Today’s Cowardly Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
In 1961, two American pyschologists, Samual Yochelson and Stanton D. Samenow, began a programme to study criminals in St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington DC. Both were liberals who believed that criminals were really “victims” of society, people with “deep psychological problems”. The conclusions they reached dismayed them both. In their book The Criminal Personality, they admit that they found that the chief characteristics of the criminal are weakness, immaturity, vanity and self-delusion. Criminals lacked self-discipline and were often cowards. For example, they preferred to let their teeth go rotten rather than face a dentist’s drill. They also say that the greatest fear of these criminals was that others would see some weakness in them. They were hypersensitive to what was said to them and reacted angrily to being put down. The book, written a decade before Ted Bundy was caught, gives a disturbingly accurate picture of Bundy’s personality. He found himself unable to cope with the normal challenges of life. Rejection and humiliation led to obsession.
Culled from: Crimes and Punishment: The Illustrated Crime Encyclopedia, Volume I
Those two got a rude awakening, didn’t they?
I’d also add narcissism to the list of traits. Or does that come under vanity?
You hear a lot about how low these criminals’ self-esteem is, but at the same time, they consider themselves to be superior to everybody else and entitled to have and do exactly as they please. They feel they are so smart they won’t get caught, and they overall consider themselves above the rules and laws the rest of us have to live by.
Oh, and whatever they want is more important than anything else. If they want something it doesn’t matter who they hurt getting it, because their want trumps everything else.
I share many of those characteristics, but I wouldn’t harm a fly. literally.