Psychological Explanations - Understanding Murder, Serial and Spree killers

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Psychological Explanations - Understanding Murder, Serial and Spree killers

Causes

  • Visionary type: Suffers from some sort of psychosis and responds to voices or visions telling him to kill (Holmes 1990)
  • Mission-orientated: Have a 'mission' in life. This is usually in the form of ridding society of certain groups of people (Holmes 1990)
  • Hedonistic type: These are 'thrill' seekers who gain pleasure from the murders. Includes three sub-types: killing or home comforts; thrill orientated from the kill itself; lust murders (Holmes 1990)
  • Power and control orientated type: Gain pleasure through the ability to control and exert power over a helplessness victim. It is not sexual per say but there is a sexual arousal, in thinking about the power they exert over the victims (Holmes 1990)
  • Predatory type: Hunt and kill humans as a form of recreation (Holmes 1990)
  • The ritual of killing often leaves serial killing depressed and unsatisfied. The individual repeats the cycle, in order to attempt to cure the depression and frustration (Holmes 1990)
  • Sexual killers, pre-crime situational factors
  • Giannangelo's Diathesis stress model of serial killing: Biological predisposition
  • Giannangelo's Diathesis stress model of serial killing: Environmental Trauma/stress
  • Giannangelo's Diathesis stress model of serial killing: Predisposition self-esteem and self-control problems
  • Giannengelo's Diathesis stress model of serial killing: Sexual dysfunction
  • Anomie theory: Poor me, I can do what I want because of my situation attitude

Effects

  • Sexual killers, pre-crime situational factors: Anger
  • Sexual killers, pre-crime situational factors: Alcohol assumption
  • Sexual killers, pre-crime situational factors: Drug consumption
  • Sexual killers, pre-crime situational factors: Possession of a weapon
  • Sexual killers, pre-crime situational factors: Increased levels of reported deviant fantasies

Overall summary

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