Microexpressions: Lie Detection 101

When I picked up playing Texas Hold'em poker, I read a lot. I read books by the poker pros, I read tournament strategy, I read statistics and probability and I read about bluffs and tells. It was in the latter selection of reading that I began to really focus on body language and microexpressions. I read books on lying and lying theory. I read books on common body language reading and how to baseline people. But microexpressions really interested me in that they were a split-second "slip of the tongue" except in this case the tongue was your face and the slip was an involuntary muscle reaction of the mind. I could not believe what I was reading. Was there really a method of lie detection that worked on everybody and I just did not know about it? I had to research more.

A Return to Sociopathy: Origin(s) and the Inner Triangle

As mentioned previously on this blog, two great resources in the field of study of sociopathy are both the website lovefraud.com and the nonfictional accounts detailed in The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout. Today's piece follows two quick trends detailing the personality disorder: it's origin and seemingly incurable nature and a more detailed, defined model for what sociopaths lack within themselves.

The debate over sociopathy/psychopathy has been waging for more than five decades. Books, peer-reviewed psychology journals, the DSM-IV and "experts" in the field have thrown the two words around and their apparent definitions. Perhaps its a questionable subject to approach based on personal beliefs, because one school of thought attributes individuals possessing sociopathy and psychopathy to have been there since birth. This would seem to entail, then, that individuals could be born "bad" or "evil," something a religious or optimist may not accept. Other schools will describe the personality disorder as stemming from a medical or physical injury. While the last will say the disorder is learned, from childhood onward, through environmental factors such as their socioeconomic status, parental rearing, peers or a significantly low or high intelligence.

Sociopathy and You

Today we're going to talk about a subject near and dear to my heart: the notion of sociopathy. For those who do not know or confuse the word with what they may have heard on Law and Order or Criminal Minds, sociopathy is not psychopathy, in that sociopaths do not kill people (although those whom have come into contact with sociopaths may feel hurt on the same level a psychopath may inflict). 

Sociopathy is a personality disorder, complex in that it is not a singular idea of being different from a normal person, but possessing a group or cluster of symptoms at the same time. For instance an individual may lack empathy for his or her fellow human beings, unable to connect and understand what others may be feeling or experiencing. And while a sociopath is unable to experience said emotions, they are incredibly skilled in faking them. They wear emotions like a mask over the coldness inside them, superficial and fake, but all the while blending in with their groups, functions and friends because of their uncanny ability to mimic the most basic feelings. Sociopaths are highly manipulative and lie pathologically, stemming from their lack of conscience and remorse for their actions. Moreover sociopaths will generally lack responsibility for their actions and seek excitement impulsively.

Sounds like you would almost be dealing with an alien, an outlier of society that are so rare they're saved for cop dramas and the occasional Hollywood flick. But books like The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout put the numbers into an interesting perspective. Diabetes, a health condition so apparently popular it has its own commercials for testing equipment only affects 8% of the general population (source: American Diabetes Association). In the United States that would mean roughly 26 million people suffer from some form/type of Diabetes. Consider now that in Stouts book as well as other studies conducted, sociopathy is found in 4% of the general population, or one in twenty-five. Again, using the United States for a gauge, that would entail roughly 13 million people living in North America show multiple signs/traits/symptoms of sociopathy, as per the DSM-IV. Think about that the next time you attend a school sporting event, a PTA fundraiser, or shop at the mall.

So now that I have the science-mubo-jumbo out of the way, my reason for today's article: being a sociopath is not all that its cracked up to be. I'm not saying I am a sociopath, but I know beyond reasonable doubt I possess a great number of traits listed by the DSM-IV as told to me by my ex-girlfriend, a number of therapists and a few episodes of CSI. I lie pathologically, I use people for personal gain without regard for their feelings and I'm pretty narcissistic. I often live a parasitic lifestyle, leeching off the benefits of others whether it may be their resources or their money. I constantly groom an image of how I want other people to view me, and it is one of the few things I'll guard more than the secrets "friends" let slip in conversation. And I cannot change. 

Seems sociopathy is so far ingrained in one's psyche its impossible to change. Medication is irrelevant because there is no imbalance, simply a lack of existence for the most basic human characteristics: emotions, conscience and empathy. Talking it out with others serves no purpose, because again there is nothing to gain. You're simply stuck in a body, a bad movie in which you're both the audience and the character on the screen, and no matter how much you yell at the pro(an)tagonist to do something, they cannot hear.

“Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it? I have seen men in real life who so long deceived others that at last their true nature could not reveal itself;... In every man there is something which to a certain degree prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself; and this may be the case in so high a degree, he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself. But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all.” - Soren K.