Pathology of Lying [6]
here to discuss the characteristics of young children's testimony. Perhaps it is sufficient to say that the ordinary individual recalls voluntarily or upon questioning upwards of 20 items, and does not give incorrect items to any extent. On questioning he may perhaps accept one or two of the seven suggestions, but when details in general are asked for he does not add fictional items more than are accounted for by some little slip of memory. One can find definite types of intellectual honesty, even among children of 10 or 12 years of age, when there is no tampering with the truth; if an item has not been observed, there is no effort to make it seem otherwise. For discussion of the results on this test among our pathological liars we refer to our chapter on conclusions.
[7] ``Tests for Practical Mental Classification,'' by William Healy and Grace M. Fernald, Monograph No. 54. Psychological Review Pub. Co., 1911, Princeton University, Princeton, N. J.
The short summary of causative factors given at the end of the case study deals only with the factors of delinquency. To avoid misinterpretation of the coordinated facts, what they are focused upon should ever be remembered. The statement of these ascertained factors brings out many incidental points which should be of interest to lawyers and other students of criminalistics.
It should be needless to state to our professional readers that the personalities represented in our case histories are entirely fictitious, but that alterations have been made only in such facts as will not impair scientific values. We confess to no particular pleasure in writing up this rather sordid material; the task is undertaken because such studies offer the only way to gain that better understanding which is necessary for adequate treatment of special types of human beings.
CHAPTER II
PREVIOUS STUDIES
The subject of pathological lying was first definitely brought to the attention of the medical and legal professions by the studies of Delbruck.[8] The aim of this work was to follow the development of a symptom but little commented upon up to this time, a symptom, as he says, found in every healthy person in slight degree, but in some cases rising to pathological significance and perhaps dominating the entire picture of abnormal traits--thus becoming pathognomonic. This symptom he at the outset calls lying.
[8] ``Die pathologische Luge und die psychisch abnormen Schwindler. Eine Untersuchung Uber den allmahlichen Uebergang eines normalen psychologischen Vorgangs in ein pathologisches Symptom, fur Aerzte und Juristen.'' Pp. 131, Stuttgart, 1891.
Through an elaborate and exhaustive investigation of the lies told by five patients over a period of years, he came to the conclusion that the form of falsifying in these cases deserves a new and separate name. It was not ordinary lying, or delusion, or false memory, these words express only part of the conception; hence he coined the new term, pseudologia phantastica, to cover the species of lying with which he was concerned. Later German writers have also adopted his terminology.
To emphasize the method by which he arrived at this conclusion and to gain at the same time some knowledge of the problems he dealt with, we may review in bare outline his case-studies.
The first patient presented by Delbruck was an Austrian maid-servant who in her wanderings through Austria and Switzerland had played at various times the roles of Roumanian princess, Spaniard of royal lineage, a poor medical student, and the rich friend of a bishop. Her lying revealed a mixture of imagination, boastfulness, deception, delusion, and dissimulation. She romanced wonderfully about her royal birth and wrote letters purporting to be from a cardinal to herself. She fled disguised as a man from an educational institution to Switzerland where her sex was discovered. It appeared that she was subject to contrary sex feelings and thought of herself as a man. She was under the observation of Krafft-Ebing at one time. He considered
[7] ``Tests for Practical Mental Classification,'' by William Healy and Grace M. Fernald, Monograph No. 54. Psychological Review Pub. Co., 1911, Princeton University, Princeton, N. J.
The short summary of causative factors given at the end of the case study deals only with the factors of delinquency. To avoid misinterpretation of the coordinated facts, what they are focused upon should ever be remembered. The statement of these ascertained factors brings out many incidental points which should be of interest to lawyers and other students of criminalistics.
It should be needless to state to our professional readers that the personalities represented in our case histories are entirely fictitious, but that alterations have been made only in such facts as will not impair scientific values. We confess to no particular pleasure in writing up this rather sordid material; the task is undertaken because such studies offer the only way to gain that better understanding which is necessary for adequate treatment of special types of human beings.
CHAPTER II
PREVIOUS STUDIES
The subject of pathological lying was first definitely brought to the attention of the medical and legal professions by the studies of Delbruck.[8] The aim of this work was to follow the development of a symptom but little commented upon up to this time, a symptom, as he says, found in every healthy person in slight degree, but in some cases rising to pathological significance and perhaps dominating the entire picture of abnormal traits--thus becoming pathognomonic. This symptom he at the outset calls lying.
[8] ``Die pathologische Luge und die psychisch abnormen Schwindler. Eine Untersuchung Uber den allmahlichen Uebergang eines normalen psychologischen Vorgangs in ein pathologisches Symptom, fur Aerzte und Juristen.'' Pp. 131, Stuttgart, 1891.
Through an elaborate and exhaustive investigation of the lies told by five patients over a period of years, he came to the conclusion that the form of falsifying in these cases deserves a new and separate name. It was not ordinary lying, or delusion, or false memory, these words express only part of the conception; hence he coined the new term, pseudologia phantastica, to cover the species of lying with which he was concerned. Later German writers have also adopted his terminology.
To emphasize the method by which he arrived at this conclusion and to gain at the same time some knowledge of the problems he dealt with, we may review in bare outline his case-studies.
The first patient presented by Delbruck was an Austrian maid-servant who in her wanderings through Austria and Switzerland had played at various times the roles of Roumanian princess, Spaniard of royal lineage, a poor medical student, and the rich friend of a bishop. Her lying revealed a mixture of imagination, boastfulness, deception, delusion, and dissimulation. She romanced wonderfully about her royal birth and wrote letters purporting to be from a cardinal to herself. She fled disguised as a man from an educational institution to Switzerland where her sex was discovered. It appeared that she was subject to contrary sex feelings and thought of herself as a man. She was under the observation of Krafft-Ebing at one time. He considered