Introduction:
“Nature is the brain make up.”
Nurture: “Care for and protect (someone or something) while they are growing.”
Case study 1: Ted Bundy
Ted Bundy worked at a hotline company for suicidal women with his friend Ann Rule. When Ann heard a description of a man who committed 36 murders targeted at women she instantly thought of her friend Ted but couldn’t come to terms of it being him as he did a job that saves lives and was a good friend to her so couldn’t see the bad side of him. However, she contacted them anyway, and investigations around the Ted Bundy allegation were done, as well as tests and evidence came back stating he was the offender.
In Ted Bundy’s past he faced some traumatic experiences that led to his hatred of women as he got hurt by some of the most significant females in his life. “His mother, Eleanor Louise Cowell, gave birth to her first child at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers in Burlington, Vermont. As a single young woman in the 1940s, Cowell’s first child was a scandal. The young mother listed Air Force veteran and salesman llyod Marshal as Ted’s father on the birth certificate, but later claimed that a sailor, named Jack Worthington seduced her. Neither Marhsal nor Worthington, who authorities claim never, existed, were part of Ted’s life. Instead of raising
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To him she was probably the only person he could trust to talk about personal matters as he couldn’t do so with his mother, possibly having a distant relationship with his mother led Ted finding it hard to explain his feelings and the way because he didn’t have his mother to turn to during the dark times in his life. This meant that to him having his girlfriend there to talk to him and comfort him when talking about his complications was the only mother like communication and sense of security he had, even from a young
One of the first things that come to people’s minds when they hear the word psychopath is Ted Bundy. Bundy spent most of the 1970’s killing 30 or more young woman who happened to resemble his ex-girlfriend in some way. The exact time and number of Bundy’s kills will likely never be known. Ted Bundy is what is considered a successful psychopath. Psychopathy is a form of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Not every person with ASPD is a psychopath, but every psychopath has ASPD. No one knows exactly what causes this disorder, but there has been some speculation over the decades. The two main ideas is that an genetic influence causes psychopathy or an environmental influence causes psychopathy. The neurotransmitter MAOA has been linked to several brain structural differences in the brains of a psychopath when compared to the brain of a non-psychopathic person. Multiple studies have linked childhood abuse to the psychopathy development. Both of these causes have been shown to influence psychopathy development but it is my hypothesis that genetics hold
The Nature versus Nurture debate has been ongoing for centuries. People have tried to gain power through knowledge in determining what causes the human “mind to tick.” For centuries leaders and scientists have performed unethical and immoral studies to determine why two people with similar genetic composition can come from similar backgrounds and turn out so differently. I have witnessed a person raised in a poor home by parents with drug addictions become a thriving contributable member of society. Unfortunately, I have also witnessed a person raised in a Christian home with a Father as a minister who ended up in prison. As we learn about the psychological and biological composition of human beings and the affecting environment, I am
While watching the news a report comes in that a serial killer has been brought down and arrested. Later, a group of news reporters come up and start talking about how this serial killer got his infamous past, killing five people in gruesome ways. One of the news reporters stated that this man become a serial killer because he was mentally handicapped due to his genes when another reporter states that it was due to the abusive environment the serial killer was in during childhood. These two reporters got into such a huge argument that the channel had to go to a break to cool them down. These two reporters believe that they are right and the other is wrong, but what if both of them were right at the same time. The Nature vs Nurture debate all started at 1869 by the man named Francis Galton, where he proclaim the question was human action due to the environment or genes of a human being. This argument has always been black or white, that it could only be Nurture or Nature. While this was true during the time, further research has shown that it is not just one but both looking through all the evidence. Human action is affected both by the environment and genes because of epigenetics and evolution.
"Nature or nurture?",A common psychological question about whether a person acts a certain way because of their DNA or their upbringing. Nature is inherited traits of which can 't be controlled such as eye color. Nurture is the upbringing by our parents and family members. In the story In Cold Blood, Truman Capote talks about how Dick Hicock and Perry Smith committed four brutal murders. In this essay, we will go more in depth on how the nature and nurture of Dick made him do what he did.
Now infuriated, Teddy suspects that the staff is hiding something from him and threatens to end the investigation in the morning. However, there is a storm that night, so the ferry doesn’t come to the island. Teddy eventually admits to Chuck why he took the case. He reveals that his wife was killed in a house fire by a man named Andrew Laeddis who was later sent to Shutter Island for treatment. However, there was no record of him ever being at the facility.
