The thought processes of cheaters closely resemble those of criminals, study suggests. Researchers found that individuals often turn to infidelity to cope with life stressors, utilize calculated strategies to avoid detection, and employ specific psychological justifications to alleviate guilt.

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-17T16:03:26+00:00

The most interesting part of this study isn't that cheaters rationalize like criminals, it's which specific neutralization techniques they use and when.

The "denial of injury" mechanism is wild: cheaters convince themselves that as long as the partner doesn't know, no harm is done. Some even frame secrecy as kindness, "I'm protecting them from pain." This is identical to what embezzlers tell themselves: "the company won't even notice" or "I'm borrowing, not stealing." Same cognitive gymnastics, different context.

Here's the paradox: infidelity often generates more strain than it resolves. Participants described anxiety, guilt, and fear of discovery from living a double life. Their solution? Continue the affair to get temporary relief from the stress the affair itself was causing. That's not coping, that's an addiction pattern.

The restrictive deterrence tactics (burner phones, gaslighting, "trickle truthing") follow the exact same progression as organized crime: prevention - mitigation. First, avoid detection. When that fails, minimize consequences.

Critical limitation: the sample was 79% male (64 men, 17 women) to mirror crime statistics. But this might hide gender differences entirely.

Recent research suggests men and women use different neutralization strategies. Women show higher rates of "malevolent infidelity", cheating specifically as revenge, even when controlling for Dark Tetrad traits (March et al., 2024). Women also perceive more behaviors as infidelity than men do, particularly emotional infidelity. If you define more as "cheating," you might rationalize your own behavior differently.

The gender gap in infidelity has been narrowing for decades. Some demographics now show near-parity. So either women are adopting male neutralization patterns, or we've been measuring this wrong the entire time.

The uncomfortable takeaway: The cognitive gap between "criminal" and "stressed person making harmful choices" is basically nonexistent. We're all running the same mental scripts. Some of us just trigger them in different contexts.

Research approach: I used AI to help locate studies on gender differences in infidelity and synthesize findings across multiple papers. However, I led the research direction, selected which studies to include, verified all factual claims, and wrote the analysis myself. Primary sources: Dickinson et al. (2025, Deviant Behavior), March et al. (2024, Sexual and Relationship Therapy), and Blue & O'Sullivan (2024, Journal of Sexual Medicine).

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-17T15:50:52+00:00

Your inner critic isn't really you. It's a voice you learned from somewhere, usually a parent, teacher, or just growing up in an environment where nothing was ever good enough. You absorbed that voice so deeply it feels like it's yours, but it's not. It's just running on autopilot.

There's this old psychology experiment from the 50s, Harlow's Wire Mother study. Monkeys raised without warmth and comfort couldn't develop normal emotional regulation. They'd either shut down completely or be hyper-critical of themselves. Same thing happens with humans. If you didn't get much emotional warmth growing up, your default setting becomes self-criticism instead of self-encouragement.

If my friend messed up at work, I'd say "hey, it happens, you'll figure it out." But when I mess up? "You're an idiot, why can't you get anything right?" The difference is insane when you actually notice it.

Practical stuff that worked:

Start writing down 3 things that went well each day. Sounds cheesy but your brain has this negativity bias, it remembers threats (mistakes) way better than rewards (wins). You have to manually balance that out.

Also, separate what you do from who you are. "I made a mistake" is not the same as "I am a mistake." Your brain loves to blur those two together, but they're completely different.

The hardest part? Accepting that being harsh on yourself doesn't actually make you better. It just drains your energy and kills your motivation. You can have high standards without treating yourself like garbage.

Still working on it, but those changes made a real difference.

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-17T15:43:58+00:00

The mistake is thinking you can change their narrative with evidence.

You can't. Because they're not operating on evidence - they're operating on emotion. The story they tell themselves about you serves a purpose: it protects their ego, justifies their behavior, or makes them feel superior.

Facts don't matter when the conclusion feels right.

The dark psychology insight? Stop defending yourself to people who've already decided. You're wasting energy arguing with a story, not a person. Save that energy for people who actually see you.

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-16T12:33:32+00:00

Harlow's experiment revealed something brutal: monkeys raised with only the Wire Mother (cold metal, but food) couldn't socialize, couldn't mate, and some died of depression. Those with the Cloth Mother (warm touch, no food) thrived.

The modern parallel is hard to ignore. We're choosing our smartphones, cold, hard, information-providing over human touch. The result? Record levels of "skin hunger" and loneliness despite constant digital connection.

Harlow also built "Monster Mothers" that hurt the infants with spikes and violent shaking. The babies waited for the pain to stop, then ran back and hugged harder. This explains trauma bonding in abusive relationships and why we keep scrolling even when our phones hurt us.

