Criminal psychologist answers most common question everyone has about murderers
As a criminal psychologist working with some of the world's most sinister killers - as well as the investigators responsible for tracking them down - there's one question that Dr Julia Shaw hears more often than any other.
'Are people born evil?'
It's a query that comes in many forms - in broader psychology, for example, it's known as the 'Nature vs. Nurture debate' - and a proposition that has formed the backbone of many of Dr Shaw's principal theories on human behaviour.
For those unfamiliar with the German-Canadian, the 38-year-old has spent most of her adult life as a criminal psychologist, true crime podcaster and popular science writer, specialising in false memories and witness evidence.
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"I'm interested in why people do terrible things," she explained during a LADbible Stories appearance this week for an episode of Honesty Box.
"I'm interested in the darkest sides of humanity, and murder for many people is the worst thing they can imagine - or one of the worst things they can imagine someone else doing."
She added: "The thing that I find interesting isn't just this idea that there's these murderers over here who are totally different from us, but how every one of us can move towards becoming a murderer ourselves."
As we say, however, given Dr Shaw's first-hand connection to psychopathic killers and conniving conmen, she claims she's often subjected to queries from true crime fanatics as to whether 'evil' is a trait someone is born with, or a tendency they develop over time.
And finally, she had her say on this hotly-debated topic this week, beginning by shutting the common notion of word 'evil' altogether.
Answering 'no' when asked simply, 'Are people born evil?', she explained: "I say [that] for two reasons."
"One is that I don't like the word 'evil' for human beings. I think that it's a terrible dehumanising word that almost always is the end of a conversation, rather than the beginning of a really important conversation we need to be having."
Dr Shaw continued: "The other thing, is that the idea that you could somehow be born with, almost this 'sin' - it's almost a religious idea - that you're brought into this world and already carry this evil within you, it's ultimately just about trying to stop people from revealing their inner evil.
"I don't know. It just really underestimates the role of environment, and society, and values, and what else is going on in the world at that point.
She added: "So, I think people are capable of terrible things, and some people with some brains - like those lower on empathy, higher on sadism - are more likely to hurt people and not feel bad.
"But beyond that, what they do with that, is entirely dependent on everything else."
Dr Shaw concluded: "So, no. People are not born evil, and I think we should stop using the term 'evil' to describe human beings."
In the same way, Dr Shaw went on to add that, with this notion in mind, being that no one is 'born evil', in essence, 'everyone has the capacity' to commit terrible, heinous crimes. "It's something that I get asked all the time," she continued.
"'Why did this person kill, and do I, as an individual have the capacity to kill?'. The short answer is, I think everybody does have the capacity, but not everyone has the capacity right now."
Dr Shaw went on to explain: "So, I don't think for me, today, it's unlikely that I'll be capable of killing somebody - certainly of murdering someone who isn't attacking me.
"But if I add a number of risk factors in - things like, suddenly maybe I've lost my job, maybe I'm suffering with poverty, maybe I get into drugs, maybe I meet some new friends who are making bad choices, maybe I get really bad at anger management because my life is starting to feel more complicated - I'm making more rash and angry decisions.
"And so, murder in particular is almost always because of a fight that gets out of control. It's not very common that someone - like on TV - is sharpening their knives or polishing their guns, waiting to kill a specific person. That's not really a thing that happens.
"It's that anger management, that mental health ability to work through struggles that matters more. If those struggles enter your life, or my life, I think, yes, I'm capable of killing people, and so are you."
Topics: True Crime, Crime, Real Life, Life, Mental Health
Rhianna Benson