Politicians share personality traits with serial killers: Study

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/06/politicians-and-serial-killers.html

Kouri, who's a vice president of the National Assn. of Chiefs of Police, has assembled traits such as superficial charm, an exaggerated sense of self-worth, glibness, lying, lack of remorse and manipulation of others.

These traits, Kouri points out in his analysis, are common to psychopathic serial killers.

But -- and here's the part that may spark some controversy and defensive discussion -- these traits are also common to American politicians. (Maybe you already suspected.)

The Consumer Paradox: Scientists Find that Low Self-Esteem and Materialism Goes Hand in Hand

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“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.”~From the movie Fight Club, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk

Researchers have found that low self-esteem and materialism are not just a correlation, but also a causal relationship where low self esteem increases materialism, and materialism can also create low self-esteem. The also found that as self esteem increases, materialism decreases. The study primarily focused on how this relationship affects children and adolescents. Lan Nguyen Chaplin (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Deborah Roedder John (University of Minnesota) found that even a simple gesture to raise self-esteem dramatically decreased materialism, which provides a way to cope with insecurity.