Topic: Why do some people become murderers?

Anonymous 794a6cb7d92cfc8264003c123b0be00c started this discussion 2 months (2008-10-11 20:28:54 UTC) ago:

Is there a genetic link behind it?

Anonymous d38c2909ec10ccde5921ebeba015d941 replied with this 2 months (2008-10-11 20:46:16 UTC) ago, 17 minutes later (#68,627):

OMFG. WELL.

Psychopthay is one big problem and the other is revenge, avengment and the flare of tempers spiraling downward.

Anonymous 1c20ffc66e514ef2da8c4a1372c2b14d replied with this 2 months (2008-10-12 00:29:18 UTC) ago, 4 hours later (#68,685):

criminals are made, not born

Anonymous 8135b9e35ce883fb66acc217af3c9529 replied with this 2 months (2008-10-12 02:25:01 UTC) ago, 2 hours later (#68,718):

@68,685

You might be right, but that is just an opinion. You do not have any scientific evidence to call upon to support that statement if someone should contradict you. Please don't state opinions as though they are facts — it is confusing to people.

Here is an argument that murder is genetically based: there's a certain set of genes that causes you to be many, many times more likely to commit murder or other violent crimes. This set of genes has already been identified — it's called the Y-chromosome.

Overall, however, my opinion is close to yours; I think that anyone could be a murderer. Necessarily, we are all the descendants of murderers (and rapists). The primates that sneaked up behind their rivals and bashed their skulls in with rocks, and then stole their rivals' daughters and women, were successful in passing on their genes. Even in recent human history, I highly doubt that there's anyone alive who can claim that, spanning back ten generations, there was no murderer in their family tree.

Thus, I suspect that all normal people have the capacity to murder. However, some people are deviants — born psychopaths (psychopathy and other types of mental illnesses have strong genetic predictors). These people are probably far more prone to murder due to genetic factors.

Anonymous 794a6cb7d92cfc8264003c123b0be00c (OP) replied with this 2 months (2008-10-12 03:04:55 UTC) ago, 40 minutes later (#68,730):

@68,718

What is their state of mind really? Also, their view on the world and ordinary people outside their home?

BTW, is there an area in psychology department that deals with criminal psychology? It interests me for some reason.

Anonymous de1f70a61d9fbd453222ea1176a13173 replied with this 2 months (2008-10-12 03:05:59 UTC) ago, 1 minute later (#68,731):

I think killing someone is like knowing a secret that the rest of the world will never find out (hopefully)… Who among us hasn't had the urge to kill?

Anonymous 794a6cb7d92cfc8264003c123b0be00c (OP) replied with this 2 months (2008-10-12 03:10:55 UTC) ago, 5 minutes later (#68,733):

@68,731

Not kill per say, but to beat the shit out of someone, because it's more satisfying on my end.

Why choose killing over beating? Your victim can't deal with the consequences afterward you "ruin" their life. So, you're not solving any of the problems on YOUR end (in your head).

Anonymous 8135b9e35ce883fb66acc217af3c9529 replied with this 2 months (2008-10-12 03:18:41 UTC) ago, 8 minutes later (#68,736):

@68,730

I assume that you're posing those questions to me — I am not an expert on psychology (although I've cross-examined my share of psychologists), so I'll have to be careful in my answers.

> What is their state of mind really? Also, their view on the world and ordinary people outside their home?

Some people just cannot empathize with other people. They don't understand the concept of feeling bad for causing pain to other people. They learn as children not to do it (in order to avoid punishment), but they don't feel guilt for inflicting pain. In a nutshell, these individuals are normally referred to by psychologists as "psychopaths".

That's pretty much it. There's really no other obvious commonality. Different psychopaths will have different world views. They're just helplessly selfish, and just don't understand why they shouldn't lie all the time, or kill or steal, so long as they can get away with it. Stupid psychopaths end up in the prison system early. The really smart ones (who learned how to fake being normal) either live normal lives, or become serial killers or something.

Personally, I think that it's a bullshit definition. The DSM-IV is basically a hodgepodge of various factors that psychiatrists and psychologists just threw together. I doubt that there's any inherent validity to the term "psychopath". Despite the technical language, it's really just a word for describing an amoral person (who was probably born that way).

> BTW, is there an area in psychology department that deals with criminal psychology? It interests me for some reason.

Sure — forensic psychology and criminal psychology. I agree that it's very interesting, but sadly, my honest opinion is that you might as well hire a psychic. Most of their "science" is unfalsifiable hogwash that sounds like something you'd get from a fortuneteller. They're always quick with an explanation for why a criminal did this, that, or t'other, but they're hilariously shitty at predicting what a criminal will do before he does it. Thus, the field has more in common with religion than with science.

Anonymous 794a6cb7d92cfc8264003c123b0be00c (OP) replied with this 2 months (2008-10-12 03:26:26 UTC) ago, 8 minutes later (#68,739):

@68,736

I thought criminal psychology would actually go into details of the criminal's family history, influence, household abusiveness, etc… You know, get to know them on subconscious and unconscious levels to really understand them. But then again, we probably won't be able to fully understand them through that, since we don't even know how our brain functions yet.

