Pathology of Lying [116]
time, as it were, to discriminate the true from the false. The mental conditions leading to purposeless prevarication which supervene in the real hysterical mental states, or during the course of traumatic psychoneurosis are well known. The individual is to be surely regarded, at least temporarily, as suffering from a psychosis in many of these instances, and falsification, while it may be difficult to distinguish between delusion and lying, is a well recognized phenomenon. The very deliberate lying of psychopathic individuals, such as Case 25, who, though so strongly aberrational, do not fit under the head of any of the classic insanities, is a matter for earnest consideration by all who have to deal with delinquents. There is altogether too little general knowledge of this type of fact. The correlation of the various epileptic mental states with pathological lying is well recognized. In many of the cases cited by foreign writers it has turned out that the individual was subject to epileptic seizures. It is another illustration of the great variety of epileptic phenomena. Something of a point has been made in the literature heretofore that abnormalities of sexual life are unduly correlated with the inclination to pathological lying, and the conclusion is sometimes drawn, as by Stemmermann (loc. cit. p. 90), that the two prove a degenerative tendency. Our material would not tend to show this nearly as much as it would prove that the psychical peculiarities follow on a profound upset caused by unfortunate sex experiences.
A characteristic of pathological liars is undoubtedly a deep-set egocentrism, as Risch states. If one goes over our cases it may be seen that there is exhibited frequently in the individual an undue amount of self-assertion. There is very little sympathy for the concern of others, and, indeed, remarkably little apperception of the opinions of others. How frequently the imagery of the heroic role of the self recurs, and how frequently it occupies a central stronghold is seen by the fact that nearly all of our cases indubitably demonstrate the phenomenon.
Most of our cases have been studied by the application of a wide range of tests. Indeed many of the individuals have been studied over and over. It is beyond our point at present to go over the separate findings because there is no evidence of a strong correlation of any type of peculiarity, except the ones mentioned here, with the pathological lying. Memory processes, for instance, as ordinarily tested seem to be normally acute.
We have naturally been much interested in the result of the ``Aussage'' or Testimony Test work with this present group, on account of the possibility of demonstrating correlations between laboratory work and the individual's reactions in social intercourse, particularly when there has been falsification upon the witness stand. In general we may say that while we have seen normal individuals who are not falsifiers do just as badly as a number of these individuals, yet for the group the findings are exceedingly bad. Perhaps the better way of stating it would be to say that not one case shows the sturdily honest type of response which is frequently met with during the course of testing other delinquents, even as young as the youngest of the cases cited here. Our findings stand in great contrast, we note, to the results on other test work. When looking at the table given above we see that a large share of our 19 normal cases are up to the average in general ability, and yet as a group they fall far below the average on this Testimony Test. Take Cases 8 and 9, for instance-- both of them bright girls with, indeed, considerable ability in many directions, and yet both of them give a large number of extremely incorrect items in reporting what they saw in the ``Aussage'' picture, and also both accept a very large proportion of the suggestions offered. It seems as if frequently in these cases there is no real attempt to discriminate what was actually seen in the picture from what might have been in a butcher
A characteristic of pathological liars is undoubtedly a deep-set egocentrism, as Risch states. If one goes over our cases it may be seen that there is exhibited frequently in the individual an undue amount of self-assertion. There is very little sympathy for the concern of others, and, indeed, remarkably little apperception of the opinions of others. How frequently the imagery of the heroic role of the self recurs, and how frequently it occupies a central stronghold is seen by the fact that nearly all of our cases indubitably demonstrate the phenomenon.
Most of our cases have been studied by the application of a wide range of tests. Indeed many of the individuals have been studied over and over. It is beyond our point at present to go over the separate findings because there is no evidence of a strong correlation of any type of peculiarity, except the ones mentioned here, with the pathological lying. Memory processes, for instance, as ordinarily tested seem to be normally acute.
We have naturally been much interested in the result of the ``Aussage'' or Testimony Test work with this present group, on account of the possibility of demonstrating correlations between laboratory work and the individual's reactions in social intercourse, particularly when there has been falsification upon the witness stand. In general we may say that while we have seen normal individuals who are not falsifiers do just as badly as a number of these individuals, yet for the group the findings are exceedingly bad. Perhaps the better way of stating it would be to say that not one case shows the sturdily honest type of response which is frequently met with during the course of testing other delinquents, even as young as the youngest of the cases cited here. Our findings stand in great contrast, we note, to the results on other test work. When looking at the table given above we see that a large share of our 19 normal cases are up to the average in general ability, and yet as a group they fall far below the average on this Testimony Test. Take Cases 8 and 9, for instance-- both of them bright girls with, indeed, considerable ability in many directions, and yet both of them give a large number of extremely incorrect items in reporting what they saw in the ``Aussage'' picture, and also both accept a very large proportion of the suggestions offered. It seems as if frequently in these cases there is no real attempt to discriminate what was actually seen in the picture from what might have been in a butcher