Dr. Tristin Engels

And Dorothea learned early that people were either sources of threat or sources of utility, and there was no middle ground.

So by the time she was running her boarding home, she wasn't seeing human beings.

She was scanning for the needs that she could exploit, vulnerabilities she could capitalize on, and opportunities to maintain absolute control.

Over time, that mindset didn't just like harden, it became pathological.

Empathy was never something she learned or internalized.

Now, to be clear, there are a lot of people who grew up in very scarce environments who don't, you know, turn out to exploit other people or become the Dorotheas of the world.

But Dorothea's pathology is very different.

And that is what's really taking center place right now.

Again, she weaponizes domesticity and uses biases to her advantage.

She knew society would actively trust someone who presented as sweet, kind, harmless, elderly woman, and she capitalized off that.

But at the same time, which is also really disturbing, she used these same symbols of care, like the garden, flowerpots, and trees, to hide the bodies of her victims.

She just seamlessly blended violence,

two very oppositional worlds and turned it into her strategy.

What is it about our biases that makes it harder to spot red flags?

So there's a couple of things.

There's something called the representative heuristic.

That's when we judge someone based on how well they match our internal template of a quote, good person.

Most of us are taught to see a maternal woman who, for example, keeps a tidy home, tends a garden, bakes cookies, and cares for vulnerable people as safe and trustworthy.

We are also influenced by a confirmation bias.

Once we decide someone is kind or trustworthy, we unconsciously filter out information that contradicts it.