Pathology of Lying, Accusation, and Swindling: A Study in Forensic PsychologyHealy, William
Science
Pathology of Lying, Accusation, and Swindling: A Study in Forensic Psychology
Healy, William
Criminal psychology; Swindlers and swindling
Physically we found a very well nourished boy, rather short for
his age. Weight 121 lbs.; height 5 ft. 1 in. Musculature
decidedly flabby; this was especially noticeable in his
handshake. Attitude heavy and slouchy for a boy. Expression
quite pleasant; features regular; complexion decidedly good. A
North European type. Eyes differ slightly in the color of the
irides. Noticeable enlargement of breasts. Well shaped head of
quite normal measurements; circumference 54.5, length 18, breadth
15 cm. No sensory defect, nor was anything else of particular
interest found upon examination.
The mental study, particularly the testing for special abilities,
has been of very great interest. Fortunately for the scientific
understandings of the problems involved we have been able to see
Adolf many times at intervals and to check up previous findings.
Our first statement will be of the results obtained at the
earliest study of the case.
When we first saw Adolf, although he talked so intelligently, we
asked him to give us some evidence of his educational ability,
and to our tremendous surprise he failed to be able to multiply
simple numbers or even to do addition correctly. There was no
evidence of emotional upset, but we waited for further testing
until we had seen the father, that we might be sure of the school
history. As mentioned above, we found that the boy had entirely
misled us.
We then entered upon a systematic study of the boy's abilities
and found some strange contrasts. Perceptions of form and color
were normal. Given a very simple test which required some
apperceptive ability, he did fairly well. Given simple
``Construction Tests'' which required the planful handling of
concrete material, Adolf proceeded unintelligently. He showed no
foresight, was rather slow, but by following out a trial and
error procedure and with some repetition of irrational placing of
the pieces he finally succeeded. Moderate ability to profit by
trial and error was shown, but for his age the performance on
this type of test was poor. On our ``Puzzle-Box,'' which calls
for the analysis of a concrete situation, a test that is done by
boys of his age nearly always in four minutes or less, Adolf
failed in ten minutes. He began in his typically aggressive
fashion, but kept trying to solve the difficulty by the
repetition of obviously futile movements. On a ``Learning
Test,'' where numerals are associated in meaningless relation
with symbols, Adolf did the work promptly and with much
self-confidence, but made a thoroughly irrational error, inasmuch
as he associated the same numeral with two different symbols--and
did not see his error. His ability to mentally represent and
analyze a simple situation visually presented in our ``Cross Line
Tests'' was very poor. In this he failed to analyze out the
simple parts of a figure which he could well draw from memory.
This seemed significant, for the test is practically always done
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