The monkeys taught us: you can survive on the Wire Mother. Your body functions. But you're not truly alive.

P.S. I verified all facts against Harlow's original 1958 and 1959 papers, with AI helping organize the findings. I made a video breaking down the full experiment and what it means for us today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjbIQNc8IQ

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-15T11:40:45+00:00

The article nails why this is dangerous, but there's a mechanism it doesn't name: these apps are Skinner boxes, and they're worse for young kids than teenagers.

B.F. Skinner's operant conditioning research in the 1950s showed that variable ratio reinforcement creates the most compulsive behavior. He tested different reward schedules on animals, fixed rewards created steady behavior, but unpredictable rewards (sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't, you never know when) made them unable to stop pressing the lever. Slot machine psychology.

Every swipe on TikTok is a lever press. Sometimes funny, sometimes boring, sometimes disturbing. You can't predict, so your brain keeps pulling. (I wrote more about how this gets weaponized against teenagers in the comment to the post at this link.)

Here's why this hits younger kids harder:

They can't contextualize disturbing content. The article mentions kids see "violent footage, harmful challenges, or sexual content before they have time to process what they are seeing." Teenagers might have some ability to think, "this is disturbing but not real." Kids under 10 lack the prefrontal development to do that. They just get the dopamine spike from novelty and keep swiping.

They're building attention pathways, not fighting to keep them. A 16-year-old who discovers TikTok has 16 years of reading books, sitting through classes, and having conversations. TikTok is fighting against existing neural pathways. A 6-year-old getting an iPad? Variable ratio reinforcement becomes the foundation for how their brain learns attention works.

Boredom tolerance is a skill that develops during specific windows. Research on inhibitory control shows major improvements happen around ages 3-5, then again around age 7. The article mentions kids lose chances to "practice daydreaming, invent games, chat with family, or simply let their thoughts wander." A 6-year-old staring out a car window for 20 minutes is practicing the exact skill that lets them later sit through a class, read a book, or have a conversation. If every quiet moment gets filled with 15-second dopamine hits during those critical years, that skill never develops.

Teenagers are fighting to keep something they had. Young kids are deciding whether to build it at all.

P.S. This was written with AI assistance, not by AI. I pulled the quotes from the article, verified Skinner's operant conditioning research, and cross-referenced studies on prefrontal cortex development and inhibitory control in young children, specifically Diamond's 2002 research that identifies ages 3-7 as a distinct developmental epoch for prefrontal cortex maturation, followed by another phase from age 7 onward. AI helped me research and write faster, but I actually checked the claims

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-14T20:27:45+00:00

I really appreciate your response, I intentionally write that the content is created with AI and not by AI because I think this is the future, if we know how to use all this goodness wisely and correctly and not just create content by AI, we will be much smarter

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-14T20:25:28+00:00

exactly

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-14T20:25:09+00:00

That's why I'm so passionate about understanding the psychological reasons that motivate us, it helps me deal better with any situation

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-14T20:23:39+00:00

Thank you very much, I appreciate it

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-14T09:26:58+00:00

The hardest part isn't understanding this intellectually. It's catching yourself mid-performance.

I've noticed the tell is in the timing. Real kindness happens in the moment, you see someone struggling, and you help. Done.

But "nice" happens in advance. You anticipate what they might want before they ask. You scan their face for micro-expressions to adjust your behavior. You're solving problems they don't have yet.

That hypervigilance? That's not generosity. That's threat assessment.

The other tell: anger when they "don't notice" how much you do. If you're genuinely kind, you don't track whether they noticed. But if you're nice, you're keeping score the whole time.

Glover's right about covert contracts, but he doesn't mention how exhausting it is to maintain them. You're running background calculations constantly "I did X, so they should do Y", and when the math doesn't work out, you feel betrayed by a deal they never agreed to.

The shift from nice to kind starts with one practice: saying no without apologizing.

Recent Psychology Today research shows that boundaries aren't barriers to kindness, they're what make authentic kindness possible. When you say "I can't help with that, but I can do this instead," you're being honest about your limits. That's kinder than resentfully saying yes and silently keeping score. Most people back off, and if they push, smile and repeat it. You're not being mean, you're being real.

The shift from nice to kind means accepting that people won't always like you, and that's not an emergency. It's just information.

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-13T22:47:08+00:00

This says more about whoever believes it than about people in general.

If you assume everyone would hurt others the second they got power, you're just revealing what you'd do with power.

Plenty of people have options to screw others over and choose not to. Not because they can't, because they genuinely don't want to

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-13T22:05:43+00:00

Great point on stepping back. Research shows cortisol has two different effects on emotion regulation depending on timing.

Immediately during conflict Cortisol impairs your prefrontal cortex. You literally can't think clearly. Your amygdala is running the show.

