MacDonald Triad: What It Is And What Does It Explain About Sociopathy

Trying to understand why there are people with psychopathy or who end up being serial killers is something that forensic psychology has tried to find out.

MacDonald's triad It has been one of the models that has tried to shed light on this, not without being criticized nor scientifically proven.

Be that as it may, the model is interesting, and its three variables are certainly factors that seem logical that they are related to aggressive adulthood. Let's see what they are.

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MacDonald Triad - What is it?

The MacDonald triad, also called the sociopath triad, is a model proposed by the psychiatrist John Marshall MacDonald in which the idea is supported that sociopaths have three common traits. This pattern was exposed in his 1963 article "The Threat to Kill," published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

According to the model, in most people those who commit violent crimes in adulthood can be found

a childhood marked by aggressive behaviors, as are pyromania and animal cruelty, in addition to urinating on himself. Theoretically, people like serial killers have shown at least two of these three behaviors in their childhood, which would have behind a history of mistreatment and abuse.

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Factors explaining antisocial behavior

There are three factors proposed to explain how the mind of the psychopath / sociopath is shaped. These three factors are the ones that come next.

1. Pyromania

Pyromania is the tendency to be attracted to fire and to produce fires. It has been hypothesized that this behavior, if it manifests itself in childhood, predicts violent and antisocial adulthood.

According to the model, people who have been humiliated in their childhood feel repressed anger, which sooner or later will have to be shown.

As children abused by their parents or bullied by their schoolmates cannot defend themselves, choose to destroy objects, and fire is one of the most aggressive ways to channel this frustration.

They also feel interest and pleasure in observing how the flames are fanned, being aware of how serious it is for the integrity of others if the fire spreads.

2. Cruelty to animals

According to MacDonald himself and people who specialize in serial killers, like FBI Agent Alan Brantly, some serial killers and abusers start torturing and killing animals at a young age.

This behavior can be interpreted as a kind of training for what they will end up doing with their human victims when they grow up.

The cause of these behaviors, as with fires, is humiliation and frustration at not being able to take revenge on those who have hurt them.

Since they cannot attack their parents or peers stronger than them, these future sociopaths use animals defenseless who will not oppose resistance nor will be able to complain while the child marks them, mutilates them or Bush.

Abusing animals makes them feel like they are in control, something they don't have when someone mistreats them. It is to replicate what other people have done to them, they go from victims to executioners.

3. Enuresis

Bed-wetting is the academic term for unintentionally releasing urine when you are over five years old and asleep. To be diagnosed, the subject must urinate twice a week for three months.

Both in MacDonald's model and other authors argue that This variable is related, in one way or another, to presenting arson tendencies and animal cruelty.

Peeing over the age of five can be experienced as extremely humiliating for the child, especially if their parents do not know how to manage it in a healthy way and it is not perceived as something to punishment.

It is surprising that this factor is part of the triad, since in itself, it is not violent behavior nor is it intentional.

What must be understood is that the subject who suffers from it will have less self-confidence, which will generate a high psychological and emotional discomfort, in addition to social rejection in case it transcends the knowledge of others people.

• You may be interested: "Enuresis (urinating on yourself): causes, symptoms and treatment"

Criticism of the model

The triad proposed by MacDonald, rather than shedding light on how psychopaths are formed, has contributed to the misconception of many of them. It is not necessary to manifest this type of behavior to end up being a serial killer, nor Nor will you end up being a psychopath for having manifested any of these behaviors as a child. The predictability of these three variables is rather poor.

Despite the status of MacDonald's proposal, it should be noted that the study he conducted to reaching these conclusions has certain limitations and their interpretation has been too exaggerated.

The study, explained in his article The Threat to Kill, it was done with 48 psychotic patients and 52 non-psychotic patients, who presented aggressive and sadistic behaviors. They all had in common having tried to kill someone, between the ages of 11 and 83, half men and half women.

Macdonald used his clinical observation to do his research, and it is fair to say that he himself did not believe the study had predictive value. His sample was small and not very representative of the whole of society. The problem comes in how the results explained by MacDonald were interpreted.

Other researchers considered that the proposed model made a lot of sense, which made it be approached with samples of different types and sizes. These studies either had very small samples, or they did not reach the same conclusions as MacDonald himself and his followers.

However, and despite the limitations of these studies, not a few criminologists assume that the model is valid. In fact, more than a few sources in forensic psychology cite the model on the assumption that it is true. Associating pyromania, animal cruelty and enuresis with violent behavior in adulthood is a very common practice.

Bibliographic references:

• MacDonald, John M. (1963). "The threat to kill". Am J Psychiatry. 120 (2): pp. 125 - 130.
• Ressler, Robert K.; Burgess, Ann W.; Douglas, John E. (1988). Sexual Homicide Patterns and Motives. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780669165593.
• Singer, Stephen D.; Hensley, Christopher (2004). "Learning theory to childhood and adolescent firesetting: Can it lead to serial murder?". International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology. 48 (4): 461–476. doi: 10.1177 / 0306624X04265087
• Barnard, N.D & Hogan, A.R. (1999). Moving up the chain of abuse pattern shows cruelty to animals is one predictor of violent behavior in adults. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p. C.1.