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Mass media as a factor affecting antisocial behavior
Investigation of psychopathy
Abnormal psychology in films
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Recommended: Mass media as a factor affecting antisocial behavior
The Usual Suspects is a film centered around a man named Roger “Verbal” Kint. In the movie, Verbal tells his story to U. S. Customs Officer Dave Kujan (Singer, 1995). The story is portrayed in flashbacks, and thus, the gruesome tale of five men and their journey of destruction which leads to all but one of their deaths unfolds in a police station office. The Usual Suspects has scenes, scenarios, and suspects that all can represent or dispute psychological principles.
To begin, a terrible explosion erupts from the pier, black smoke can be seen rising in inky tentacle to the sky. Police work to remove bodies, some blackened and charred, others bloodied from gunshot wounds. However, a body is found to be alive, but with third degree burns covering sixty percent of his body. He is rushed to the hospital in a coma, but does eventually wake, but is in a state of hysteria, and most likely has no idea where he is, he mutters words in hungarian, his native tongue and continues like this until the scene changes.
The burn victim presented in this scene could be easily identified as a man with a Dissociative Disorder, however, this is not the case. Dissociative disorders are classified as an absence in memory, such as who someone is, or what one’s life used to be. An individual, could also develop multiple personalities for a traumatic event to relieve the stress the they could not handle. Nonetheless, the burn victim could temporarily not remember who he was, but it was only for a short amount of time. The man spoke in Hungarian, in which he spoke about the “devil” who had caused the exspolsion. He was merely dazed in the fact that he had no idea where he was and continued to talk about the man who had caused him harm. Moreover, research ...
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...ot know right from wrong, and having trouble with the law, being hostile, taking unnecessary and dangerous actions, and having no empathy for people. Sociopaths can be a danger to society unless they get proper treatment for their mental illness. However, this can be hard because patients can be egotistical, and believe they do not need treatment, or simply because they do not want to (Mayo Clinic, n.d.).
Works Cited
Bronson, M. (n.d.). Psychological and Emotional Impact of Burn Injury Retrieved December 17, 2013, from http://www.phoenix-society.org/downloads/resources/ptss_impact.pdf
Mayo Clinic Staff (n.d.). Antisocial personality disorder - MayoClinic.com. Retrieved December 17, 2013, from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/antisocial-personality-disorder/DS00829
Singer, B. (Director). (1995). The Usual Suspects [Motion picture]. United States: MGM Studios.
Are psychopaths like Alice, “mad or bad?” (page 21). The question whether psychopaths are mentally ill or just a bad seed has caused much debate. Dr. Hare explains that the problem is not only labeling them mad or bad, but who deals with them. “Does the treatment or control of the psychopath rightly fall to mental health professionals or to the correctional system?” (page 21). Not only are professionals confused on how to classify psychopaths, but the media also creates confusion. Psychopath means mental illness and the media uses the word to classify someone as, “insane or crazy”, (page 22). Dr. Hare explains that even though psychopaths, “cannot be understood in terms of traditional views of mental illness”, they, “are not disoriented or out of touch with reality, nor do they experience the delusions, hallucinations, or intense subjective distress that characterize most other mental disorders…psychopaths are rational and aware of what they are doing and why.” (page 22). Most professionals use the term psychopath and sociopath as one in the same. Since DSM-III, antisocial personality disorder has been used in place of psychopath and sociopath. Philippe Pinel was the first psychiatrist describe a psychopath and Harvey Cleckley was one of the first successful publish a book describing a psychopath to the general public . Pinel used the term, “insanity without delirium”, (page 25). Cleckley wrote The Mask of Sanity, which influenced researchers in North America. Dr. Robert Hare explained that WWII was the first time clinicians felt a need to diagnosis people with psychopathy. Due to the draft, there was a need to weed out the people could disrupt or harm the military structure. Dr. Robert Hare realized how hard it was to identify a true psychopaths from rule breakers and developed the Psychopathy Checklist. This checklist is used world wide to help clinicians identify true
For axis 2, antisocial personality disorder our notes say that no treatment for this disorder seems to be effective. Yet about 25 percent of all people with this disorder do receive treatment. One major problem is that individual’s lack of conscience or desire to change. Most have been mandated to treatment. Hospitals have attempted to create therapeutic communities even though most of today’s treatment approaches have little to no impact on the
"Avoidant Personality Disorder: Symptoms, Treatments, and Complications." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 23 May 2014. .
The psychopath know the reasons behind acting a certain way and just don't think about the consequences. Even in the DSM-IV clear definitions of a psychopath doe not exist but the closes to diagnose is anti-social personality disorder. Dr. Hare instead developed the Psychopathy Checklist for people to diagnose psychopathy. The first part of the Psychopathy Checklist looks at the emotional and interpersonal traits of the disorder(Hare, 1993). Some of the emotional qualities that the clinician would look for is as followed: glib/superficial, egocentric/grandiose and lack of empathy.
