Social Engineering Blogs

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Casey Anthony’s Top Ten Lies

Those that may be following the Casey Anthony case may have differing opinions as to her guilt or innocence but one thing is clear: Casey Anthony calmly lied to police, investigators and her own family countless times.

Casey, whose daughter Caylee was found murdered in 2008, is now on trial for her daughter’s murder. The story has garnered much national attention since it broke a few years ago. If convicted, Casey could face the death penalty.

Casey’s defense has attributed her incessant lying to the abuse she suffered at the hands of her brother and father. See what Eyes for Lies thinks about the situation in her blog post.

Could Casey Anthony be a pathological liar? Its definitely possible.

Dr. Matsumoto states that pathological liars do exist.  They lie quite often and are difficult to detect because they often don’t know they’re lying or believe themselves. However, they are often confronted with contradictory facts (such as in the case of Casey Anthony).

Unfortunately, we don’t know why pathological lying occurs. In some situations, some of it may be cultural, as in some cultures it’s expected and appropriate to lie in situations that Americans don’t usually appreciate.

Take a look at this great video that ABC has compiled of “Casey Anthony’s Top Ten Lies”. Listen to Casey Anthony’s tone of voice, her speech flow and rhythm. Her persistence is both disturbing and troubling. In Casey Anthony’s case, its almost as if lying is easier for her than telling the truth.

Full text on the subject can be found here.

Crying Without Tears

What if you couldn’t cry?  Or what if you couldn’t recognize your own face when you were sad and wanted your tears to flow?

There are people who do not have the ability to cry and that can have a huge affect on their mental well-being.

Scientists think that people with Sjogren’s syndrome, who do not have the ability to shed tears also might experience difficulty in expressing  their emotions leaving them to rely on their facial expressions and words to let people know how they feel.

EurekAlert reported that a Dutch study, which assessed 300 people showed that patients with Sjogren’s syndrome were labeled clinically “alexithymic”.   This means that they have difficulty identifying and describing emotions.  These patients were compared to the control group where only 12% of the healthy controls had difficulty identifying emotions.

A very interesting fact that the study revealed was that higher levels of alexithymia were moderately correlated with worse mental well-being in both groups.

Do You Swear to Tell the Truth?

Is honor court an effective tool in coercing the younger generation into telling the truth?  According to students at the University of Virginia, yes it is.

Students at the University created an “honor court” in lieu of a court of “justice”. 

The Daily Progress delineates the difference between a court seeking justice and one seeking honor.  The difference is that unlike an honor court, a court of justice has the flexibility to distinguish between experimental versus incorrigible behavior.

They side with the court of justice whose penalties can be much less severe.  The UV’s honor court expels students found guilty on the first offense!

This is a key fact because scientific studies have shown that 1 in 4 students will cheat at least once in college, but those students most often self correct stopping after the first incident.

The Daily Progress goes on to affirm that universities have a right to fairly evaluate each student’s achievement and Cheating violates that right.

However, they suggest that the honor court’s message – you can come to school here, but only if you promise to be good- is pretty juvenile.

What do you think?  Is Honor court effective or do you prefer a court of Justice?