6 Ways You Can Tell A Person Is A Psychopath By The Way They Talk, According To Psychology
Under-the-radar speech patterns that secretly give psychopaths away.
dimaberlinphotos | Canva There's something about your neighbor that just gives you the creeps. You wouldn't be surprised if he was a psychopath of some kind, but how can you tell if he's one? One way to tell if someone is a psychopath is to listen to their speech pattern.
A team of researchers at Cornell University conducted a study from the American Psychological Association about the speech patterns of 52 convicted murderers, 14 of them classified as psychopathic, and came up with some very interesting results. The team asked the murderers to describe their crimes in detail, which they recorded and later converted the speech into text.
What did they learn? Psychopaths who make up an estimated 1 percent of the population tend to use identifying speech patterns. So if you're on a sketchy date and the guy is giving psychopath vibes, just look for any weird speech patterns he has, and then hightail it out of there.
6 ways you can tell a person is a psychopath by the way they talk, according to psychology:
1. They make cause-and-effect statements
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Psychopaths are more likely, when discussing their actions, to use subordinating conjunctions like "because," and "so that," suggesting their crime was a goal that needed to be achieved. How else do psychopaths talk? Research from 2021 states that psychopaths use categorical words such as "never, "nothing", or "always" more frequently.
2. They're hyper-focused on specific words
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Researchers found that psychopaths use a large number of words related to basic human needs such as eating, drinking, and money. Psychopaths often included details of meals they ate on the day of their crime, perhaps revealing their predatory leanings.
3. They use a lot of "ums" and "uhs," but not because they can't think of the right word
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Jeffrey Hancock, a Stanford University professor, says, "We think the 'uhs' and 'ums' are about putting the mask of sanity on an absence of remorse. This one's hard to tell because I always say 'uh' and 'um,' just to give myself time to think before I say something. A lack of remorse is the biggest sign someone is a psychopath, research from 2018 states.
4. They shy away from morality topics
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Non-psychopathic people talked about religion and family when they'd just committed a crime, whereas the psychopaths steered clear away from those high-level needs. Research from 2010 states psychopaths know right from wrong, they just don't care
5. They speak a lot in the past tense
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If you speak of something in the past tense, it gives you a psychological detachment. Psychological detachment, according to research published in the Journal of Vocational Behavior, means someone switches off their mind while doing something.
This is especially helpful for police. Hancock says, "Knowing a suspect is a psychopath can affect how law enforcement conducts investigations and interrogations.
6. They're quiet and don't make eye contact
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It's natural to make eye contact with someone you're talking to, but not with psychopaths. One study in 2020 tried to test this out through a series of face-to-face conversations with 30 incarcerated adults, researchers found that those with higher psychopathy scores tended to make less eye contact throughout the conversation.
So, what do you think? Is someone you know a psychopath? How many of these traits does that person in the back of your mind have? Could the person you're thinking about perhaps be you?
Christine Schoenwald is a writer, performer, and frequent contributor to YourTango. She's had articles featured in The Los Angeles Times, Salon, Bustle, Medium, Huffington Post, Business Insider, and Woman's Day, among many others.