Anonymous 8135b9e35ce883fb66acc217af3c9529 replied with this 2 months (2008-10-12 03:34:28 UTC) ago, 8 minutes later (#68,740):

@68,739

> I thought criminal psychology would actually go into details of the criminal's family history, influence, household abusiveness, etc… You know, get to know them on subconscious and unconscious levels to really understand them.

It does go into all of that stuff. All that it's missing is eye of newt and leg of frog. The whole point is that there's no way of knowing if they ever "really understand" the criminal or not, because they don't ever make any testable claims. Despite what's suggested in the movies, they're not any more accurate than lay people at predicting what a criminal will do, and honestly, as much as I dislike most cops, I'd take a cop's judgment on what a criminal's thinking about over a psychologist's, any day.

I almost wish that they weren't allowed to testify as witnesses in court. It's all nonsense on both sides, and a huge waste of time.

> But then again, we probably won't be able to fully understand them through that, since we don't even know how our brain functions yet.

+1, OP. Now you're thinking. ;) As far as I'm concerned, we don't even have to know the biological mechanisms in the brain to believe them, but we need them to be able to make falsifiable predictions, not just give bullshit, cool-sounding explanations for things. How do we know whether the explanations are true?

Anonymous 794a6cb7d92cfc8264003c123b0be00c (OP) replied with this 2 months (2008-10-12 03:51:16 UTC) ago, 17 minutes later (#68,753):

@68,740

> As far as I'm concerned, we don't even have to know the biological mechanisms in the brain to believe them, but we need them to be able to make falsifiable predictions, not just give bullshit, cool-sounding explanations for things. How do we know whether the explanations are true?

Well, we can measure hormones and other stuff to prove other person's vulnerability to such violence.

Example (related to depression other than violence): There's a research out this summer 2008 about how much loving you were given during your early childhood affects how you deal with your depression and stress. Children who received a lot of "normal" physical affection and care ended up more emotionally resilient and less prone to stress as adults than those who received less attention.

When we're presented with stress/threat, our brain releases Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone (CRH) and Adrenocorticotropic Hormone (ACTH)- these are just sequential messengers that notify your Adrenal gland to release Cortisol. Cortisol is your stress hormone that helps YOU dampen your stress (attaches to your Hypothalamus receptors).

Using that concept and measurement, the scientists found out that those subjects who received less physical affection during their childhood have less responsive cortisol receptors in hypothalamus, meaning they accumulate stress level at faster rate than the others who have had lovely childhood.

So, I think we can do more with criminal psychology if we look at how our gene modification works with our environment, since all animals and living things are very sensitive to their surroundings (proof: evolution).

Anonymous 8135b9e35ce883fb66acc217af3c9529 replied with this 2 months (2008-10-12 04:13:02 UTC) ago, 22 minutes later (#68,764):

@68,753

> Well, we can measure hormones and other stuff to prove other person's vulnerability to such violence.

I agree. For instance, the average levels of testosterone correlate greatly to the commission of violent crime, and probably much more so than any other hormone. ;)

> Example (related to depression other than violence): There's a research out this summer 2008 about how much loving you were given during your early childhood affects how you deal with your depression and stress. Children who received a lot of "normal" physical affection and care ended up more emotionally resilient and less prone to stress as adults than those who received less attention.

Yeah, that research area has been around for a while. If I recall correctly, there was a huge longitudinal study done on infants to adults in post-WWII West Germany that reached this same conclusion.

With respect to your other biochemistry, I suppose that my point is that a distinction must be drawn between that sort of serious science, and psychology. It is easy to test a hypothesis about cortisol receptors, and hence, biochemistry is able to make predictions about it. Psychology, on the other hand, consists of a lot of well-meaning, but wishy-washy ideas.

I do agree with the idea that there is a combined genetic/environmental factor for creating psychopaths — as you point out, even if a person has a set of genes consistent with psychopathy, certain negative environmental factors might be necessary to cause them to express themselves (and turn the individual into a psychopath).

Anonymous 844011bc6db5aa3543db7cac43f044c9 replied with this 2 months (2008-10-12 19:54:00 UTC) ago, 16 hours later (#68,993):

I was born innocent. Now?

Anonymous 5a51b29b523553f93ca13272aca37eb9 replied with this 2 months (2008-10-12 22:23:19 UTC) ago, 2 hours later (#69,028):

I think that a number of murderers kill their victims out of boredom. I am really bored with life and have been thinking about killing someone, just to see what it would be like to create some chaos.

Anonymous 7d08ea79c1693a32abda03a5abfc4812 replied with this 2 months (2008-10-12 22:39:41 UTC) ago, 16 minutes later (#69,035):

@69,028

The bored ones are the sociopaths with no empathy. Other murderers kill out of emotion.

Anonymous ca487e7e92240ffea20021239360a6ef replied with this 2 months (2008-10-14 00:19:01 UTC) ago, 1 day later (#69,459):

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Topic: Why do some people become murderers?