Psychology of a psychopath

What is a psychopath? A psychopath is a person who is very antisocial, and thinks in a criminal, perverted, and aggresive ways. Psychopaths feel no empathy or remorse towards others, and that is the main reason they kill human beings and animals. Before researchers and scientist believed that psychopaths were just plain crazy, but it has been discovered that most serial killers have brain defects in which the part of the brain responsible for feeling sympathy towards others was either extremely small or missing completely. This means that if a psychopath killed someone he/she would feel no guilt, or in other words not see anything wrong with his/her action. Scientist performed a few tests to see how a psychopaths brain reacts to emotional words such as love, hatred, and sadness. The results of the test were that while a regular persons brain reacted to the words, a psychopaths brain did not react in any way, and functioned as if the word had never been said. It is estimated that about 4% of the population of the United States are psychopaths. Although this statistic may sound unrealistic at first, that is because most psychopaths are not killers even though they have the tendency to. Most psychopaths have abrasive personalities, and enjoy making life difficult for others. Some things that most killer pyschopaths have in common is that they wet their beds untill their about 12 years old, they enjoy torturing animals, do bad in school, enjoy lighting things on fire, and are actually very intelligent.

Harry Harlow and his monkeys

Rules were meant to be broken, so for this blog post imagine that at the top of this page the title reads "animal psychology". Although in this next experiment the test subjects are monkeys it resembles human actions. The Harlow experiment's purpose was to demonstrate the importance of love. In the experiment there are two sets of monkey's. The first set of monkeys were raised by a mother and were given love and affection from an early age. When the monkeys were put into a cage with a fake monkey made out of wires and a fake monkey made out of a soft cloth the monkeys always went to the wire dummy because it was the only source of food. The second group of monkeys were monkeys that were separated from their mother at birth so they were never given any love or affection. When the second group was placed in the cage the monkeys always went to the soft cloth dummy because it was soft, warm, and resembled love and affection. When scared or frightened the second group monkeys always went to the soft cloth mother, and only went to the wire dummy when they wanted food. Many other animals cannot function normally when separated from their mother at an early age. For example, a pig that was never given love or affection panics regularly, while a pig that was given love and affection lives a regular pig life. The Harlow experiment demonstrates that love is essential to maintaing a healthy live. The video below is the experiment itself.

The Milgram Expirement

The Milgram experiment is very popular, and well known. Even though you may have never heard the name before chances are that you have probably heard or read about the experiment itself. The purpose was to see to what point regular people would obey a figure of authorities command even though it is against their consciousness. In the experiment a man in a white lab coat (the figure of authority) instructed a volunteer to ask another man who he also thinks is also a volunteer (actually an actor) questions. The first time the actor gets a question wrong the volunteer has to press a button in front of him and shock the actor, who is in another room, with 15 volts (because he is an actor he pretends to be shocked every time the button is pressed, but the volunteer thinks it’s real). The buttons in front of the volunteer range from 15 volts to 450 volts, which is considered deadly. As the volunteer makes his way down the buttons, and increasing the voltage the actor screams louder and louder and begs for the volunteer to stop, but the man in the white lab coat keeps saying the same phrases: “Please continue”, “The experiment requires that you continue”, “It is absolutely essential that you continue”, “you have no other choice, you must go on”. Because the man looks like a figure of authority most volunteers go on. Around the 300 volt mark the actor stops screaming and makes no noise at all to make the volunteer believe he is in danger. As a result, out of 40 people, 26 worked all the way down to 450 volts, which is considered deadly, even after the actor stopped making noise. The video below is reproduction of the milgram experiment, not the original.

Strange thought

There are two groups of people in two different locations. The first group receives 100 pounds of food from their government for the first month, while the second group receives 200 pounds of food. In the second month the first groups is given 200 pounds of food while the second group is given 100 pounds. because the first group received 100 pounds of food more the second month than the first they support their government, but since the second group received 100 pounds of food less the second month than the first they rebel against their government. Even though both groups were given the same amount of food within the same time period one group supports their government and one doesn't. This happens all the time in our society. The real question is why does this happen? Why do human beings pay attention to whether they are given more or less than rather what they are receiving itself. For example, at our school, Cypress Bay, student lunches include a milk carton and a juice carton. Whenever the school is out of juice the student get angry. If the school would have never gave out juice to begin with the students would never get mad about it. Maybe this is the reason some places cannot advance. If their government gives the people too much the people will want more and more, and if they don't get it they rebel. Sometimes I think it might be better for our country if the government were greedier. Maybe this might even have something to do with communism. Tell me what you think.

What side of the brain do you use most, right or left?

This next video is a very neat trick. What you will see is a woman spinning. What actually matters is which way you see her spinning. If you see the woman spinning clock-wise then you most likely use the right side of your brain the most. If you see her turning counter-clock-wise then you most likely use the left side of your brain the most. Depending on which side of your brain you use the most you can figure some things out about yourself. If you use your left part of the brain the most it does not mean that everything that is under "left brain sided" in the chart below describes you because most likely you have some of the attributes on the other side of the chart. Some people are 50 - 50 left and right sided. Try to see if you can manipulate the spinning woman with your mind and make her spin both ways (it might take a long time)

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Right brain sided === uses feeling - "big picture" oriented - imagination rules - symbols and images - present and future - philosophy & religion - can "get it" - believes - appreciates - spatial perception - knows object function - fantasy based - presents possibilities - impetuous - risk taking

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Left brain sided === uses logic - detail oriented - facts rule - words and language - present and past - math and science - can comprehend - knowing - acknowledges - order/pattern - perception - knows object name - reality based - forms strategies - practical - safe

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Group conformity

When in a group why is it that individuals don't think separately, but rather as a whole? For example, if there is a class discussion and a controversial question is asked, most people would answer the question based on what the others in the class have answered even if they don't agree with it. Most psychologist believe that group conformity occurs because human beings are very social, and they want to 'fit in' with others. A psychological experiment known as Asch's experiment is demonstrated in the video below. In Asch's experiment five males are chosen to be participants in a test. Four of the five participants are actually actors and they were told ahead of time to choose the incorrect answer. Because there is one actual real participant the experiment is to see whether he chooses the obvious right answer or if he sticks with the groups wrong answer.

The Stanford Prison experiment

The Stanford Prison experiment was a study conducted by Professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. Basically an ad in the local news paper was placed to gather a few undergraduates to participate in an experiment where they would play roles as either the prisoners or the guards in a mock prison. 24 out of 70 students were chosen to participate, and they were split up into their roles. Although the experiment was set to run for two weeks the professor had to terminate it after six days because things grew out of hand. The Guards at first did not know how to show authority over the prisoners, but then they started to rudely awake the prisoners randomly during the night for no apparent reason; sometimes they would force the prisoners to do pushups, and they even took away the mattresses in which they slept on so the prisoners were forced to sleep on concrete. By the second day the prisoners rebelled and they barricaded the cell doors so that the guards couldn’t get to them and they began to taunt and curse at them and rip the caps and identification numbers which they were given when they began the experiment. The guards were outraged by this so they grabbed the fire extinguisher, sprayed the prisoners until they opened the door, stripped them naked, and sent the leaders of the rebellion to solitary confinement. Because the guards and the prisoners hated each other so much and too much harassing went on the experiment was shut down by the professor six days after it began. During the experiment some prisoners experienced emotional psychological effects such as disorganized thinking, and uncontrollable crying and rage. It is said that some prisoners never recovered.