Macdonald triad

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Macdonald triad (also known as the triad of sociopathy) is a set of three behavioral characteristics which are associated with sociopathic behavior. The triad was first identified by J.M. Macdonald in "The Threat to Kill", a 1963 paper in the American Journal of Psychiatry.^[1]

"In a study involving hospitalized patients [Macdonald] focused on patients who had threatened to kill rather than on patients who had killed, although some subjects later committed homicide. His sample consisted of forty-eight psychotic and fifty-two non-psychotic patients. He found that sadistic patients often had three characteristics in common in their childhood histories. These factors... consisted of bedwetting (enuresis), firesetting, and torturing small animals".^[2]

A later paper by Hellman and Blackman concluded that the triad was predictive of future criminal behavior.^[3]

[edit] References