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Lex Fridman Podcast

#483 - Julia Shaw: Criminal Psychology of Murder, Serial Killers, Memory & Sex

with Julia Shaw

Published October 14, 2025
View Show Notes

About This Episode

Criminal psychologist Julia Shaw discusses the psychology of "evil" as a continuum of traits, covering the dark tetrad, serial killers, murder, and why ordinary people can commit horrific acts under certain conditions. She explains her research on false memories and how easily they can be implanted or distorted, the limits of lie detection and intuitive judgments like creepiness, and how these insights apply to therapy, policing, AI systems, and environmental crime. She also talks about sexuality, bisexuality, polyamory, sexual fantasies and kinks, and her work on green crime and the psychology of those who commit serious environmental offenses.

Topics Covered

Criminal psychology Sociopathy and empathy Violence and self-defense Memory improvement Online scams and fraud Relationships Romantic relationships Bisexuality False memory research Environmental crime

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Quick Takeaways

  • Traits associated with evil, such as psychopathy, sadism, narcissism, and Machiavellianism, exist on a continuum and are present in everyone to varying degrees rather than defining a binary category of monsters.
  • Empathizing with people who commit terrible crimes is essential for understanding why they did what they did and for designing interventions that actually prevent future harm.
  • Our intuitive sense of who's creepy, who's lying, or who's trustworthy is highly unreliable, and even experienced police officers are no better than chance at detecting lies in controlled studies.
  • Most murders are not committed by serial killers but arise from ordinary conflicts that escalate, and homicide has a very low recidivism rate compared to crimes like fraud, elder abuse, and sexual violence.
  • False memories are a normal feature of human memory, and with leading questions and suggestion it is possible to get people to confess to and remember crimes that never occurred.
  • Jealousy is described as a red flag rather than a proof of love, and research suggests many people struggle with monogamy, while alternative relationship structures like polyamory can work for some.
  • Bisexuality is often misunderstood as a phase or a stepping stone to being gay, yet historical and modern research shows many people fall somewhere between exclusively heterosexual and exclusively homosexual.
  • Kinks and BDSM are common and, when consensual, can serve as a form of disinhibition where people let go of everyday decision-making and social pressures.
  • Generative AI systems can act as powerful "false memory machines" by presenting tailored but potentially inaccurate information that people may later remember as true.
  • Environmental crimes such as emissions fraud, illegal logging, and poaching often involve smart, organized actors, and applying criminological thinking plus existing laws and enforcement tools can meaningfully fight them.

Podcast Notes

Introduction and Julia Shaw's background

Overview of Julia Shaw and her work

Host introduces Julia Shaw as a criminal psychologist who studies diverse aspects of human nature[0:00]
• Her topics include psychopathy, violent crime, psychology of evil, police interrogation, false memory manipulation, deception detection, and human sexuality
Books authored by Julia Shaw[0:00]
• She wrote "Evil" about the psychology of murder and sadism, "The Memory Illusion" about false memories, "Bi" about bisexuality, and a new book "Green Crime" about environmental criminals such as poachers, illegal gold miners, corporate fraudsters, and hitmen

Defining evil and the dark tetrad

Evil as a continuum and the dark tetrad

Shaw describes evil-related traits as continuous rather than a binary monster vs non-monster label[8:21]
• The dark tetrad consists of four dark personality traits: sadism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy
Explanation of each trait in the dark tetrad[8:37]
• Sadism: taking pleasure in hurting other people
• Machiavellianism: willingness to do whatever it takes to get ahead
• Narcissism: excessive pleasure in oneself and feeling superior to others
• Psychopathic personality: often lacks empathy and includes traits such as a parasitic lifestyle (mooching off others) and deceptiveness (lying)
Traits exist on scales with clinical vs subclinical levels[10:09]
• People can be low or high on each tetrad trait; if they score high on all four, they are most likely to harm others
• Psychology distinguishes clinical diagnoses (meeting threshold) from subclinical traits that do not meet full diagnostic criteria but are still important to understand

Nature vs nurture, Hitler question, and evil empathy

The "kill baby Hitler" thought experiment

Shaw explains the question is about whether people are born evil[10:30]
• Psychologists have debated whether Hitler was "mad or bad" and studied his traits over time
Shaw's answer to whether she would kill baby Hitler[11:20]
• She says she would not, because she does not believe there is a straight line from baby to adult or that people are born evil
• She emphasizes environment and socialization as the main shapers of harmful traits

