Talk:The Mask of Sanity

This article is currently the subject of an educational assignment.

A fact from The Mask of Sanity appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 18 December 2007, and was viewed approximately 7,063 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the title of psychiatrist Hervey M. Cleckley's book The Mask of Sanity refers to the mask of sincerity, generosity, and trustworthiness the psychopath wears to disguise his inability to feel emotion for others?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/December.

Wikipedia

Psychology Mid‑importance

	Psychology portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Psychology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Psychology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PsychologyWikipedia:WikiProject PsychologyTemplate:WikiProject Psychologypsychology articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Medicine: Psychiatry Low‑importance

	Medicine portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Medicine, which recommends that medicine-related articles follow the Manual of Style for medicine-related articles and that biomedical information in any article use high-quality medical sources. Please visit the project page for details or ask questions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine.MedicineWikipedia:WikiProject MedicineTemplate:WikiProject Medicinemedicine articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	Psychiatry portal This article is supported by the Psychiatry task force.

Fair use rationale for Image:Mask-of-sanity-book-cover.jpg

Image:Mask-of-sanity-book-cover.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use, but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. .... BetacommandBot (talk) 22:46, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fair-use details were added to that image in December 2007. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:59, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reference citations question

There are numerous footnote citations to "Cleckley" in the article, but the edition used for these citation is not listed in the references. I have the 1982 edition and the page numbers referenced are not from this edition. The material cited is not on page numbers given. Mattisse 21:40, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sanity check for Cleckley's 16 characteristics

09-Sep-2008: Below is the list of 16 characteristics from July 2008, for making a sanity check that the article has all 16:

Superficial charm and good intelligence
Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking
Absence of nervousness or psychoneurotic manifestations
Unreliability
Untruthfulness and insincerity
Lack of remorse and shame
Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior
Poor judgment and failure to learn by experience
Pathologic egocentricity and incapacity for love
General poverty in major affective reactions
Specific loss of insight
Unresponsiveness in general interpersonal relations
Fantastic and uninviting behavior with drink and sometimes without
Suicide threats rarely carried out
Sex life impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated
Failure to follow any life plan.

On 1-September-2008, someone had deleted #16 (possibly as a prank, or a psychopathic motive). The list is an obvious target for vandals. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:59, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Mask Of Sanity is also the title of a book by New Zealand author, Gordon McNeish, published in 1997. It compasses the murder of a family in New Zealand in 1994, the Bain Murders. Bowsimpet (talk) 23:34, 30 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Antisocial personality disorder

To the 16 prime characteristics of a sociopath should be added a 17th, that of cowardice. Sociopaths are the biggest cowards ever. This is why they will prey on vulnerable people, especially children. Any strong willed personality will scare off a sociopath. The sociopath will give up on such a strong person and go in search of someone weaker. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.178.82 (talk) 18:06, 7 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The large majority of ASPD people (whether psychopaths or not) are selfish, impulsive, hedonistic sadists who habitually target the vulnerable. The large majority seek out soft targets, which is why small liquor stores are many times more likely to be robbed than banks are and why poor people who live in poorly secured housing are many times more likely to be burgled than millionaires who live in well-secured mansions. However, this article is about a book, not about psychopathy or ASPD in general. Jim Michael (talk) 20:56, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's true that Psychopaths are cowards, look at all the politicians who dodged the draft and then send people into war and psychopaths do go for easy targets, maybe it's because they are lazy and they don't want to put too much effort into their crimes, Psychopaths like to get the most reward with the least amount of effort. Cowardice might be confused with laziness. But if you look at people like Adolf Hiter, there are signs of fearlessness about them. Adolf Hitler took some very dangerous jobs in World War 1 and he did earn those Iron Crosses. Watch this video at 8 minutes, 35 seconds, showing Martin Bryant. It's a good example that psychopaths are fearless: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv0LgmGtc7w. I think the psychopath has a different type of fear than normal people do, that's something that should be looked into more. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.148.75.158 (talk) 19:56, 7 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]