Mass murderers often have these personality distortions
Mass murderers are more likely to have personality distortions rather than serious mental illness, according to a psychiatrist who studied 228 mass killers.
Severe mental illness plays a part in about 20 percent of the cases, according to forensic psychiatrist Michael Stone, who conducted the study. More common are personality distortions such as excess rage, paranoia, grandiosity, thirst for vengeance, pathological narcissism and callousness, he tells the New York Times.
“The typical personality attribute in mass murderers is one of paranoid traits plus massive disgruntlement,” says Stone. Many of the subjects in his study had killed themselves as well as others.
In some cases, mass killers are targeting specific victims; in other cases, they are primarily looking for notoriety, according to another forensic psychologist, Dr. J. Reid Meloy.
Murder-suicides most often stem from a domestic violence situation where a person kills a spouse or lover, the Times says. But murder-suicides involving multiple strangers are different. Crimes involving mass victims who are strangers are planned and alcohol or drugs are unlikely to be a factor, unlike in domestic violence situations.
