The British Journal of Psychiatry (2006) 189: 86. doi: 10.1192/bjp.189.1.86a
© 2006 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
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Correspondence

Authors' reply

Y. Yang

Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA. Email: yalingy{at}usc.edu

A. Raine

Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA

We wholeheartedly agree with Dike et al that the definition of `pathological liar' is vague and confusing. Although pathological lying has been defined in several different ways, no specific psychological test is available. Hence we applied a symptom-based approach and defined individuals as `liars' if they fulfilled: (a) criteria for pathological lying on the Psychopathy Checklist - Revised (PCL-R), (b) criteria for conning/manipulative behaviour on the PCL-R, (c) the deceit-fulness criterion for DSM-IV, or (d) criteria for malingering as reported in a self-report crime interview.

We maintain that our study did investigate at least one form of pathological lying. In a new analysis, we found that 42% of our liars had psychopathy, antisocial personality disorders or borderline personality disorder. These liars likely correspond to those Healy & Healy (1926) refer to as `secondary pathological liars' - people whose lying is a complication of disorders such as those above. The other 58% of our group, who did not meet this comorbid requirement, probably correspond to the `primary pathological liars' described by Healy & Healy - people who habitually lie but do not demonstrate symptoms of a clearly defined psychiatric disorder. This new analysis also revealed that liars with or without psychiatric disorders showed significantly increased prefrontal white matter volume compared with antisocial controls (P=0.003, P=0.01, two-tailed respectively) and normal controls (P=0.005, P=0.014 respectively). Although our study is a preliminary attempt to reveal brain abnormalities in people who lie, cheat and deceive we hope that it will stimulate interest in this important but understudied phenomenon.

REFERENCES

  1. Healy, W. & Healy, M. T. (1926) Pathological Lying, Accusation and Swindling. Boston, MA: Little Brown.[Abstract/Free Full Text]




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