{"id":6677,"date":"2016-01-05T13:28:38","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T11:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buyessay.org\/blog\/?p=6677"},"modified":"2021-11-12T16:40:43","modified_gmt":"2021-11-12T14:40:43","slug":"psychology-essay-example-psychological-profile-of-the-serial-killer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buyessay.org\/blog\/psychology-essay-example-psychological-profile-of-the-serial-killer\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychology Essay: Psychological Profile Of The Serial Killer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"psychology-essay\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What makes serial killers kill?\u00a0It turns out they\u00a0have common traits\u00a0that help mold them into repeated sadistic\u00a0murderers. This paper focuses on three traits\u00a0shared by\u00a0serial killers: (1) bad\u00a0childhoods; (2) neurological problems; and (3) violent\u00a0fantasies.<\/p>\n


\nMany budding serial killers, when children, were\u00a0victims\u00a0themselves,\u00a0forced\u00a0to deal with painful childhood experiences, including\u00a0physical or\u00a0verbal abuse; parental abandonment;\u00a0and\u00a0unnatural relationships with\u00a0their mothers\u00a0(LaBrode, 2007). John Wayne Gacy\u00a0felt abandoned because he\u00a0was beaten\u00a0and teased\u00a0by his drunken father (“John Wayne Gacy,” 2015).\u00a0Ed\u00a0Kemper’s mother severely abused him\u00a0(Bonn, 2014).<\/p>\n

Bobby Joe Long\u00a0had an unnatural\u00a0relationship with his mother\u00a0(LaBrode, 2007);\u00a0she\u00a0slept in his\u00a0bed and\u00a0exposed him to sexual activities\u00a0(Newton,\u00a02015). Ted Bundy grew up confused, thinking\u00a0that his mother was his older sister and grandparents were his parents\u00a0(LaBrode, 2007).<\/p>\n

Experts\u00a0say that some serial killers, such as Jeffrey Dahmer,\u00a0had typical childhoods\u00a0and were not abused (Brogaard, 2012), which suggests that other factors, such as neurological problems,\u00a0play a role. The FBI recognizes that many serial killers have\u00a0psychopathic traits (Morton, 2014). Also,\u00a0several studies\u00a0suggest that psychopathy is\u00a0neurobiologically based\u00a0(LaBrode, 2007). They show that impairments in the\u00a0amygdala, a brain structure\u00a0responsible for emotions (anger, fear,\u00a0sadness, etc.), and the prefrontal cortex, a\u00a0brain region\u00a0responsible for regulating behavior and social control, are linked to psychopathology (LaBrode, 2007).<\/p>\n

Serial killers are either born with these abnormalities or they are\u00a0the result of injury.\u00a0Consequently, they\u00a0are not\u00a0embarrassed when they do something wrong or sad to see people suffer\u00a0(Brogaard, 2012). Dahmer,\u00a0Gacy, and Long\u00a0are all psychopaths.\u00a0Gacy was hit in the head\u00a0by\u00a0a swing\u00a0(Lohr, 2015);\u00a0Dahmer had a frontal lobe brain injury (Dillard, 2015); and\u00a0Long\u00a0suffered multiple childhood head injuries\u00a0(LaBrode, 2007).<\/p>\n

Another trait common among serial killers is an obsession with violent\u00a0fantasies. According to the\u00a0FBI, “killers program themselves in childhood to become\u00a0murderers through a progressively intensifying loop of fantasy” (Bonn, 2014, p.1).\u00a0They fantasize for\u00a0pleasure\u00a0until they\u00a0need to commit and repeat murders\u00a0for\u00a0pleasure\u00a0(Bonn, 2014). Dahmer had “strange and bizarre fantasies that thrived in …powerful feelings of anger and rage”\u00a0and\u00a0Kemper blamed his killing on\u00a0his strong fantasies\u00a0(Bonn, 2014, p. 1). It is thought that biological predisposition and neglect cause budding serial killers to fantasize\u00a0(“Research-serial killers,”\u00a02011).<\/p>\n

To sum up, bad childhoods, neurological problems, and violent fantasies are traits common among\u00a0serial killers. They\u00a0help to predict who might become the next Jeffrey Dahmer.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Bonn, S.A. (2014, October). Serial killers and the essential role of fantasy. [Web log]. Retrieved from http:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/blog\/wicked-deeds\/201410\/serial-killers-and-the-essential-role-fantasy<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. Brogaard, B. (2012, December). The making of a serial killer: Possible social causes of \u00a0psychopathology. [Web log]. Retrieved from http:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/blog\/the-\u00a0superhuman-mind\/201212\/the-making-serial-killer><\/em><\/li>\n
  3. Dillard, K. Sociopaths like Cho Seung \u00a0— The criminology of what makes them tick. Viewzone.com. Retrieved from http:\/\/www.sociopath.html<\/em><\/li>\n
  4. LaBrode, R.T. (2007, April 25).\u00a0Etiology of the psychopathic serial killer: An analysis of antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy, and serial killer personality and crime scene characteristics.\u00a0Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention,\u00a07(2), 151-160.<\/em><\/li>\n
  5. Lohr, David (2015). John Wayne Gacy.\u00a0Murderpedia.org. Retrieved from http:www.murderpedia.org\/male.G\/g1\/gacy-john-wayne.htm<\/em><\/li>\n
  6. Morton, R. (Ed.). (2014).\u00a0Serial murder: Multi-disciplinary perspectives for investigators. Maroon Ebooks.<\/em><\/li>\n
  7. Newton, M. (2015). Bobby Joe Long. Murderpedia.org. Retrieved from<\/em><\/li>\n
  8. http:www.murderpedia.org\/male.L\/l\/long-bobby-joe.htm<\/em><\/li>\n
  9. Research-serial killers. (2011, February).\u00a0Victims of Violence. Retrieved from<\/em><\/li>\n
  10. http:\/\/www.victimsofviolence.on.ca\/rev2\/index.php option=com_content&task=view&id=362itemid=52<\/em><\/li>\n
  11. The Biography.com website.\u00a0(2015). John Wayne Gacy. Retrieved from \u00a0http:\/\/www.biography.com\/people\/john-wayne-gacy-1037544<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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    What makes serial killers kill?\u00a0It turns out they\u00a0have common traits\u00a0that help mold them into repeated sadistic\u00a0murderers. This paper focuses on three traits\u00a0shared by\u00a0serial killers: (1) bad\u00a0childhoods; (2) neurological problems; and (3) violent\u00a0fantasies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-samples"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buyessay.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buyessay.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buyessay.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buyessay.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buyessay.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6677"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/buyessay.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16041,"href":"https:\/\/buyessay.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6677\/revisions\/16041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buyessay.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buyessay.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buyessay.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}