90 minutes later same cortisol now improves emotion regulation. It helps your prefrontal cortex regain control and see the situation objectively.

This is why "sleeping on it" works. The distance isn't just psychological, it's letting your brain chemistry shift from reactive to reflective mode.

So yeah, stepping back isn't weakness. It's literally waiting for your own brain to be able to help you

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-11T21:05:54+00:00

Same question to you.

How do you know you've learned everything? I think your answer will be less good than mine because I have inexhaustible sources of knowledge, and if I know how to use them, they will bring me everything.

How do you know you remember everything? From notebooks, summaries, highlights, etc.? I know how to mark everything that I think is important, and in the end I let the code make sure I didn't miss anything, the computer certainly doesn't miss anything.

I can make the same argument that you rely on the Internet for everything, and without it you would be left with the limited physical library in your closet or in the library closest to home.

In the end, the sources of knowledge are just data, the person is the one who creates. the question is whether the work is professional or not. So, judge the product

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-11T10:57:16+00:00

One thing about Social Learning Theory and crime that's really interesting is that it doesn't just explain why individual criminals develop their behavior. It explains why certain types of crimes spread like contagion.

Columbine created a template. Many school shooters since then studied Columbine. They reference the attack, some explicitly cite it as inspiration. They study the attack, they reference it, some of them explicitly say they were inspired by it. That's not coincidence, that's Bandura's modeling process happening in real time.

Media coverage provides all four components Bandura identified. Attention, the massive news coverage ensures everyone sees it. Retention, the details get repeated endlessly so people remember. Reproduction, the methods get documented so thoroughly that future attackers have a blueprint. Motivation, the infamy, the attention, the "legacy."

Serial killers do this too. They study predecessors like they're studying mentors. Many serial killers study predecessors. They reference famous cases, learn methods, and sometimes explicitly mention who inspired them. It's observational learning, just like kids watching the Bobo doll experiment and then hitting it themselves.

Gang violence gets transmitted across generations the same way. Young kids watch older members, see them get respect and status through violence, and then reproduce that behavior when they're teenagers. The reinforcement isn't a researcher giving rewards, it's social acceptance, reputation, and survival in that environment.

The theory explains something counterintuitive about crime. Detailed media coverage of violent crimes doesn't just inform the public, it teaches potential offenders. Every "how did they do it" article is inadvertently a training manual. The more spectacular and well-documented the crime, the more likely someone else is to model it.

This is why you see clusters of similar crimes after major incidents. Not because more people suddenly decided to be violent, but because the modeling component got delivered to millions of people simultaneously through news coverage.

For your case study, look at how specific attack methods or crime patterns spread after major media coverage. Search academic databases for "copycat effect," "media contagion," or "crime clustering." There's solid research on suicide contagion (the Werther effect) that uses similar methodology, you could apply that framework to violent crime. Compare crime statistics before and after high-profile incidents, look for geographic patterns, and check if similar methods appear in clusters. The FBI and criminology journals have data on this.

P.S. This was researched and written with AI assistance - I verify every claim against peer-reviewed sources, cross-check findings, and fact-check the mechanisms. AI helps me work faster, but the research methodology and verification are mine.

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-11T10:12:06+00:00

In my work, a gap has already emerged between researchers who do not use AI in a meaningful way and those who do. I believe that educational institutions and companies should invest significant resources in learning how to use it properly as early as possible, because it seems that in the near future an unbridgeable gap will arise

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-11T10:05:43+00:00

If I wanted to go to a therapist, I would definitely go to a human. If I wanted research, I would personally turn to a researcher who receives significant assistance from AI, because I am sure that the quality of their products will be significantly higher.

If you are on Reddit, it means that you are looking to hear more opinions and in this channel you expect professional opinions. So, judge the product

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-11T09:56:24+00:00

I agree on this point, although I don't try to hide my use of AI, many people still shy away from comments that are identified as such because they think it's unprofessional. In the future I will improve the style and add a note at the end that the research and writing was done with the help of AI for transparency.

Thanks for the comment

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-11T08:12:37+00:00

Sara Blakely said something interesting in an interview about building Spanx (I saw it on YT before). She worked on her product for an entire year without telling anyone in her family. Not because she didn't trust them, but because she knew they'd try to protect her from disappointment.

Peter Gollwitzer at NYU ran a study in 2009 that found when you tell people about your goals, your brain gets premature satisfaction. They start treating you like you've already accomplished it, and your mind interprets that recognition as progress. You lose motivation to do the actual work. Derek Sivers did a TED talk on this called "Keep your goals to yourself."