Continuums, human capacity for harm, and dehumanization

Shaw wants to dismantle the artificial differentiation between good and evil[12:20]
• She argues we all have the capacity to kill and do terrible things; the more relevant question is why most people do not act on this capacity
Role of dehumanization and de-individuation in war and mass violence[13:20]
• In war, both sides typically frame conflict as a battle of good vs evil and dehumanize the enemy to justify killing at scale
• De-individuation: seeing oneself as part of a group rather than an individual, creating an "us vs them" dynamic and a cloak of morality for harmful acts

Argument for empathy toward those labeled evil

Shaw promotes what she calls "evil empathy"[14:24]
• Her UK book title is "Making Evil", referencing Nietzsche's idea that thinking evil is making evil, i.e., evil is a label we apply rather than an inherent property
Why empathy is necessary even for violent offenders[15:46]
• As a criminal psychologist, she works on sexual abuse, rape, and murder cases where people are frequently called evil
• Simply labeling people evil does not prevent future harm; to stop behavior, we must understand psychological and social factors that led to it
• She frames empathy for offenders as crucial to making society safer

Interviewing "evil" people and narrative control

Lex asks how to interview world leaders or convicted criminals that many see as evil[16:10]
• He notes such people often arrive with a polished narrative in which they see themselves as good and misunderstood
Shaw on what can be learned even from controlled narratives[17:15]
• She describes environmental crime interviews where offenders rationalize with lines like "everyone's doing it" or "if I hadn't done it, someone else would"
• Such rationalizations show how people diminish their own agency and maintain a self-image as a good person despite harmful acts

Creepiness, lie detection, and intuitive judgments

Creepiness and norm violations

Shaw explains that our "creepiness" judgments are often just reactions to norm violations[19:36]
• Research suggests creepiness is linked to people not following social norms rather than actual danger
Example of mental illness and social distance[20:05]
• In a study, participants sat more chairs away from someone known to have a severe mental illness, reflecting physical and psychological distancing
• She notes people with severe mental illness are not inherently more violent, but are nonetheless perceived as such

Attractiveness and creepiness

Attractiveness interacts in complex ways with creepiness judgments[20:43]
• Very attractive people can also be distrusted; deviations from perceived norms in any direction can bias judgments

Limits of lie detection skills

Police and other professionals are overconfident in their lie detection abilities[21:53]
• Shaw cites research by Aldert Vrij and others showing trained investigators are no better than chance at detecting lies in experimental settings
Consequences of overconfidence in lie detection[22:26]
• Overconfidence can lead investigators to miss actual liars and wrongly target innocent people, potentially contributing to wrongful convictions
• In relationships, jealousy often rests on inaccurate assumptions about lying, since people are poor lie detectors

Psychopathy, treatment, and Nietzsche's "abyss"

Psychopathy, lying, and treatment approaches

Some evidence suggests people with psychopathy can be better at lying or faking good[23:12]
• She mentions research on individuals faking good during parole decisions by mimicking a safe, pro-social persona
Concerns about empathy-focused treatment for psychopathy[23:51]
• Historically, some worried that empathy training might simply teach people with psychopathy to fake empathy and weaponize it
• She cites Jennifer Skeem's work designing interventions that teach rule-following and show that pro-social behavior is a better way to get what you want

Nietzsche's abyss and carrying dark cases

Lex asks about Nietzsche's idea of gazing into the abyss and becoming what you study[24:50]
• Shaw responds that the abyss is not blank; there are patterns that can be recognized and used to improve decisions about offenders
How she psychologically approaches horrific cases[26:00]
• She views cases as puzzles and pattern recognition problems rather than emotionally investing in each victim; her role is to work with police and lawyers objectively
• She differentiates this from the role of therapists, who are meant to emotionally support victims

Bad People podcast, serial killers, and capacity for evil

Bad People podcast and the Robert Pickton case

Shaw co-hosts the "Bad People" podcast, using the title tongue-in-cheek to question who "bad people" are[29:39]
Description of the Robert Pickton case[29:50]
• Pickton lured victims to his farm, killed them, and did terrible things to their bodies; rumors include feeding victims to pigs
• Shaw's professor Stephen Hart served as an expert witness in the case and influenced her choice of career

Serial killers, loneliness, and reality monitoring

Shaw highlights profound loneliness as common among serial killers[32:16]
• She argues loneliness contributes both to committing crimes and to getting away with them, because of reduced social networks to provide reality monitoring
Reality monitoring and radicalization[33:54]
• Without family or therapists to challenge delusions, people can drift into alternate realities, whether via psychosis or ideological radicalization
Application to famous serial killers[34:08]
• She cites Jeffrey Dahmer as an example, noting his apparent desire to create the "perfect partner" through killings and body modification, which she describes as profoundly sad as well as heinous

Are all humans capable of evil?

