Psychopathic Behaviors

In an article called “The Traits of A Serial Killer,” by Simon (2004), psychopaths are not “created” over night, but rather their behavior can be connected all the way to their childhood. What trauma a child experiences plays a major role in the rest of his or her life. A serial killer, most of the time,

Genetics do play a part in psychopathic tendencies, but also the environment you grow up in and what you are exposed to plays a role in it as well. For example, Ted Bundy. Crime Feed Staff (2015) discovered many troubling details about the way he grew up. He lived a childhood full of lies. He grew up thinking that his birth mother was his sister and that his grandparents were his parents only later to learn that his sister was actually his mother and that his grandfather was possibly his father making him a product of incest. There were many things that Bundy did as a child that showed his strange attraction to violence (p.1). Bundy was exposed to pornography as a young age and became addicted, he needed to fuel his addiction and his fantasies became so unbearable he turned it into his reality. Dr. Al Carlisle, the psychologist who evaluated Ted Bundy, concluded that “Because they have painful memories from abuse, disappointment, humiliation, frustration, or being bullied, they have turned to fantasies

The first theory on psychopathy was presented by Cleckley, an American psychiatrist, in the early 20th century. Cleckley believed that psychopathy was an array of traits that were presented as a fragmented personality (Cleckley 1976. The Mask, para. 2). In other words, a psychopath would have many small disorders that would cause him or her to act less human than the average person. Though broken is a harsh word to use when describing people, Cleckley implies it. Cleckley’s theory was eventually overturned. Cleckley was, however, on the right track. Cleckley saw the connection between a lack of morals and psychopathic behaviours (Tillier, 2011). Cleckley’s theory has helped well-respected psychologists, such as Hare to better understand psychopathy for what it is currently understood as: a lack of conscience.

“Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by an inability to form human attachment, aggressive narcissism, and antisocial behavior defined by a constellation of affective, interpersonal and behavioral characteristics, most of which society views as pejorative” [1]. Some of these characteristics include irresponsibility, grandiosity, cunning, deceitfulness, selective impulsivity, sexual promiscuity, lack of empathy, etc. People who are psychopathic display not only antisocial behavior but also emotional impairment such as the lack of guilt. They are able to prey on others using their charm, deceit, violence or any other methods that allow them to get what they want. A strong feature of most of the behavior

When most people hear the word psychopath their mind forms a picture of a wild-eyed, rambling, lunatic who is often restrained in a straitjacket. The media has helped this belief along the way with slasher horror films and grisly CSI episodes depict these strange humans. However, the average psychopath is much harder to spot than most people believe. In fact, most of them are extremely difficult to distinguish from ordinary humans. They outwardly appear normal and many do not find it difficult to blend into common society. They can interact with others, hold successful jobs, and effectively keep themselves out of trouble. Most are not the sadistic killers many people think they are. Psychopaths are people born with problems (Bartol 105) or

In order to protect oneself from a sociopath, one must understand the inner clockwork of one, in order to both diagnose others, or even self diagnose. Because of the danger of a sociopath and there chamelion like talent to blend in with the general community, they are very hard to identify, but knowing how to is crucial to keep oneself safe.

In fact,because psychopaths are not able to feel empathy involuntarily, they are able to turn the feeling on. It is very common for psychopaths to have “ a false belief in their own superiority, a sense of entitlement and a complete disregard for social norms” (Paula, year). Psychopathy had recently been changed into ‘antisocial personality disorder’ in the updated version of the FBI’s mental health book, DSM-III. It was changed for the reason of the personality not always being reliable, as well as psychopathy symptoms crossing over antisocial personality disorder symptoms. Another reason for the change was because it is believed that focusing on behavior instead of the why helped identify the disorder easier. The new research was highly and widely discussed among many physicians because some felt unsure of the change, but they were also for the change with consideration of the evidence that was found. The usual psychopath is not found to be violent. If they are violent, they are considered more dangerous than others and will most likely reoffend sooner and worse than the first time. Between psychopaths and non psychopaths, psychopaths have a longer criminal history which varies in crimes. Their patterns are unique when compared to a non psychopath, but due to their inability to have emotion, they are able to be more observant on their next chosen

A psychopath has always existed, for many, many years. They have existed in many forms and fashion so most people would never know who is a psychopath, until he or she has encountered one. Although there are four different types of psychopaths, they lack empathy for others and are incapable of feeling remorse for anything or anyone. Psychopaths view the world by, being selfish and not showing any concerns for the safety or welfare of others, they do not care about anyone even friends are family.

