Jeffrey Dahmer Analysis

The biological, psychological, and sociological influences on the life and killings of Jeffrey Dahmer will be discussed into details under this topic. I will be elaborating on all three and try to cover all the relevant issues under this topic. I will adopt a slogan nature versus nurture in my discussion on how this affected Jeffrey in his dealings. Therefore the nature, nurture, nativist, environmentalist aspect will be handled into details. I will be discussing this in argumentative form to bring out different views for the understanding of the reader.

The nature versus nurture argument dates back to the early 20th century when the nature, or nativist, perspective became popular. At the time, the nativist view recognized this early period

The widely understood definition of compulsion is an irresistible urge to behave in a certain way, especially against one's conscious wishes. While more moderate views now exist of the nativist and environmentalist positions, the nature of an individual cannot be ignored in the profile of the serial killer, like that of Jeffrey Dahmer. Knight (2007) states, “We are all capable of being aggressive, of containing unimaginable aggressive fantasies of torture, sadism and murder, but we are not all serial killers”. There is a boundary that exists between fantasy and reality and serial killers have lost that. Serial killers are made, but we all have an innate capacity for destructive aggression (Knight, 2007). As societal expectations remain the boundary to prevent the human population from acting out destructive aggression, those with the compulsion to kill—the innate and natural need to do so—face numerous and complex differences in their genetic make-up that disable them to have the necessary resilience to environmental pathogens (Wermter et al, 2010). These environmental pathogens can include violence and dysfunction in the childhood home, all forms of abuse as well as the socio-economic factors of poverty and gang

Where SPD is Sadistic Personality Disorder, psychiatrist Michael H. Stone (1998) states, “I hope I have shown, nevertheless, that SPD exists—certainly among the ranks of murderers, and in high concentration among the ranks of serial killers” . SPD is one of many types of mental illnesses that a serial killer can exhibit. Often it is seen that serial killers have mental illness diagnoses such as narcissistic personality disorder, schizophrenia and anti-social personality disorder. Individuals with certain genetic traits are considered to be at higher risk for mental illness, therefore, it is not just developed within the environmental factors that can influence him or her. Just as hair color, eye color or heights are genetic specific traits, mental illness has a tendency to find itself in the family tree as