Shaw believes all of us are capable of doing the worst things we can imagine[35:49]
• She points to historical examples where neighbors turned on one another at the start of wars or political upheavals, including turning people in or killing them
Importance of rehearsing evil mentally[35:41]
• She argues we should "rehearse" evil in our minds to recognize pathways toward it and to spot red flags in ourselves before we act
• Research on murder fantasies shows about 70% of men and more than 50% of women have fantasized about killing someone
• She considers such fantasies generally adaptive as a dress rehearsal for how we do not want to live, unless they become obsessive and focused on a specific person

Bystanders, heroism, and the heroic imagination

Bystander effect and the Kitty Genovese case

Shaw recounts the classic story of Kitty Genovese's murder and non-intervening bystanders[41:49]
• She notes later research on bystander behavior does not generally support the idea that people never intervene; most of the time they do
• Intervention is less likely when a crowd has already formed, and people infer that inaction means the situation is not serious

Philip Zimbardo and the heroic imagination

She describes Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment as influential in showing how assigned roles can rapidly change behavior[39:56]
Heroic imagination as a goal of her work[40:58]
• Shaw says the purpose of her work is to prevent evil by helping individuals recognize and resist harmful pathways in themselves
• She endorses imagining how you could act heroically in real-life scenarios, such as rescuing someone who is drowning, rather than assuming you would automatically do the right thing

Murder, recidivism, and justice

Why people commit murder and common misconceptions

Shaw explains that most murders are mundane conflicts that escalate, not elaborate serial killer plots[46:00]
• Typical reasons include trivial disputes like being owed a small amount of money or a stolen bike, as well as intimate partner homicides
Victimization gap and public narratives[45:30]
• There is a large gap between the impact on the victim (death) and the perpetrator (prison), and people want extreme reasons for extreme outcomes
• Media and true crime often focus on rare, planned serial murders, rather than typical, impulsive killings

Murder recidivism and sentencing priorities

She notes recidivism for homicide is very low, about 1-3%[47:23]
• Crimes with much higher recidivism risk include fraud, elder abuse, and sexual violence
Shaw suggests our sanctions may be misaligned with prevention goals[47:31]
• We often imprison murderers for long periods based on a life-for-life concept of justice, but if the goal is safety, resources might be better focused on high-recidivism offenses
Restorative justice and forgiveness[48:13]
• She describes restorative justice models where families want explanations and apologies rather than maximal punishment
• In some gang-related youth homicides, parents may desire that the perpetrator still have a life, understanding they are teenagers

Incels, entitlement, and love fraud

Incels and entitlement

Her Bad People episode on incels examined hatred of women and entitlement to a particular life[49:40]
• She notes many people are sold a white-picket-fence ideal and may feel angry when reality does not match it, confusing aspirations with entitlements
Danger arises from entitlement plus group reinforcement[51:24]
• Shaw emphasizes that feeling entitled and being in online groups that normalize misogyny can fuel dangerous behavior

The Tinder Swindler and love scams

Story of the Tinder Swindler and victim Cecilia[51:53]
• The man posed as a wealthy jet-setting lover, rapidly love-bombed women, took them on lavish dates, and then claimed to be in danger to get them to send money
• Cecilia took out loans and got family money to help him, eventually realizing it was a love scam
Shaw's message about fraud victims[53:49]
• She stresses fraud works because scammers tell us what we want to hear, and that victims are not necessarily gullible or stupid
• Many victims are embarrassed and go quiet; she thinks talking about fraud reduces stigma
AI's potential role in tailored scams[54:13]
• She notes that AI could make such scams more effective by tailoring narratives based on detailed information about a person, especially around love

Jealousy, monogamy, polyamory, and bisexuality

Jealousy and coercive control

Coercive control in relationships[56:11]
• She gives examples of a partner controlling finances and using terms like "allowance", or using jealousy to control behavior
Her view that jealousy is a red flag[56:37]
• Shaw considers persistent jealousy almost always a red flag, usually reflecting insecurity or a mismatch in the relationship
• She argues jealousy is not a sign of love but of control and possession, and notes it is a strong precursor to intimate partner violence

