Psychology of Criminal Behavior - Case Study Example

Case Study: Ted Bundy Brittney Smith CRJ308: Psychology of Criminal Behavior Prof. Donald Mason 31 July Introduction A serial killer is any individual that who engages in the murdering of people in the raw. The term serial killer comes from the phrase killing series and suggest that the person involved in taking away peoples lives does it periodically. It is said that there are some psychological factors that usually influence such people do behave in that manner. These psychological factors may be related to race, gender, sex, appearance and occupation. They therefore do it to gratify these psychological factors. One of the worst renowned serial killer is Ted Bundy. This man is believed to have lived between 24th November, 1946 and 24th January, 1989. In his tender age, he understood that his biological mother was his sister. That is when they were staying in Philadelphia. With his mother whom he never knew as a mother but a sister, they later moved to Talcom, Washington with their relatives. Their last family name was later changed to Nelson. He was afterward adopted by Jonny Bundy. In high school and in college, he knew about himself as a bad boy and moved on to use this character as his stronghold. His bad characters were influenced by pictures that only reflected sex and violence. These pictures were mainly from the celebrities that were very well known to him. According to trusted sources, he had already committed several crimes before he finished high school. The crimes committed by then were like shoplifting and other petty crimes. It, therefore, underlines the foundation of his criminal activities. After he had graduated from the Woodrow Wilson high school, he proceeded to the University of Washington. During his stay at the university, he volunteered at Seattle’s Suicide hotline. He, therefore, learnt a lot and got a high experience on suicide and death. He later had a relationship with Stephen Brooks, who was strange and acted in an unfamiliar character. On learning about her, Ted was not well pleased. He was greatly affected when their relationship eventually ended. Ted Bundy lived a life that saw other people die in his hand. He was prevalent and gorgeous. His talk was very nice, and he could cheat people especially women and fall to his trap. He used to move in his car in popular women places and say a word to them. He could then ask them to escort him to his car. On the way, he could remove an iron tool and crash them in secret. Then he used to rape those women in cold blood. To get attracted to this women he used to pretend that his hand had an injury or he was a disabled man. These women could be remorseful and help him back to his car. They could then fell to his bloody hands (Goode, 2011). For him to continue with his brutal and fatal activities, Ted used to go back to his former school at the scene of crimes he committed such as murder and sexual assaults. This could give him the uncontrollable efforts he needed to do his hobby. It is said that he had something like evil possession in his mind that made him do what he could without any human concern. He had confessed to having murdered at least twelve people majority of them being girls and young women. When one of his tricks he used in the murdering activities was known by the authority and the community, he could carefully choose another method to continue his activity. The number of people he killed is believed to be so much higher that the number of people he actually confessed to having killed (Ramsland, 2013). There are many sociological and psychological factors that can be used to define Ted Bundy pack of behaviours. It is assumed that a normal human being do not possess the inhuman trend of activities that Ted had. Psychologists and sociologist believe that some factors that a normal human being relates with especially when growing up defines to a larger extent the type of person that one grows to be. In this case, some sociological and psychological theories that have been put across to define human behaviour can be put across in the essence of defining human behaviours (News, 2011). The first theory that tries to define Ted Bundy’s set of behaviour is the Psychoanalyst theory or what the psychologist terms as the psychodynamic theory. Sigmund Freud, who is the founder of this theory, believes that human being are influenced by three components when they are at the unconscious state. The state of mind is influenced by the Id, the Ego and the Super Ego (Bartol & Bartol, 2004). The Id influences a person to work so that he can satisfy the basic requirements. In the human activity, the major human needs are food, clothing’s, shelter and sometimes sex. The Ego acts as a go-between between the demands that are put forward by the Id and the Super Ego (Bartol & Bartol, 2004). It, therefore, gives a person a wider cover not only to ask for the basic requirements but also focus on the higher standards that