks ago I mentioned stalking you…I was only kidding…really, I would never consider….
Oh my…please don’t hurt me.
You’re safe, Basil…for now… 😉
I want to hear more about what happened several weeks ago, when you were walking your dog on the Strand. Are those “guys” you mentioned MIAs now, or what?
I have the Psycho Test book in my queue. It does look like a winner. I also remember being given the F-Scale test when the army wanted to send me to OCS. Having been a prior psych student, I knew that this test measured one’s “fascist” tendencies (as in F for fascist). I purposely “failed” that test and was not — I repeat NOT — sent to OCS. Hold on now, I was sent to MP school, instead. Explain that one?? And I enjoyed “busting” my share of officers for conduct “unbecoming.” Hee. Hee. And me, a lowly Spc. 4, too. One jeep full of lewies even left their caps (with bars attached) on the table when I revealed myself. All you could see was their dust as they beat it outta town. Oh joy of joys!!
I sense a kindred spirit, Jim in Missoula. With my canine-people radar and your F-scale expertise, we could go far!
Enjoy the book!
Well, after reading Kathryn’s results, my psycho 1 rating of 60% higher than other testers and psycho 2 rating of 40% of other testers makes me seem almost . . . quaint.
Seriously, I do find the tests rather fascinating, as long as you are honest and not gaming.
I’ve represented many types all along the curve and had the distinct displeasure of sharing an elevator with a stone ass killer who had eyes that could kill puppies.
I can do cold hard things. I can pragmatically talk people into taking deals that send them to prison or surrendering their children for adoption.
But after locking eyes with that killer? Pfft, I am a freaking marshmallow compared to the real thing.
Terri
People are smart, and I think they know what they “should” answer according to society’s mores. So if anything, I think the gamed bias on this type of test would skew toward the low side. Which doesn’t reflect well on a high score like mine, I realize! 🙂
I had a little meltdown in college during senior year midterms. I had a great job offer and just needed to produce the diploma. I sat down in a steel design exam, looked at it, froze, got up, and ran out of the room. I had finally reached that magic “breaking point.” Next thing I know, I was blubbering in the peer counseling center where I volunteered. I wasn’t the first over-achiever they had seen flame out, so the response team went into action.
Part of the amnesty deal they worked for me with the prof was that I seek some counseling. I took the full battery of tests and she came back almost laughing.
Her response was, “You are the most stressed and least depressed person I have ever seen. You’ll be fine.”
So, after the report said I wasn’t a danger to myself or anyone else, the deal was that if I passed the final, the prof would overlook my lapse of decorum. He also strongly recommended I never touch a piece of structural steel in my career. I satisfied both of those criteria.
Terri
Somehow I take great comfort from that story, Terri. Thanks for sharing!
Every time you drive over a bridge you can take comfort in knowing that I had no part in its design or construction.
And when the heat is on, I remember her shaking her head as she looked at my results and laughing out loud.
Your score from primary psychopathy has been calculated as 1.1. Primary psychopathy is the affective aspects of psychopathy; a lack of empathy for other people and tolerance for antisocial orientations.
Your score from secondary psychopathy has been calculated as 2.8. Secondary psychopathy is the antisocial aspects of psychopathy; rule breaking and a lack of effort towards socially rewarded behavior.
You score for primary psychopathy was higher than 3.19% of people who have taken this test.
You score for secondary psychopathy was higher than 63.38% of people who have taken this test.
Does this mean my husband is actually safe that one week a month??
You are extremely nice, but take no cwap from anyone. Also, you are not afraid to make your own rules, but you do it nicely.
From the thread of comments, I was having trouble understanding the test results, so I took it. Caveat emptor. Several people talked about a sociopath/psychopath spectrum. The test’s possible answers lead to a spectrum, but by reporting the results as a cumulative density result (the numbers or the percentages), they’re focusing on the right-hand “positive” part of the spectrum, sociopathic behavior, and de-emphasizing the “negative” part, which we might call “bleeding heart behavior.” I expect that the results, where you count neutral as zero, follow a normal distribution.
For writers, it might be just as interesting to write about the bleeding hearts, those people who suffer and worry about everyone else but themselves. BTW, you can still use the numbers. If you score very low, you’re more of a bleeding heart!