Julia Shaw: Criminal Psychology of Murder, Serial Killers, Memory & Sex | Lex Fridman Podcast #483

Shaw's humanitarian perspective challenges the "good versus evil" dichotomy that fuels dehumanization, especially in contexts like war. She stresses that labeling people as evil is the endpoint of empathy and understanding, leading to "othering" and a dangerous moral distance that excuses atrocities. In her view, humanizing perpetrators, understanding their psychology and social environments, is essential for preventing violence and creating a safer society.

Would You Kill Baby Hitler?

A thought-provoking segment revolves around the oft-asked question: would one kill baby Hitler to prevent future atrocities? Shaw uses this to explore whether individuals are born evil or shaped by environment and experience. Drawing on historical analysis, she suggests Hitler was not born embodying the traits that later manifested in his crimes but developed them over time, shaped by social factors.

This reasoning opens a discussion about "making evil" as a process, not an innate state. Shaw argues that evil is a label assigned post hoc rather than a fixed human characteristic. She cautions that such labels impede understanding and stop us from unraveling the complex interactions of nurture, social pressures, and individual psychology that give rise to violent behaviors.

The Psychology of Evil

Julia Shaw places considerable emphasis on empathy, what she terms "evil empathy," advocating for it even toward those conventionally deemed monstrous, such as serial killers or genocidal leaders. This approach does not excuse their actions but acknowledges that without understanding the psychological and social levers behind harmful behavior, society will fail to prevent recurrences. Shaw challenges the public discomfort with empathy for evildoers, which often stems from the fear of "contaminating" one's moral identity.

By promoting empathy, Shaw calls for dismantling simplistic labels like "evil" that freeze individuals into moral absolutes, obstructing justice and reform. Her own clinical work with offenders and victims of sexual crimes reveals that empathy enables the pursuit of rehabilitation and safer communities rather than mere punitive responses.

Social Dynamics of War

The conversation further explores how large-scale violence, such as war, hinges on psychological mechanisms like dehumanization and de-individuation. Shaw explains that in war, opposing sides almost always view the conflict in terms of good versus evil, fueling cruelty and justifying acts of violence. Dehumanization strips victims of empathy, while individuals lose their personal identity through group conformity, thus enabling participation in mass atrocities.

This dual psychological process effectively cloaks participants in a sense of collective justification, making acts of brutality socially acceptable or even laudable within their ingroups. Understanding these mechanisms underscores the challenge in breaking cycles of violence and the importance of fostering empathy to counteract such dynamics.

The Challenges of Detecting Deception

Shaw's extensive experience interviewing offenders, including convicted murderers and environmental criminals, reveals the complexity of human narratives. She advises approaching interviews aware that perpetrators often employ rationalization, denial, and minimization to preserve self-worth. Contradictory or rehearsed stories still provide rich insight into their psychology and motivations.

The podcast delves into the difficulty of deception detection, a field where experts including police officers often perform no better than chance despite high confidence. False positives and negatives in lie detection risk wrongful convictions or failure to identify offenders. Psychopathy is linked to enhanced deception abilities, making tailored investigative and therapeutic approaches essential to mitigate risks.

Psychology of Serial Killers

Shaw offers a nuanced perspective on serial killers, highlighting that many experience profound loneliness and social isolation, which erode their connection to reality and facilitate their crimes. She describes the importance of "reality monitoring," where social networks check and balance perceptions. Without this tether, individuals may become radicalized or consumed by delusions and extremist beliefs.

Further, traits from the Dark Tetrad often combine in these offenders, manifesting in sadistic creativity or distorted needs, exemplified by figures like Jeffrey Dahmer. Shaw approaches these figures with a tempered empathy, recognizing the extreme distortions of human experience underlying their acts while never excusing their crimes.

Murder

A compelling discussion unfolds around why people commit murder, exposing that most murders are unplanned, resulting from trivial disputes spiraling out of control, rather than cold-blooded intent. Despite prevalent stereotypes dramatized in media, real-life motives often involve petty conflicts or domestic situations. Fascinatingly, homicide recidivism rates are extremely low — between 1 and 3 percent.

This insight raises profound questions about justice and punishment. Shaw reflects on current criminal sanctions focusing heavily on homicide while neglecting crimes with higher recidivism such as fraud or sexual violence. She advocates reconsidering punitive priorities, with restorative justice models offering alternative routes for victims' families and offenders that may better serve societal safety and healing.

Bisexuality

Julia Shaw's deep dive into sexuality overturns many assumptions about bisexuality, exposing the complex interplay of biology, identity, and social acceptance. She explains that bisexuality is often misunderstood as a transitional phase, especially for men, and is prone to erasure both within heterosexual and LGBTQ+ communities. Bisexual people face hypersexualization, stigma, and isolation, impacting mental health and safety.

Shaw champions polyamory and alternative relationship models as healthy options aligned with many bisexual experiences, emphasizing communication and mutual respect are core to any structure. She advocates for discarding one-size-fits-all relationship ideals, supporting diverse expressions of love and partnership that suit individual needs. Her research underscores the importance of visibility and normalization as shields against discrimination and misunderstanding.

Sexual Fantasies

Addressing the taboo surrounding sexual preferences, Shaw argues that kinks, BDSM, and non-normative sexual interests are more common and psychologically healthy than generally believed. She attributes their appeal partly to "disinhibition," where role reversals or fantasy contexts enable people to escape social pressures and experience authentic presence and pleasure.

Far from aligning these interests with pathology or "evil," Shaw views open communication, consent, and education as keys to normalizing diverse sexual experiences. She highlights the dangers of conflating consensual kink with criminal behavior, countering sensationalistic media narratives, and supporting mental well-being through acceptance.

False Memories

One of the most captivating parts of the discussion centers on false memories and the science behind memory malleability. Shaw explains that all autobiographical memories carry degrees of distortion due to the brain's constructive nature, essential for problem-solving but problematic for factual accuracy. Memories are sensitive to suggestion, social influence, and internal biases, making complete accuracy a rare luxury.

Her groundbreaking research demonstrated people can be made to falsely "remember" committing crimes that never occurred, facilitated by suggestive interviewing techniques and imagination exercises. This research warns law enforcement, legal practitioners, and society about the fallibility of eyewitness testimonies and the risks of wrongful convictions. Shaw extends the discussion into worrying new territory about how AI and generative models could amplify memory distortions at scale, underscoring the urgent need to incorporate social science insights into emerging technologies.

Technology, and AI

Julia Shaw shares her vision for harnessing technology to improve memory reliability and justice processes. She co-founded a company called Spot, which uses AI-based cognitive interviewing to help individuals record and report emotional and factual memories more accurately and contemporaneously. This tool aims to reduce false memories and aid workplaces and legal contexts by preserving original accounts before distortion sets in.

At the same time, Shaw warns of the dangers of generative AI creating "the ultimate false memory machine" by simulating socially responsive yet factually incorrect narratives. This capacity can fuel misinformation and personal memory confusion if unchecked. She calls for a stronger partnership between social psychologists and technology developers to safeguard truth, enhance empathy, and avoid repeating past mistakes on a digitally amplified scale.