Through years of profiling serial killers, experts have begun to identify key traits that many have in common. Serial killers' focus is entirely on themselves and the power they are able to assert over others. Experts who study serial killers have found they show a severe lack of empathy.
The four main types of serial killers based by the type of crime they commit are as follows: thrill seekers, mission-oriented, visionary killers, and power/control seekers.
ENTP and ISTP are the two types we frequently find among serial killers. INTJ and ESTJ are the next on the list.
ESTP – Reckless and impulsive with no regard for others, ESTPs are likely candidates to have psychopathic tendencies as well. With Introverted Thinking (Ti) as one of their main functions, they see things through their results over the impact something has on others.
According to Truity, INTP is the most common MBTI type among college students committing alcohol and drug policy violations.
Welcome to November, the month when, according to some studies, serial killers and mass murderers are most likely to be born.
In The Anatomy of Violence, criminologist Dr. Adrian Raine says that, “Genetics and environment work together to encourage violent behaviour.” Therefore, it seems like there are various factors namely, genetics, environment, trauma and personality traits that contribute to the making of a serial killer.
The triad links cruelty to animals, obsession with fire-setting, and persistent bedwetting past the age of five, to violent behaviors, particularly homicidal behavior and sexually predatory behavior. However, other studies claim to have not found statistically significant links between the triad and violent offenders.
Those with brown eyes were the most common on the list with 25 killers having dark eyes, whereas just 14 had blue eyes. Dark hair was also most common with 35 killers having black or brown hair, just three with blonde hair and one with red hair.
Over the course of his work, which began in 1979, Vronsky has deduced that serial killers generally develop the personality and compulsion befitting a killer when they're young — by the time they're 14, they're basically fully formed; they generally start killing in their late twenties.
Childhood Abuse
Many serial killers are abused – physically, psychologically, sexually – as children by a close family member. This behavior instills in the child feelings of humiliation and helplessness, feelings which they will later seek to instill in their victims.
This showed that criminal psychopaths had decreased connectivity between the amygdala—a brain region that processes negative stimuli and those that give rise to fearful reactions—and the prefrontal cortex, which interprets responses from the amygdala.
Not all narcissists become killers but there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that many killers, particularly serial killers, exhibit many of these narcissistic personality traits. The killers in this list each display at least five and, in some cases, all of them.
Turns out, the answer to both of those questions might surprise you. The FBI estimates that there are between 25 and 50 active serial killers in the United States at any given time, and many of them have never been caught. Here are just a few more notorious serial killer cases in the United States.
Needless to say, some lefties can be found in the world of criminal activity too. Several of the most notorious serial killers of all-time were believed to have been left-handed.
As a psychoanalyst, Stone's specialty is personality disorders so it is not surprising that most of the mass murderers in his study were diagnosed with antisocial, psychopathic, narcissistic or paranoid personality disorder.
In psychology, there is a concept of a “dark triad” of malevolent personality traits: psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism. These traits are studied together because they almost always overlap and combine. If a person has psychopathic traits, then they tend to have narcissistic and Machiavellian traits too.
As I said before, there's no “serial killer” gene–there's a gene that can influence someone's level of aggression and emotional control. Classifying people as “serial killer gene carriers” is a terrible idea for several reasons.
The show identifies the “serial killer gene” as MAOA, which is a real gene linked to high levels of aggression in its low-activity form.
Many famous serial killers have been psychopaths. Not all people we'd call a psychopath or sociopath are violent. Violence is not a necessary ingredient (nor is it for a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder) — but it is often present. Clues to psychopathy and sociopathy are usually available in childhood.
Gathering roadkill may be something of an alarming anomaly, but there is one childhood trait that many serial killers seem to have shared — wetting the bed. The Child Psychology Service reports that youthful bedwetting (or enuresis) needn't be indicative of a problem in and of itself.
There seem to be a high number of serial killers who hated their moms. From unnaturally close mother/child relationships to childhood abandonment, bad mothering can have some deadly consequences.