Why do some people say that Eric was a psychopath?

I sometimes see people label Eric a psychopath and I'm not very sure why. I do understand that he killed people but that doesn't necessarily make him a psychopath. If someone could give me a clear answer that would be greatly appreciated.

It's not because he killed people, but because he exhibited most of the signs of psychopathy from Robert Hare's checklist, which is used to diagnose living psychopaths but also to profile dead ones.

Thank you for telling me.

Like [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] said, they are calling him a Psychopath because of the signs he showed. Here is a quote from an article I read that may help you understand better why they are saying they think he is a Psychopath.

"Most clinicians now agree that Eric Harris was a ruthless, cold blooded, psychopath (considered to be a personality disorder according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, DSM-V). Like so many others afflicted with psychopathy, he felt a complete air of superiority and entitlement over everyone.

On the outside, people would agree he was witty, charming, and extremely intelligent. Internally, he was compelled to devise a plan that was originally intended to kill several hundred people at the high school were it not for his lack of funds and inability to successfully develop the kind of explosives that could carry out such devastation."

And in case you'd like to read the entire article. Here is a link to it. It was a pretty interesting read.

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A psychopath is not necessarily a person who kills people.

A psychopathic personality is a kind of personality that is so self-centered that it doesn't have any concern for others, unless it somehow benefits the psychopath.

Money, power, control, respect, sex - these attributes of success is what a psychopath wants from you, if you don't give it to them, you are worthless.

To get those from you, a psychopath will cheat, lie (psychopaths are usually very good at deception), charm you with his mask of a good person, terrorize you with threats, or, if he can get away with it, kill.

A good example of a modern day psychopath is Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, who keeps denying his direct participation in 3 wars over the last 8 years, even though he was the central person to benefit from them. He has charmed his people to the point where they don't even care that he ran for the third unconstitutional term, and terrorized the opposition, having most of its leaders assassinated.
This is the kind of person that will do anything to get what he wants - in this particular instance, unlimited political power and wealth.

Both monsters even look somewhat similar.
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Thanks for clearing that up for me. I see why people say that now.

asdf12345 wrote:

Both monsters even look somewhat similar.

I think Eric has even more of a Putin-family look on this pic:

(He does look a bit Russian on that one...)

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It's not just that. Look at Putin's hair, how neetly it's combed to the side - Soviet kids weren't usually combing themselves like this, they would've been branded as show-off or faggy.

Soviet kids of that decade usually looked like this:
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Hair had to be kept neetly cropped, but not too pretty, preferably crew cut or bald shaved. They had also this weird Korean thing going on back in the 60's, with a longish crop of hair on forehead and the rest shaven, think Kim Jong Un times 3 weird.

Yet this young fellow who's going to become a KGB agent is just few years had already started to work his charm, even though he clearly looks unnatural in his environment.

Look at Bundy with his bow tie for example, or Dillinger, with his suits and clean shirts during violent robberies.

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As far as I research psychopathic personalities, the tyranical psychopaths, those who think the others must obey them or die, seem to LOVE to look neat, clean, almost modelish, as if to show everyone that they are better, prettier, especially when they are doing bad things.

It's like when Eric Cartman in that episode of South Park when he's apologizing to others, and he dresses up nicely, and Kyle has to actually tell him that being dressed nice doens't mean being nice - it's spot on!

Young Putin on this pic looks like Macaulay Culkin

lasttrain wrote:

It's not because he killed people, but because he exhibited most of the signs of psychopathy from Robert Hare's checklist, which is used to diagnose living psychopaths but also to profile dead ones.

Pretty much that. I can go into a lot of specific detail and point which of Eric's actions and writings seem specifically psychopathic, as opposed to just angry teenage criminal.

Eric had what is descriebd as a grandiose feeling of self worth. Read his journal, or better yet his webpages. His websites especially show that part, plus some of the online chat logs he had with women can be examples.

Eric was impulsive, prone to reckless and spurr-of-the-moment violent acts, such as smashing Brook's windscreen, his reaction to the inept female drivers at CHS parking lot him trying to pick figths with jocks at random etc.

Eric was a self-declared liar and looking abck mostly we can agree that he was a good one. He could manipulate people in the diversion program much better than Dylan had. Eric was also much better at writing some disturbing and violetn essays for class and then wiggling his way out of any problems and not having his paents called in. When Dylan wrote a violent piece, he got his parents called in. It was Eric who manipulated Manes and Duran with the guns.
Dylan doesn;'t seem to draw any particular positive emotions out of lying, Eric certainly does. He brags about it and overall seems to have exprienced classic "duping delight".
Eric also seems to have been the one to push the boundaries of what they can do withouth getting caught. He revelled in "foreshadowing" and taunting his surroundings with cryptic references to the massacre to come, whose meaning became obvious only after 4/20.

