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Sociology and Violent Behavior
The sociological theories of violent behavior focus in assessing the interaction of and individual their with social environment to yield violent behaviors. The key aspects considered in the theories are personality, the learning process, information processing, intelligence and subsequent behavior (aggressive acts). This paper presents a discussion of the theories associated with violent behaviors and serial murder.
Theories of Violent Behavior
The labeling theory argues that the society plays a significant role in influencing an individual's conceptualization of deviance. Once the society labels and individual as deviant and reinforces the deviant label on a person by way of shunning them out of society, the individual accept the label. Since the society has already labeled the acts and the individual as deviant, the individual will have no reason to disprove the view of many. The labeling influences the individual's self-concept and subsequently drives them deeper into more deviant behaviors and even violent acts.
The psychoanalytic theory advanced by Sigmund Freud looks at the forces exerted on human life to lead to the disintegration of an individual's composure. The disintegrated individual composure polarizes the conceptualization of good and evil leading to violent actions...
According to Freud conflict within oneself and resultant violent behavior can result from hostility and anger feelings. The polarization of consciousness in an individual elevates the death instinct that directs an individual to undertake aggressive acts against the physical or social environment. These actions are taken to relieve one from the current pressures that may lead to self-destruction.
Similar to Freud theory is the recent theory "Strain or Anomine theory advanced by Whitman and Akutagawa in 2004. The theory considers social pressures for individual success as an aspect that leads one to violent behaviors. The strain theory describes the notion that, a person is pushed to deviant, violent acts by, the social pressure for success (Myers et al., 2008). The success pressure society places is a force such that if one does not learn how to release, they are yield to the destruction in the form of violence among other deviant acts.
Bandura (1973) advance the social learning theory where he observes that aggressive acts flow from three aspects. These are; acquisition, prevailing circumstances, and regulating aspects. The three factors must be in existence for violent behavior to result. Violent behaviors may come as a result of trial and error and in some case through observation. Once the learning…
References
Fonagy, P. (2003). Towards a developmental understanding of violence. The British Journal of Psychiatry. The Journal of Mental Science, 183, 190-192.
Myers, W. C., Bukhanovskiy, A., Justen, E., Morton, R. J., Tilley, J., Adams, K., . . . Hazelwood, R. R. (2008). The relationship between serial sexual murder and autoerotic asphyxiation. Forensic Science International, 176(3), 187-195.
Whereas it remains true that African-Americans and other racial minorities continue to be overrepresented in the American prison population, both common sense and the general consensus of the criminal justice community and sociological experts suggest that this hardly a direct function of race. Rather, it merely reflects the unfortunate correlation between poverty, comparative lack of educational and employment opportunities in the American urban centers where many minorities reside, as well
This is often seen as the most important aspect to focus on. However, it has also been realized that societal and cultural aspects can also influence the development of the serial killer. Psychological causes that are related to the psyche of the serial killer include the aforementioned Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD). Genetic predisposition and makeup are also given as a formative developmental cause of this crime. However, psychological and genetic
All of these killers had problem childhoods, often including sexual abuse. Almost all of them had some kind of psychological disorder, and many were declared criminally insane. All the killers had a compulsion to continue killing. None of them stopped with one or two victims, in fact, the more they killed the more they wanted to kill. In addition, most of the male serial killers became increasingly violent and disturbed
Criminology researchers usually draw on multiple sociological theories for understanding crime and offenders. Certain elements of serial-killing research continue to be a subject of speculation and exploration, on account of the numerous preconceptions and myths surrounding the crime. The significance of establishing a theoretic basis to explain sociological factors proves crucial to distinguishing between fact and fiction (Hickey, 2013). Social Structure Theory This class of theories concentrates on the socioeconomic status of
Crime and Aileen Wuornos Criminal theories based on biological, psychological, sociological, and socio-psychological factors have been constructed in an attempt to better identify the causes of crime and what drives an individual to behave in a deviant manner. While data on male serial killers is prevalent, the data and statistics available in regards to female serial killers are extremely limited. One of the most well-known female serial killers, in recent
An individual with the profile of Ted Bundy may be more likely to watch pornography and slasher films, but the films do not cause the criminal behavior. They might shape some of the more lurid details of the crime, such as the ritualistic aspects of his behavior, but eliminating pornography will not eliminate rapes and murders. Laboratory research indicates a slight tendency that pornography can "predispose some males to