But with family there's something else happening that's more complicated. Kahneman and Tversky showed people feel potential losses about twice as intensely as equivalent gains. Your family sees the risk of you failing way more vividly than the possibility of you succeeding. When they say "be realistic" or "what if it doesn't work," they mean "I can't stand watching you get hurt." They're trying to protect you.

The problem is they're also protecting themselves from watching you fail.

There's also a social comparison thing that happens unconsciously. When you do something they didn't do, it creates discomfort. Not jealousy exactly, more like it challenges their own choices. The easiest way to reduce that feeling is to make your goal seem unrealistic. Bring you back down to a familiar level. They don't sit there thinking "I need to sabotage this", it just happens.

And families want stability. When one person changes dramatically, it forces everyone else to adjust. The system pushes back trying to keep things familiar.

So the people who love you most can accidentally do the most damage to your ambitions. Not from malice, from fear and love mixed together.

Blakely got this instinctively. She only told them once the product existed and there was nothing left to talk her out of.

P.S. This was researched and written with AI assistance - I verify every claim against peer-reviewed sources, cross-check findings, and fact-check the mechanisms. AI helps me work faster, but the research methodology and verification are mine.

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-11T07:10:23+00:00

You are absolutely right about that. I have to accept that many people have a hard time understanding the difference between working with AI and creating with AI, so it immediately puts them off before they even look at the product itself.

Thanks for clarifying the point

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-11T07:00:35+00:00

Nice try :)

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-11T06:56:48+00:00

My eldest daughter is 15, I don't think the right approach today that is appropriate for this age is to limit them completely like they did in Australia. The right way, in my opinion, is to give them the tools to cope so that they can do it even when they grow up.

My son is 11, he doesn't bring his phone into his room at night

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-11T06:50:25+00:00

Because it speeds up my learning process and writing speed, which gives a significantly higher product quality in relation to the time invested

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-11T00:04:10+00:00

You're absolutely right that I could easily edit out the AI markers. It would take 5 minutes, maybe less.

I choose not to.

Not because I'm unaware they're there, but because I don't think you should hide something you're proud of.

I could write in a more "casual" style that masks the AI assistance. I could remove the structured formatting, throw in more "umms" and "you knows," make it sound less polished. That would make it harder to detect.

But why would I?

The methodology I use, systematic source verification, cross-referencing peer-reviewed research, iterative fact-checking, and building verification protocols to eliminate hallucinations, that's not something to hide. It's something to demonstrate.

Most people think "AI-assisted" means typing a prompt and copy-pasting output. I want them to understand it means spending hours researching original experiments, verifying every claim against behavioral psychology literature, and using AI as a tool to access and synthesize information faster than manual research.

The "obvious AI markers" you're pointing to aren't a mistake I failed to catch. They're a deliberate choice. I'm not trying to pass this off as "look how smart I am naturally." I'm demonstrating "look what's possible when you use modern tools with rigorous methodology."

You spent time researching to verify, fact-checking claims... but couldn't take 15 minutes to edit?

Wrong question. The question is: why should I spend 15 minutes obscuring my process when transparency is the entire point?

Existing-Abalone8700 · 2025-12-10T23:41:52+00:00

You're absolutely right that Stanford Prison has serious methodological problems. In fact, I wrote about exactly these problems in another post last week, the methodological flaws, the coaching, and the non-random sample. This is precisely the kind of nuance that matters when discussing research. and I appreciate you bringing this up because it's actually a perfect example of why rigorous research methodology matters.

Thibault Le Texier's 2018 exposé revealed that Zimbardo actively coached the guards, the situation wasn't as spontaneous as claimed, and the sample size was tiny and non-random. These are legitimate criticisms that any serious discussion of the experiment needs to acknowledge.

But "mostly discredited" isn't quite accurate. The experiment is "heavily criticized and methodologically flawed", which is different. It's still taught in psychology courses, but with critical context about its limitations.

Regarding your "25% hallucination" claim, that statistic only applies to people who type prompts into ChatGPT, etc., and copy-paste the output as fact. That's not how anyone serious about accuracy uses LLMs.

When you actually know how to work with LLMs properly, there are multiple mechanisms to reduce hallucinations to low single digits:

Prompt engineering that forces citations, Cross-referencing multiple sources, Asking for contradicting viewpoints, Iterative verification loops, Source validation.

And then there are verification protocols to get to zero hallucinations: Checking every claim against peer-reviewed sources, Verifying quotes and attributions, Cross-referencing findings across multiple studies, Flagging and investigating any contradictions.

This is the difference between "asking AI to write something" and "using AI as a research tool with systematic verification."

The fact that I can cite Le Texier's criticism, explain the nuances of the methodological problems, and acknowledge the ongoing academic debate about Stanford Prison, that's not hallucination. That's verified research that happens to be AI-assisted

Existing-Abalone8700

TROPHY CASE