They are able to do things without thinking about it, therefore they can be irrational at times. In “10 ways to spot a sociopath” it says “Sociopaths tend to do bizarre, sometimes erratic things that most regular people wouldn’t do...their behavior often seems irrational or extremely risky.” Not only are they unpredictable, they can be dangerous to be around because of their carefree attitude. They can manipulate you into doing things you would never do.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a sociopath as someone who behaves in a dangerous or violent way towards other people and does not feel guilty about such behavior. Sociopaths lack a conscience that allows people to decipher between right and wrong. In A Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe, the narrator, Montresor, is believed to be a sociopath by many. He kills his friend, Fortunado, after he literally adds insult to a thousand of injuries. Though what the insult was and the previous injuries were never revealed to the reader, it could be assumed that Montresor probably overreacted to the Fortunado’s insult. But in order to answer this question the evaluation upon his motivation, strategy, and Montresor’s feeling and emotion towards
Every few years there are disturbing, yet fascinating headlines: “BTK killer: Hiding in plain sight” or “Police discover at least 10 victims at Anthony Sowell's home”; but what would allow an individual to commit the crimes they did? In cases like these there is usually a common link: Antisocial Personality disorder. It is an unknown disorder to most of the population which is why there are so many questions to be answered, the main ones being what is antisocial personality disorder and how does it effect patient and society as a whole? To answer these questions one needs an accurate background picture of the disorder.
Moran, P. "The epidemiology of antisocial personality disorder ." Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. 34.5 (1999): 231-242. Print.
What is a psychopath? What type of person can be characterized by this and how do they come to be? But first before we can answer these questions we must first know what a psychopath is. Psychopaths are people suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behaviors; clinically it is a person who has a lack of what we would consider a conscience. Psychopaths are seen to suffer from a lack of empathy because of psychological, genetic and environmental factors. Scientists have many theories concerning psychopaths. Scientist do not have a definite clear cut answer on what is the cause for psychopathy but they have many ideas; nature and the nurture of the person. Nature is the genes that the person carries. The nurture of the person when they were a child is simply means how they were treated when they were growing up and/or how they were raised. Some scientists even consider it a possibility that it could be a mixture of the two.
Staff, Mayo Clinic. "Narcissistic Personality Disorder." Mayo Clinic. Ed. Daniel K. Hall-Flavin. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 04 Nov. 2011. Web. 01 Dec. 2013.
Sociopaths are prevalent among society, and some researchers, like Martha Stout, claim that one out of every twenty-five people is a sociopath. However, this statistic is incorrect. This statistic is based on the assumption that sociopaths and psychopaths are the same people—which is untrue. While the sociopathic and psychopathic traits overlap, sociopaths differ in that they are obviously nervous and agitated, unable to create the illusions that psychopaths are so proud of. They live on the fringes of society, uneducated and unable to keep a steady job. Psychopaths, unlike sociopaths, are suave and able to maintain an illusion of conformity and maintain relationships on a superficial level. Both, however, are dominantly male, tend to disregard the rights and social mores of others, and have a tendency display violent and disruptive outbursts without remorse. Unlike psychopaths, who completely lack remorse and the ability to love, sociopaths may attach themselves to certain people, though they still remain contemptuous of the rest of humanity (7).
Black, D. (2006). Treatment for Antisocial Personality Disorder. Retrieved September 3, 2011, from PsychCentral: http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/treatment-for-antisocial-personality-disorder/
Depictions of psychopaths today have become exaggerated based off of what you see in movies and films. The psychopaths in movies are believed to be dangerous or have an anti-social personality disorder. Not all psychopaths can be defined in that manner. Psychopaths are identified as people who are emotionally unstable. They are ultimately suffering from a chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior. There have been studies ultimately wondering if a psychopath is born, or is it raised? Genetics and environment combine to produce conditions that create psychopathology. By paying attention to environmental variables we can potentially reduce the amount of people who become dangerous psychopaths.
The media most often showcases psychopaths as individuals who are inherently evil and dangerous towards themselves and others. Yet, this concept of psychopathy goes far beyond this idea of pure evil and instead necessitates a needed psychological understanding. These individuals, psychopaths, are generally characterized by a lack of empathy and conscience. Indeed, psychopath’s indifference to the repercussions of their actions combined with other characteristics such as hostility and aggression make for a potentially dangerous personality (Lyken, 1996, p.30). In order to identify a psychopath’s recidivism, it is important to differentiate them from sociopaths who, instead of having a psychological impairment that makes it difficult for them to socialize, have been systematically under socialized (Lyken, 1996, p.30). In accordance. psychologists have developed the methods such as the Psychopathy Checklist- Revised (PCL-R) to help identify those with psychopathic tendencies (Walters, 2012, p.409). That is why predictions of recidivism among psychopaths is most efficient when done
The film The Usual Suspects by Brian Singer is about a group of 5 men who are joined together by a series of criminal activities and the suspicion of their involvement in them. The central themes presented in this movie are of corruption, deception and fear of the unknown. There are many cases where these principles are illustrated, especially in the characters themselves being notorious law-breakers and even the police officers being exposed as unethical at times. Deception turns out to be an essential theme, particularly at the end of the film, when the audience discovers that who they were lead to believe was a menial character, had actually been the evil mastermind the entire time. This “devil” that instilled fear into every other character