The topic of serial murder is seen all over media. It ranges from shows such as Dexter and Criminal Minds to movies like The Silence of the Lambs, Psycho, and Hannibal. While very entertaining, these shows, and the general media, fail to fully portray the actual reasons for serial killing. They force the observer “to believe that persons capable of random homicides must indeed be mentally ill or sick” (Hickey, 2016, p. 77) and it only increases our societies fear of those who have mental disorders. Now, the question is: is this fear of mental disorder justified? While the psychological aspect of the causation of serial murder is critical, it isn’t and shouldn’t be considered the sole factor. If this were the case, identifying violent offenders
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The theory is based around a three-prong approach involving the id and the superego, which work together in order to form the ego. The superego is “the moral component of the personality that represents society’s standards and determines personal standards of right and wrong, or conscious, as well as aims and aspirations” (VandenBos, 2007, p. 909). Opposing the superego is the id, which is “the component of the personality that contains the instinctual, biological drives that supply the psyche with its basic energy or libido” (VandenBos, 2007, p. 462). These two components fight one another and is outwardly shown as the ego, which is “the component of the personality that deals with the external world and its practical demands” (VandenBos, 2007, p. 316). Similar to the sociological view where an individual gains ASPD from their environment, the psychological view believes the same, except that it is necessary for the individual to learn these behaviors/views at a young age. “Millon (1996) proposes that the antisocial stance, for that matter all personality styles, may be viewed from an evolutionary point of view and are resultants of adaptive dynamics” (Malancharuvil, 2012, p. 244), which means that the antisocial behaviors may be picked up and used as a survival technique, or it may be the cultural norm and utilized by the superego. Once the superego takes hold of these antisocial societal norms, the primitive drive of the id has a weaker “gatekeeper” opposing it, which gives the ego a more antisocial
The theory is based around a three-prong approach involving the id and the superego, which work together in order to form the ego. The superego is “the moral component of the personality that represents society’s standards and determines personal standards of right and wrong, or conscious, as well as aims and aspirations” (VandenBos, 2007, p. 909). Opposing the superego is the id, which is “the component of the personality that contains the instinctual, biological drives that supply the psyche with its basic energy or libido” (VandenBos, 2007, p. 462). These two components fight one another and is outwardly shown as the ego, which is “the component of the personality that deals with the external world and its practical demands” (VandenBos, 2007, p. 316). Similar to the sociological view where an individual gains ASPD from their environment, the psychological view believes the same, except that it is necessary for the individual to learn these behaviors/views at a young age. “Millon (1996) proposes that the antisocial stance, for that matter all personality styles, may be viewed from an evolutionary point of view and are resultants of adaptive dynamics” (Malancharuvil, 2012, p. 244), which means that the antisocial behaviors may be picked up and used as a survival technique, or it may be the cultural norm and utilized by the superego. Once the superego takes hold of these antisocial societal norms, the primitive drive of the id has a weaker “gatekeeper” opposing it, which gives the ego a more antisocial