What We Can Learn From Serial Killlers

Mike and I are currently addicted to the show "Criminal Minds." Previous additions include: The Wire, and The West Wing. We get the DVDs from Netflix and avoid all the commercials. We just finished the second season - the show is about a team of psychologists in the FBI, who profile serial killers. We like it because the story lines are pretty interesting, the characters are intriguing and quirky, and the whole show is just very well done, although it is a little dark.

One recent episode profiled a very bizarre sociopath. He was bizarre for many reasons, among them the fact that we kept a rib bone from every person that he killed. But apparently sociopaths completely lack the ability to feel any real emotion, especially love and empathy. One could wonder about the relationship between lack of emotion and lack of morality - does one cause the other? - but that would be a tangent. The interesting comment was made by the FBI team lead, during the investigation. Someone had been speculating about the "trigger" that caused this particular killer to start killing again after a break. The FBI team lead speculated that it was probably something in his environment, and he went on to explain that, "Genetics account for about 1/3 of our behavior, our cognitive psychology accounts for about 1/3 of our behavior, and our environment accounts for about 1/3 of our behavior."

I found this simple summary to be so useful, especially in light of so many recent discoveries about genetics. The more we learn about our genetics, the more confusing it can be to understand how much of our behavior is fate, and how much is open to willpower. The whole concept of "gene expression" is so intriguing, and I believe we are just scratching the surface of neuroscience. Furthermore, there has been a host of research lately, demonstrating the important of early childhood environment for shaping behavior later in life.

So I find this explanation to be right on the money, and more nuanced than the typical nature/nurture debate. It's more useful and accurate because it separates our psychology from our environment. I think of the 1/3 that is our cognitive psychology to be the most interesting 1/3 shaping our behavior, because I think we understand it the least. I also call this 1/3, the "ability the reframe" things in our life. This is how we think about things that happen to us, and how we think about the things that are important to us. Simply by changing how we think about things can change things. This can be the simplest thing, but in reality it is the hardest. It's hard because we don't understand how to do it, and we don't think of it as a skill that needs to be learned.

But I think cognitive psychology skills ARE skills that we could all teach, and learn, and practice. Not just for people who are experiencing dysfunctional behavior, but for everyone. If we could think about thinking as a particular skillset, we could practice it, and we could improve at it.

Unfortunately, our thinking habits are largely invisible to us, and so we overlook these habits.

But if we want to change our behavior, this is the aspect over which we have the most influence.