Crackers said she may not have been able to tell if the sociopath was lying in the film and wondered if you could teach that kind of skill. I think you can (readily) teach people to think critically but I had another angle on this she might have been touching on
After watching that movie, or part of it, I asked the soldier if he thought the psychologist knew he was being bullshitted. He said he didn’t know and neither of us were interested enough to watch and try to find out because the lying killer was so nauseating.
“The thing is, if he does know and I would assume he does, why are they packaging this as if it is the truth? We know this guy is full of shit but if we act like he’s not and package it this way, we’ll be all famous for getting this guy to talk to us, even if he didn’t talk to us? It’s shameful! And if they don’t know he is lying, that is even more shameful. You’re too stupid to be in this business! Anyone who watches that is going to get just a little stupider unless they pay close attention. There may be something to be gleaned from it but it sure isn’t what it’s being sold as.”
There are people a psychopath will talk to. There are other people, put them in a room with a psychopath and they are going to get their chain jerked and nothing but.
Even if you are someone a psychopath will talk to, you are still going to get your chain jerked but you will have a way to discern which is what so there are two hurdles to clear here and few can manage them.
More coming on this Saturn in Virgo Mind Appreciation Day by Elsa P.
For what it’s worth, my husband had a management training course in how to interview people. One thing he learned was how to watch people to tell if they are lying. He’ll often comment about people on TV news shows when they look like they are lying. He seems to notice furrowed brows, nervous ticks, and increased blinking rates.
My response was that people can train themselves to control the lying clues, just like people can learn to control their body to pass a lie detector test.
Yes, this is more what I am circling around. I. (Haven’t slept well of late so don’t really trust my thought processes and that is why I didn’t jump back in on previous post to try and clarify my thoughts.)
I actually have a fair amount of critical thinking training for professional purposes and am strong in that area, but I am thinking of something different here.
One, I am not someone a psychopath would talk to other than to try and play with, I think. And two, if my baloney detector went off, it would be more due to my strong piscean intuition. But I don’t think I necessarily have the experience/street smarts/native intelligence/training or whatever it is (criminal mind?), to necessarily have a way to discern in the manner I believe you are talking about.
And to be even further vague (!), I’m still not exactly clear what that discernment looks like, how it operates, etc. To sum up, I am no Clarice. (Silence of the Lambs reference 😉 ) And I’m still muddled about how this differs from the critical thinking I do have strength in, but I believe that it does.
Er . . .didn’t see Sue Ellen’s reply before I posted. My post is only referring to what Elsa’s saying. (But the body language stuff you mention is very interesting, Sue Ellen. I wonder if for a psychopath, it is necessarily always lying – by which I mean, what is their reality anyway? And those body language clues that show lying, are they ever due to some sort of subconcious feeling of guilt which might be totally absent in a psycho? Hmmm.)
Firstly: Yay for mind appreciation day! If you made that up I think there SHOULD be a mind appreciation day where we all get the day off to go to museums and art galleries.
Anyway, what you guys are talking about is what I like to call ‘The Insano Dimension’.
When you make a pattern for a dress & lay it out, there are big gaps where the edges don’t meet.
Which you need to fit a 3D object with a 2D material.
Now when ppl live in the insano dimension and they lay out their views for you, you can see the huge gaps everywhere- but to them it fits perfectly because they are batshit crazy!
Or when someone tells you a sad tale about something that ‘just happened’ to them and it’s clear that at each separate point they believe they made the right choice- and you’re just going no, no, no and no.
Hello from the future! This is absolutely fascinating. If someone had told me about your “gaps” theory 10 years ago, I would have dodged SO much pain in my relationships. I’m definitely using the Insano Dimension” now and the fabric analogy now.
And since I wrote this, now we learn, it is in fact, not real, but it’s because the psychopath is an actor. 🙁