the Super Ego brings forward. It, therefore, acts as an equilibrium between the Id and the Super Ego. Lastly, the Super Ego is a component that usually tries to demean the demands of the Id. It is mostly a heredity urge from the parents and usually prevails to establish the demands of the Ego as moral rather than realistic (Bartol & Bartol, 2004). Concerning Ted’s behaviour, it means that the Super Ego had overpowered the Id as long as the Ego, which is our balance is concerned. Since Freud’s theory is a theory of the sick, it means that Ted was psychologically sick. He, therefore, acts the way he does due to his sick or unconscious state of mind. As it is suggested by the theory, when the Super Ego overpowers the Id, the person state of mind health becomes sick. The sickness is also presumed to have been developed from childhood when the child was growing up. Therefore, the problem that Ted have done not just started at his teenage but at his childhood. It could have been established in the early years he used to call his mother his sister (Dekle, 2011). Although this theory is supposed to give us the exact act of behaviour of Ted, it fails to establish itself for various reasons. It usually deals with the aspects of the unconscious mind, gender, and focus and childhood experience. It, therefore, does not answer our question of the reasons he behaved the way he did. It is also a qualitative measure of experience and therefore, difficult to answer the question in a quantitate aspect. It is also learned that Freud used some clinical experiences rather than the actual life experience. The sick are found in the hospital while our case is an out of hospital case. Another theory that can be used to explain this behaviour is the social learning theory or the behaviourist theory. This theory that was authored by Albert Bandura suggests that human beings behave the way they do after learning what other people do. It suggests that people usually learn through observation and practices what they learn. In our case, Ted’s popular pictures were that which portrayed sex and murder. These were pictures of the individuals who he was very excited to study from. Since he was a person known to be good in academics, it suggests that he did a lot of research about them and how they carried out their activities. We finally see him doing what the pictures portrayed; that is, murder and rape. This theory best explains the action of a person under the study. It concludes by putting forward the best way of learning, and that is the modelling process. The attention that we usually put on certain models usually transforms us to be like those models. Another theory that is almost similar to the social learning theory is the social cognitive theory that was put across by Bundura. It gives the same set of thoughts as those proposed in the social learning theory. Ted may have been influenced by some factors in the social ground to behave the way he does. The social factors could be the people he related with at his young age. They could have been doing some things that may have some effects on the social thinking towards him. His mother’s failure to give him the true nature of their relationship led him to know his mother as his sister. Lastly, the human interaction theory can also be used to try and investigate the problem that Ted encounters. This theory entails the human interaction through symbols. It is what a scientist calls the symbolic interaction. Human does interact in various ways such as symbols. Symbols do define to a greater extent what a culture is. The pictorial symbols that Ted used to have in the pictures such as those portraying violence and sex were ideally speaking to him. They were, therefore, telling him what to do and how to do it. Linguistics usually suggests ‘actions demonstrate better than rhetoric.’ Ted used to speak better when deceiving his prey than in talks. He only mentions twelve as a number of those who fell on his trap, but scholars warn that the number may be much higher than that. Conclusion Human behaviour is very important especially for the older and the model for the young ones usually try to copy what they do and be like them. It is advisable be the best examples to our children and our fans so that we can eliminate the kind of behaviours like those of Ted and create a world better place to live than it is now. References Bartol, C. R. & Bartol, A. M., 2004. Introduction to Forensic Psychology: Research and Application.. New York: Ashford University press. Dekle, G. R. S., 2011. The Last Murder: The Investigation, Prosecution, and Execution of Ted Bundy. New York: Ashford University press. Goode, E., 2011. Database: Opposing viewpoints in the context. The New York Times: The New York Times Company. News., R. &. R. B., 2011. Reference & Research Book News.. Book News, Inc. Database: 26(5), p. 94. Ramsland, K., 2013. The Forensic Examiner. Issue 3, p18, 8. KSA Media, LLC. Data Base: General One File, 22(3), p. 18. Read More