I have always been interested in forensic psychology. What I find most intriguing are serial killers. What makes them different from those of us that aren’t serial killers? Is the brain physically different? Is it social factors, such as bullying and abuse, that lead these people to murder? Or is it something else?
A study done by Dr. Jean Decety at the University of Chicago looked at just that. For the past 10 years, he has been studying empathy in psychopaths versus the “normal” population. He states that psychopaths do not have the same affective arousal that others do when someone is in distress. In order to see what parts of the brain causes a lack in empathy in psychopaths, Dr. Decety scanned brains of psychopaths and non-psychopaths in an MRI machine while watching a series of violent video clips. He saw a difference in empathetic reactions in the areas of the insula, amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex.
So what does this lack of empathy have to do with the cognition of murder? A common idea of what causes serial killers to kill is that the don’t feel a sense of guilt for murdering, hence why it is easy for them to kill a multitude of people.
This feeling of disconnect from the victim could be caused by cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is a when a person becomes psychologically uncomfortable because they hold two contradictory beliefs. So, in the instance of a serial killer, they hold the belief that murder is wrong but also the belief that they will get pleasure out of killing (creepy, I know). So, in order to overcome this uncomfortable feeling, the person has to choose between the two beliefs and decide which one will make them feel better. When that person chooses the pleasure of killing over the knowledge that killing is wrong, they lose all sense of guilt and remorse for wanting to kill people. The result? A serial killer is born. They disconnect from their victims in order to fully bask in the pleasure they receive from their heinous acts.
Decety says that there is no way to cure those people who have chosen the path of killing, but he is hoping that his future research can help bring to light different possibilities of treating people with cognitive dissonance over killing.
Do you all think that cognitive dissonance is a valid answer to why people become killers? Or are there other possibilities?
http://triplehelixblog.com/2012/08/serial-killers-the-brain-and-the-mind-empathy-research-in-current-society/