Ted Bundy's life changed forever in the spring of 1967, when he met and fell in love with the woman of his dreams. She was beautiful, sophisticated and from a wealthy family. She was Ted's first love and possibly his first sexual encounter. She liked him a lot, but did not have the same deep feelings towards him. This didn't discourage Ted Bundy since he would ask her to marry him on several occasions. She was very reluctant to make a serious commitment, because she felt that Ted had no future goals or real direction in his life. Ted began to try to impress her by lying and even winning a summer scholarship from Stanford to try to influence her feelings for him. But the mask of
In psychology, the nature versus nurture issue can be defined as the debate over the relative importance of biological predisposition (what a person is born with) and environmental influences (society and parents) as determinants of development. Often genetics and environment are treated as different factors, but in actuality, they are closely tied together. Each person’s genetic makeup influences the kinds of experiences they seek out and actually have, and these experiences can strengthen or weaken genetically based tendencies. A person’s biological makeup can influence environmental response. In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein abandons his creature in
Nature versus nurture is an ongoing debate on whether people are born with a wickedness that causes them to commit crimes, or if the surrounding environment of their early life causes them to become evil. People are born with an unrighteousness that is the root of their iniquity, this natural evil comes from their genetics. Psychologists that have studied serial killers find that they often times have no vendetta, and are simply committing these acts because they have some outlandish desire to hurt others. These killers are not like a normal murderers, “serial killers are driven by the instinct from within and their desire to kill” (Fox 102). Serial killers do not commit the crimes because of the natural desire that comes from a natural flaw in the person’s genetics and chemical imbalances in the brain.
Not all of us can be the super-mineded criminal profilers we see in Criminal Minds, CSI, and Law and Order. Psychological profiling is a long process that requires observation and critical thinking under pressure; it has been around since the 19th century. Profiling assistance has kept horrendous criminals like Jeffrey Dahmer from keeping their insanity plea. It also has played a key role in the capture of Ted Bundy, and linking him to other murders.
However, there are a select few as we saw within Ted Bundy’s case that they did not come from an abusive background. He grew up in a very loving home, with two very loving, and caring parents, so why did he still become a “monster?” From the studies, and interviews with him, he says that it is because of the pornography he was introduced to when he was young that put the thoughts of rape into his head. Yet, even though he personally said that it was the porn that enticed his interests, it is still argued that he may have been born with some sort of flaw within his brain. From the information that was found of his grandmother and her psychological problems may show that it can be a genetic problem. By these accounts, it would seem as if Ted Bundy would fall in between both the nature and nurture theories. He had psychological problems as well as, different encounters when he was younger, and when he was a teen that worked together to create his horrid ways.
The concept of nature vs nurture is easily one of the oldest and most controversial arguments of modern times. Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker is notably known in the world of psychology and the social sciences for his book “The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.” In his book, Pinker addresses this exact argument and reasons that human behavior is mostly and at its roots is formed by evolutionary psychological adaptations. In 2003, Steven Pinker gave a Ted Talk regarding his book and the idea that human behavior is predisposed, rather than formed by socialization, interactions between people and the exposure to culture. Pinker discusses the reasoning behind his stance on nature over nurture using five key discussion points, these points being, human universals, neurology and DNA, political reasoning, the arts and parenting. During his Ted Talk, Pinker begins by stating that there are human universals, concepts, behaviors and traits that are carried and found, with many similarities, throughout every human civilization, he then explains that a common example of this is with twins separated at birth, and can be proven through neurological studies. Another concept that Pinker address to further solidify his stance is the idea that the argument that humans are ‘blank slates’ and human behavior is developed through nurture rather than nature is the political reasoning behind the benefits of everyone being ‘blank slates’. Two critical points he made however
On a study of this controversy of nature versus nurture, Ulysses Handy was observed. He was a normal child raised in a religious home with his single mother. He was active in boy scouts and was an honor student. Although he had a great childhood, Handy felt extremely lonely and misunderstood. He feels as though the pain he felt couldn’t compare to others, so he resulted in killing people so they could get a taste of what he feels like on a daily basis (Wallace 1). Feeling lonely as a child can lead to many problems in adulthood, and leans towards the side of nurture. Handy’s family was normal and so was he, until he started feeling lonely, which grew into his rage to hurt others so they could feel his pain. He was nurtured into becoming evil by the lack of parental attentiveness. The feelings of children can explain their actions, and when not treated right away can develop into deeper problems that cannot be fixed. Children who are nurtured evil have
Ted had to travel down a very long and difficult road to find true love. Ted was featured in numerous relationships with different girls that he felt could be “the one”. However, something or someone always seemed to interfere with the relationship, which only led to heartbreak and disappointment. This seemed to be a reoccurring theme for Ted throughout the show. An example of a failed relationship with a girl Ted felt could be “the one”, is when Ted dated Stella Zinman (Sarah Chalke).
The ongoing debate of the topic “Nurture” is more important than “nature”, has been considered true many times throughout the world from books to real life scenarios and events, but what is our meaning of “nurture” and “nature”? The common aspect of “nurture” is where outside influences determine what we will be like society being an example, while “nature” is basically that genetics determine the outcome of how people turn out. There is an easy argument for the case of “nurture”, but just because of the argument being an easy case, is it really true? People acquire their personalities, opinions and beliefs through “nurture”, while they also inherit a much deeper meaning of quality through “nature”, being that, quality is the trait which it takes to commit murder, seek risk, or become an accountant. That is why the statement “nurture” is more important than “nature”is false.
The nature vs nurture debate is one of the most enduring in the field of psychology.How far are human behaviors, ideas, and feelings, INNATE and how far are they all LEARNED?These issues are at the