Monogamy, cheating, and alternative structures

High prevalence of cheating and challenges of monogamy[58:00]
• Research shows most people either have cheated on a significant other or have done so multiple times
• She suggests monogamy as a rigid norm may set many up to fail, given actual behavior patterns
Shaw identifies as polyamorous[58:42]
• She believes one can love multiple people, and that more open structures can be healthier for some, provided they start from a good place and not as a way to "fix" oneself
Importance of explicit conversation about relationship structure[1:00:02]
• She recommends partners discuss early how they want to structure their relationship, including exclusivity, to reduce lying and misaligned expectations

Bisexuality research and misconceptions

Terminology: bisexual, plurisexual, omnisexual, pansexual[1:05:19]
• Researchers sometimes use terms like plurisexual and omnisexual or pansexual (attraction to all genders) to avoid confusion with other uses of "bisexual"
Her simple description of bisexuality[1:06:26]
• She says she is not attracted to most people, but can be attracted to people regardless of gender
Biggest misunderstanding: bisexuality as a phase[1:07:05]
• Many assume bisexuality is transient or a stepping stone to being gay, which research and historical data contradict

Kinsey scale, Klein grid, and sexual fluidity

Alfred Kinsey's research and the Kinsey scale[1:08:38]
• Post-World War II, Kinsey interviewed thousands of people about sexual behavior and proposed a 0-6 continuum from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual
• He found about half of men and about a quarter of women fell somewhere in the middle, not exclusively at either end
Fritz Klein's sexual orientation grid[1:14:34]
• The Klein grid assesses identity, attraction, behavior, fantasies, lifestyle, and ideal across past, present, and ideal future
• Shaw notes Klein used differences between present and ideal as starting points in therapy, describing some people as "troubled bisexuals" when uncomfortable with their sexuality
• She extends the idea of being "troubled" to any sexuality where aspects feel unresolved

Kinks, sexual fantasies, and stigma

Why she included kinks in a book about evil

Kinks are often wrongly bundled with criminal behavior in public narratives[1:20:21]
• She is frequently told in cases that someone was into BDSM or swinging as if that explains their crime, which she rejects when it's unrelated
Prevalence and variety of kinks[1:20:21]
• Many people have at least one kink, with BDSM being especially common, including choking, restraints, and consensual degradation
• She lists examples like pup play, blood play, scratching or cutting that releases blood, and other consensual practices

Disinhibition hypothesis and letting go

Why BDSM and dominance/submission can be appealing[1:21:18]
• Research indicates many people say they like BDSM because it allows them to let go of decision-making after a day of constant choices
• Shaw describes a "disinhibition hypothesis": in the bedroom people may seek the opposite dynamic from daily life, like being told what to do instead of being in control
• She notes this can also apply to the dominant partner, who no longer has to walk on eggshells because roles are explicitly negotiated
Destigmatizing fantasies[1:20:21]
• She is concerned that people often feel deeply ashamed about their fantasies and may wrongly infer they are evil or bad because of them

False memories, therapy, and AI as a false memory machine

Shaw's false memory research

Combining false confession and false memory research[1:29:17]
• She built on Elizabeth Loftus's work on false memories and Saul Kassin's work on false confessions to test whether people could be made to believe they committed crimes that never occurred
Experimental design for implanting crime memories[1:39:24]
• Participants were told it was a childhood memory study; their parents supplied real background details and confirmed they had never had the target experiences
• Each participant discussed one true emotional memory, then a purported second memory in which, at age 14, they had police contact for assaulting someone with a weapon, stealing, or similar offenses
• Shaw used an imagination exercise, suggesting possible repression, and asked participants to close their eyes and visualize whatever they could, reinforcing each detail
• Across three interviews, about 70% of participants came to confess to and remember a crime that never happened, according to her study

Nature of false memories

False memories are common and structural[1:33:47]
• Shaw states false memories are a feature of a normal, healthy brain, not a glitch
• She distinguishes gist memory (approximate, usually good enough) from verbatim details, which are often wrong but demanded in courtrooms
Memory thieves and borrowed memories[1:35:53]
• She describes "memory thieves" who adopt others' stories as their own after hearing vivid accounts, later sincerely recalling them as personal experiences

