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
Sex. Our findings show only 1 male out of 19 mentally normal
cases. A general observation by practical students of conduct,
namely, that females tend to deviate from the truth more readily
than males, is more than thoroughly borne out here. There are
certainly several social and psychological reasons for this, but
they need not be gone into here. If our figures seem not to be
corroborated by the findings of previous students it is only
because the figures are not comparable-- the latter have mixed
the mentally abnormal with the pathological liars proper. It
will be noted that in our examples of border-line cases 5 out of
the 8 are males. Cases of pathological swindling by mentally
abnormal individuals, such as we have avoided, make up much of
the foreign literature. We can easily see that the social
opportunities for swindling are vastly greater for males than
those offered to the opposite sex. Sex differences, as in many
instances, must not be taken here too seriously because social
environment, differing so greatly for the sexes, is largely
responsible for the behavior which we superficially judge to be
entirely the expression of innate characteristics.
Environment. We are far from feeling that a mere enumeration of
material environmental conditions tells the story of
environmental influences important for our present subject. The
psyche is frequently most profoundly affected by environmental
conditions which even a trained observer would not detect. But
conditions in the total number of unselected cases show
something, and, for whatever it is worth, we offer the following
enumeration of environment in our 19 normal cases, who with much
more reason might be expected to be largely influenced by
surroundings than our group of border-line cases.
Reasonably good home from birth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Defective home conditions through poverty . . . . . . . . . . .2
Very ignorant parents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Immoralities in home life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
Marked defect in parental control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
Very erratic home conditions-parent abnormal. . . . . . . . . .1
Early Mental Experiences. As will have been observed by the
reader in going over the case histories, the early mental
experiences of many of our group of mentally normal pathological
liars have been shockingly bad. Full appreciation of this can
only be gained through perusal of the text, but here we may call
attention to the fact that no less than 8 of the 19 have had very
early untoward sex experiences, that 5 were markedly under the
influence of bad companions, including even the influence in one
or two cases of vicious grown people. The sex experiences we
have just enumerated were received through others--we are not
here speaking of masturbation, which is discussed above.
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