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

Lex Fridman talks with criminal psychologist Julia Shaw about the psychology of murder, serial killers, and why she argues 'evil' is a continuum rather than a binary label that dehumanizes people. They explore the dark tetrad, why most murders are mundane fights gone wrong, and how empathy (even for so-called monsters) is essential to preventing crime. Shaw walks through her landmark false-memory research, in which 70% of participants came to believe they had committed a crime that never happened, and connects this to risks posed by generative AI as a 'false memory machine.' The conversation also covers her research on bisexuality, polyamory, kinks, the Kinsey and Klein scales, and her new book on environmental crime. Throughout, she emphasizes the 'heroic imagination,' reality monitoring, and the value of writing memories down immediately.

• Research found about 70% of men and more than 50% of women have fantasized about killing someone, making murder fantasies extremely common.
  00:30:49
• In Shaw's PhD study, 70% of participants became convinced they had committed a crime that never happened, after only three suggestive interviews.
  01:43:56
• Shaw argues generative AI is 'the ultimate false memory machine,' telling people what they want to hear and uncritically reinforcing distorted memories.
  01:34:44
• Most murders are not premeditated by psychopaths but are fights that get out of control over trivial reasons like a few dollars or a stolen bike.
  00:37:38
• Shaw claims essentially every autobiographical memory is false to some degree; the question is not whether it is false but how false.
  01:38:34
• Shaw holds the non-traditional view that jealousy is almost always a red flag and is a near-universal precursor to intimate partner violence.
  00:49:56
• Shaw reveals she has aphantasia, the inability to form mental images, which is why memory-palace techniques never worked for her.
  02:15:54
• When asked who she cannot empathize with, Shaw says sexual slavery is the one crime where she doesn't want to even try.
  02:32:18

• Our intuitive sense of who is 'creepy' or untrustworthy is unreliable and largely tracks deviation from social norms, not actual danger.
  00:12:37
• Even experienced police officers perform no better than chance at detecting lies, despite high confidence in their ability.
  00:14:41
• The Stanford Prison Experiment, though influential, has since been 'torn apart,' and Philip Zimbardo later championed the 'heroic imagination.'
  00:32:56
• The famous Kitty Genovese bystander case has not been substantiated by later research; bystanders usually do intervene unless a crowd has formed.
  00:35:01
• Alfred Kinsey's 1940s 'Sexual Behavior in the Human Male' was a year-long bestseller; he sold out auditoriums and was treated like a rock star.
  01:00:03
• On Kinsey's 0-to-6 scale, about half of men and a quarter of women fell somewhere in the middle, not exclusively hetero- or homosexual.
  01:04:21
• Don't trust your memory of important events; write it down immediately, as contemporaneous evidence captured closest to the event is highest quality.
  01:53:53
• Cognitive restructuring lets you deliberately reframe negative memories for a happier life; Shaw says she does it all the time and it works.
  02:11:13
• In relationships, when partners estimate their share of housework the totals consistently exceed 100% because each overestimates their own contribution.
  02:11:45
• Volkswagen's 'Dieselgate' cars used a defeat device emitting up to 40 times the legal limit of nitrous oxides, which have no safe lower limit for human lungs.
  02:20:09