The Learning Theory: The Case Of Jeffrey Dahmer

Hello Everyone! When someone commits any kind of murder and especially if this said person has done this crime more than once, we as a society tends to want to know why this has occurred? What has caused this person to commit these crimes repeatedly? In the case of Jeffrey Dahmer I think it is a variety of reasons. The first one being control theory. When you look into Jeffrey Dahmer’s childhood, he seemed to have lacked social controls which is usually formed in the early stages of one’s life. These controls are formed through bonds and relationships. Jeffrey Dahmer didn’t seem to have been able to form this kind of bond with his parents. His father who was a chemist, was always at work and his mother seemed to be a hypochondriac that always …show more content…
I believe that somewhere in there the learning theory also applies. Even though Dahmer’s father seemed to be busy going to school and eventually becoming a chemist, when Dahmer asked him about bones and how they worked, he was more than ecstatic to show him how they worked. Dahmer’s father was the one that showed him how to scrape the skin off of dead animals using chemicals. Granted his father does these thing in relation to science, but none the less how to perform these acts were learned from him. Dahmer took a behavior that should have been conforming and turned it into deviant behavior. As Dahmer’s psychologist, Dr. Judith Baker said “He lacked he substantial capacity to conform his behavior”. Do I accept Dahmer’s explanations that he is mentally ill? Yes! The problem is I’m not sure we can pin point what that mental illness is called. His psychologist testified that is mental illness is called necrophilia, then in the same testimony state that everyone that practices necrophilia is not mentally ill. Huh? The only thing that we as a society seem to know when it comes to Jeffrey Dahmer is that he is a psychopath but how he became that psychopath is still anyone’s …show more content…
Or we can say that it is some mental imbalance that caused a person to become that way. Obviously every situation is different. Some more obvious than others. What I took away from this exercise is the fact that there seems to be a “violent gene”. I’m not sure I believe it though. That’s like saying that if your parent is a murder then most likely you would be one. I can see it being a fear but I don’t believe that one definitely causes the other. It can contribute to it but I don’t think that factor causes someone’s future to be written in