While both Eric and Dylan lacked remorse when it comesto their victims, Eric is especially vocal and his writing when he is sayign that the guy they robbed is himself to blame - that is textbook psychopathic behavior. Never accepting responsibility (but pretending to be when it suits him) and instead blaming the victim even if his own fault is obvious.
Psychopathic rapists blaming the victim for being seductive or a slut - same psychiological mechanism that Eric has with his theft victim.

Eric certainly seems to be the more action-oriented of the two. He writes about bombs and pyromania far more than Dylan does and he seems to have been the brains behind all their fire&explosive stunts (many of these childish pranks dating way before 4/20). This stimulation-seeking mindset is also very common as far as psychopaths (especially low-functionign ones) go.


To sum it up:
1) While none single trait of Eric is enough to justify a hypothesis conerning psychopathy, all of the above put togeather make for a very strong argument in teh case
2) Eric is dead, so we cannot diagnose him. We can only engage in a speculative assessment taking into accoutn his past actions and life-history.

I'm sorry but I never knew how Eric manipulated Manes and Duran with the guns. How did he do that?

Extanil wrote:

I'm sorry but I never knew how Eric manipulated Manes and Duran with the guns. How did he do that?

If I recal correctly, he made them believe that its all about hunting and he fraternized with one of them (think it was Duran) over their pro-drug beliefs and opposition to anti-gun laws. Eric played the part of a "homie" who feels the same way that they did on politics.
He also picked up on that he wants to get rid of the TEC-9 fast and from what I see he used this to his own advantage. Overall he deflected any suspicions of this whole thing being related to any potential criminal activities.

I would say, its because most expert have Come to some form of conclusion that he had those or similar traits. Given Im not an expert in psychology, most of my observation have suggested that there has to be a very emotionally disturbed personality. Not everyone likes this because it challenges their perception. I trust this narrative, because Ive seen very few professionals trying to dispute the psychopathy--diagnosis and only expert that Ive seen doing this claimed that it was gloser to narrssissm, which isnt really that different

Sabratha wrote:

lasttrain wrote:

It's not because he killed people, but because he exhibited most of the signs of psychopathy from Robert Hare's checklist, which is used to diagnose living psychopaths but also to profile dead ones.

Pretty much that. I can go into a lot of specific detail and point which of Eric's actions and writings seem specifically psychopathic, as opposed to just angry teenage criminal.

Eric had what is descriebd as a grandiose feeling of self worth. Read his journal, or better yet his webpages. His websites especially show that part, plus some of the online chat logs he had with women can be examples.

Eric was impulsive, prone to reckless and spurr-of-the-moment violent acts, such as smashing Brook's windscreen, his reaction to the inept female drivers at CHS parking lot him trying to pick figths with jocks at random etc.

Eric was a self-declared liar and looking abck mostly we can agree that he was a good one. He could manipulate people in the diversion program much better than Dylan had. Eric was also much better at writing some disturbing and violetn essays for class and then wiggling his way out of any problems and not having his paents called in. When Dylan wrote a violent piece, he got his parents called in. It was Eric who manipulated Manes and Duran with the guns.
Dylan doesn;'t seem to draw any particular positive emotions out of lying, Eric certainly does. He brags about it and overall seems to have exprienced classic "duping delight".
Eric also seems to have been the one to push the boundaries of what they can do withouth getting caught. He revelled in "foreshadowing" and taunting his surroundings with cryptic references to the massacre to come, whose meaning became obvious only after 4/20.

While both Eric and Dylan lacked remorse when it comesto their victims, Eric is especially vocal and his writing when he is sayign that the guy they robbed is himself to blame - that is textbook psychopathic behavior. Never accepting responsibility (but pretending to be when it suits him) and instead blaming the victim even if his own fault is obvious.
Psychopathic rapists blaming the victim for being seductive or a slut - same psychiological mechanism that Eric has with his theft victim.

Eric certainly seems to be the more action-oriented of the two. He writes about bombs and pyromania far more than Dylan does and he seems to have been the brains behind all their fire&explosive stunts (many of these childish pranks dating way before 4/20). This stimulation-seeking mindset is also very common as far as psychopaths (especially low-functionign ones) go.


To sum it up:
1) While none single trait of Eric is enough to justify a hypothesis conerning psychopathy, all of the above put togeather make for a very strong argument in teh case
2) Eric is dead, so we cannot diagnose him. We can only engage in a speculative assessment taking into accoutn his past actions and life-history.

They run a Swedish radio programme a few years ago, Come think of it and Fuselier said that in the basement tapes he showed serious lack of remorse.

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