AI confabulations and propaganda concerns

Generative AI as an "ultimate false memory machine"[1:31:07]
• Shaw says generative AI provides a tailored experience, often telling users what it infers they want to hear, without built-in safeguards against users adopting outputs as true memories
• She notes a feedback loop where users' leading questions also shape the AI's outputs, paralleling how leading questions distort human memories in interviews
Experimental evidence with AI-generated media[1:44:16]
• She cites a study where static photos were turned into AI-generated videos, after which participants were more likely to believe and confidently remember the depicted events as real
Defenses against memory distortion[1:45:41]
• Shaw advises assuming you will forget, and writing down important emotional events as soon as possible, even if drunk, high, or very emotional
• She emphasizes contemporaneous evidence as higher quality and recommends recording personal versions before group discussions to avoid contamination

Therapy, memory, and evidence

Risks of certain therapeutic approaches[1:50:42]
• She is critical of therapies (like some psychoanalytic approaches) that search for single past incidents as the root of present problems, calling it an oversimplification
• Some therapies can mirror false memory implantation techniques, making later legal evidence difficult to evaluate
Different goals of therapists vs expert witnesses[1:52:25]
• Therapists aim to help clients manage current emotions, regardless of factual accuracy of memories, whereas Shaw's role in court is to scrutinize the evidentiary quality of memories

Memory, happiness, and cognitive restructuring

State-dependent memory and emotional bias

We tend to recall memories that match our current emotional state[1:54:22]
• When sad or embarrassed, people more easily recall other sad or embarrassing events; networks of similar feelings are activated
Rosy reminiscence bias[1:55:30]
• Most people, unless depressed, tend to remember their lives more positively or neutrally, interpreting even difficult events as having brought growth or insight
Cognitive restructuring[1:56:35]
• She describes cognitive restructuring as deliberately changing how we interpret past events, especially negative ones, to focus on what we learned or gained
• An example is her reframing her father's schizophrenia as a net positive influence that shaped her career and understanding of reality

Names, mnemonics, and aphantasia

Remembering names and mnemonic strategies[1:58:02]
• She suggests making names more "sticky" by linking them to visual images or rhymes, but notes this requires paying attention at the moment of introduction
Shaw's aphantasia and limits of imagery-based methods[1:58:45]
• She discovered she has aphantasia (inability to form mental images), failing the "red apple" visualization test, which makes classic imagery mnemonics ineffective for her
• She notes people with aphantasia often care less about childhood memories because they cannot visualize them, and that research on this is still early

Environmental crime and the book Green Crime

Scope and examples of green crime

Shaw frames environmental offenses as crimes against our shared house, the Earth[2:01:09]
• She gives examples like pollution, illegal logging, poaching, illegal fishing, and corporate fraud that harms air and water
Volkswagen Dieselgate as a case study[2:01:09]
• Volkswagen installed defeat devices in diesel cars so they appeared to meet emissions standards, while actually emitting nitrous oxides up to about 40 times legal limits in some cases
• Nitrous oxides have no safe lower limit for human lungs and are linked to asthma, premature death, and other health harms
• Some company figures later claimed scapegoating, but someone had to build and deploy the software and then lie about it

Psychology of corporate and organized environmental crime

Differences from typical violent crime[2:04:02]
• Environmental crimes often involve highly educated, intelligent people in multi-level structures (bosses, middlemen, people on the ground), unlike many violent crimes involving more vulnerable individuals
Conformity, rationalization, and market pressures[2:08:53]
• She explains that when one company cheats, others may feel compelled to cheat to compete, rationalizing that "everyone is doing it"
• Employees can be drawn into harmful norms within organizations and cover up each other's crimes

Hope, enforcement, and climate concern

Widespread public concern about climate and environment[2:05:00]
• She cites a UN climate survey where about 85-90% of people think about the climate crisis regularly, many daily, reporting feelings like eco-anxiety, anger, sadness, and grief
Existing laws, investigators, and satellite evidence[2:06:56]
• She describes meeting with UN researchers, Interpol officers, and NGOs like the Environmental Investigation Agency, who infiltrate poaching gangs and other networks
• She notes that European Space Agency satellites monitor environmental changes from space, making many crimes observable and measurable
Importance of whistleblowers and heroes[2:09:39]
• In many environmental crime cases, there is eventually an internal or external hero who exposes wrongdoing, paralleling earlier discussion of heroism

Personal background, Spot, and sources of hope

Path into criminal psychology

From art to psychology[1:26:25]
• Shaw originally planned to study art and had a painting portfolio focused on surrealism, but her grandfather warned that being an artist is a hard life
• She chose psychology, influenced by growing up with a father who had paranoid schizophrenia, which made her obsessed with what is real
Why she chose criminal psychology[1:28:12]
• She perceived criminal psychologists as the most fun and down-to-earth, with gallows humor, while still dealing with serious cases
• She enjoys applied science and the procedural impact of research