Review of literature indicates that there have been, and still are sociopathic children who kill, and commit sadistic crimes in this world. Is it possible that such young people can develop sociopathic traits? This paper intends to prove so. Sociopathic children display certain archetypes that can either be taken as a warning, or something to go off of when getting the child help. Children who develop sociopathic traits at a young age can most likely be treated with the help of psychologists, and constant encouragement from parents. However, some children do not take to the treatment and do not feel empathy, or remorse to those around them. If these children are not treated for their behavior, problems are more than likely to

In “The Making of a Serial KIller” Dr. Berit Brogaard writes about the causes of psychopathy and studies done to determine them. The article goes in depth about if psychopathic tendencies are genetically determined or caused by social factors, such as a broken family. According to Brogaard, and many other studies, there is a large difference between psychotics and psychopaths. I believe that Brogaard’s article is nicely written and satisfactorily informed, although she does show insensitivity to minority groups.

With these doubts to using the causes of psychopathy to identify future psychopathic offenders, there are ways in which the legal system, including psychologists, therapists, and courts, can better determine the likelihood of a future psychopathic offender and how to care for them. Looking back at the histories of adult psychopaths, they “consistently committed more violent and non-violent crimes” from their “adolescence to their late 40s” (Birt et al. 647). When working backwards and looking within the large number of youths that have psychopathic tendencies, one understands from the evidence that some will continue to commit crimes as they grow up into adulthood. A way to narrow down which children will become repeating offenders is to

Every day you walk down the street, and unknown to you, 3% of the people you pass suffer from some sort of sociopathy. According to Webster’s Dictionary, a sociopath can be defined as a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. The majority of sociopathic behavior begins in adolescence, normally due to a traumatic event and manifests itself into adulthood.

Serial killers have been around since the Middle Ages and have grown to be more incessant, driving researchers to search for the answer in the matter of why serial murderers submit these serial killings and how they became so violent. Two hypotheses have developed, are serial killers conceived with predetermined genes that play a central part in creating their homicidal tendencies or do psycho killers become murderers through their surroundings as adolescents?

Of all the psychiatric disorders, none are more chilling to the world then the psychopaths and sociopaths. These two disorders, categorized as antisocial personality disorders, bring about the absolute worse people and killers that the world has ever known. The infamous serial killers, the people who do the unimaginable, were all psychopaths. The ability of these people to do what they do and know that what they are doing is wrong, is perhaps one of the most chilling and shocking characteristic of these people. Psychopaths and sociopaths are very often thought by most to be the same disorder, yet they are different when classified by many psychiatric researchers. The people classified as psychopaths and sociopaths are separated by one main difference, and that is if they were born with a lack of the ability to empathize or if they were affected as children in a traumatic environment. Although both of these horrible disorders derive from a different area, the reality is that they are unpredictable, undetectable and most importantly, they can be very dangerous.

This literature review focuses on serial killers from a psychological viewpoint while trying to answer the question, “Are serial killers born to kill or are they bred to kill?” Firstly, this review will define a serial killer and the different kinds of killers, then it will take a look at different case studies of children who fantasized about mass killing and identify similarities between the cases attempt to find a way to possibly prevent their fantasies from becoming reality. The debate of nature vs. nurture is also discussed as psychologists and researchers come to the conclusion that environmental factors play a bigger role in the developmental character of a person than genetics, but there is still no definite answer as to why some individuals grow up with the urge to murder other people and/or animals.