Company Spot and recording memories

Motivation for founding Spot[2:12:30]
• After giving talks that gave audiences an existential crisis about memory, she wanted a practical tool to improve reporting and documentation
• She co-founded Spot in 2017 with Phil Libin and colleagues, aiming to automate the cognitive interview via chatbot
How Spot works and who uses it[2:13:10]
• Spot administers a scripted, best-practice memory interview and generates a report that employees can send to employers about compliance issues
• Clients include insurance and medical companies and the Bar Council in the UK, where lawyers themselves use it to report concerns

Shaw's hopes about technology and humanity

Tech as a tool for implementing science[2:11:58]
• She believes tech can help record important emotional events and implement evidence-based interviewing practices, enhancing rather than eroding human capacities
Need for social scientists in AI development[2:15:16]
• She worries AI development sometimes treats problems as pure engineering or math challenges, ignoring social dynamics and memory distortion risks that social scientists understand
Final reflections and hope[2:16:00]
• Shaw says what gives her hope is that people study darkness seriously and that many are actively fighting environmental and other crimes
• Lex expresses attachment to Earth and the possibility that humans might be alone in the galaxy, reinforcing the importance of protecting the planet

Lessons Learned

Actionable insights and wisdom you can apply to your business, career, and personal life.

1

Traits we label as "evil" exist on a continuum in everyone, so the more productive question is not who is a monster, but what conditions push ordinary people toward or away from harmful behavior.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In what situations do you notice yourself rationalizing small harms or norm violations because "everyone is doing it"?
  • • How might your decisions change if you assumed you had the same capacity for harm as the people you read about in extreme historical events?
  • • What specific environmental or social conditions in your life could you adjust to make it easier to act in line with your values under pressure?
2

Our intuitive judgments about creepiness, trustworthiness, and lying are highly unreliable, so important decisions should rely on structured processes and evidence rather than gut feelings.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where in your work or relationships are you currently relying on a hunch about someone's honesty instead of verifiable information?
  • • How could you introduce simple, repeatable questions or checklists to reduce bias when you evaluate what others tell you?
  • • The next time you feel someone is "creepy" or untrustworthy, what additional data could you gather before acting on that impression?
3

Because human memory is reconstructive and easily distorted, you should externalize important information quickly and treat your recollections as evolving narratives rather than fixed facts.

Reflection Questions:

  • • What high-stakes situations in your life (e.g., conflicts, agreements, key meetings) would benefit from immediate written notes rather than relying on memory?
  • • How might your perspective on a past event change if you explicitly separated the gist of what happened from the specific details you might be confabulating?
  • • What simple habit could you implement this week to capture contemporaneous records of important experiences before discussing them with others?
4

Jealousy and rigid relationship norms can mask control and insecurity; explicitly negotiating relationship structures and being honest about desires can reduce harm and hidden resentment.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Where do feelings of jealousy or possessiveness show up in your relationships, and what underlying fear or insecurity might they be pointing to?
  • • How could you start a calm, non-accusatory conversation with a partner about what each of you actually wants from your relationship structure?
  • • If you stopped assuming there is only one "right" model for relationships, what alternative arrangements or agreements might better fit your values and behavior?
5

Reframing past experiences through cognitive restructuring-focusing on what they taught you rather than how they hurt you-can turn burdensome memories into sources of resilience.

Reflection Questions:

  • • Which difficult past experience still feels purely negative to you, and what, if anything, did it teach you or make possible in your life?
  • • How could you describe that same event to yourself in a way that highlights growth, skills, or empathy you gained from it?
  • • What small daily practice (journaling, brief reflection, talking with a friend) could help you consciously reframe new setbacks as learning opportunities?
6

Large-scale harms like environmental crime are often enabled by conformity and rationalization inside organizations, which means cultivating internal whistleblowers and clear ethical norms is crucial.

Reflection Questions:

  • • In your organization, what practices do people justify with "this is just how it's done" even when it feels ethically uncomfortable?
  • • How might you create safer channels-formal or informal-for people to raise concerns without fear of retaliation or ridicule?
  • • What is one concrete step you could take this month to clarify your own red lines so you recognize when conformity is pulling you past them?

Episode Summary - Notes by Jamie

#483 - Julia Shaw: Criminal Psychology of Murder, Serial Killers, Memory & Sex
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