Jeffrey Dahmer: Serial Killer

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The lives we live today greatly mirror our childhood. Adverse events taken place in one’s childhood often reflects poorly upon an individual's adult life but not all people who have had an atrocious childhood feel urged to kill. So why do serial killers exist? Throughout the lives of three very horrifying serial killers Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy and Edmund Kemper have proved individually that humans are nurtured into developing an antisocial personality. Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer born on May 21 1960 was nurtured into his cruel fantasies leading him to become America’s most notorious serial killer. Jeffrey had a content childhood up until the age of about six years old when the value of life then began to depreciate. Jeffrey wanted to have a secure …show more content…

He was the weird kid that no one wanted to be seen with and this made it nearly impossible for Jeffrey to learn any social skills. Dahmer grew up in a home full of neglect. His father worked a lot leaving no time for his son and at the age of six Jeffrey’s mother gave birth to his younger brother David, which turned all her attention to the newborn. In 1978 Jeffrey’s parents got a divorce. Both mother and father fought over who David would live with but neither cared where Jeffrey would go. This made him feel remarkably unloved. Years later Jeffrey was living in the basement of his grandmother’s house. His grandmother began to get sick of all of his absurdity resulting in asking him to move out. Once again Jeffrey felt unloved and rejected. Harry F. Harlow explains that children look to their caregiver for basic needs as well as to feel love, acceptance, and affection. After Harlow did the motherless monkeys experiment, it was found that the monkeys whose mothers did not meet the needs for their child constructed the children to grow to become violent and even kill their own children. Considering Jeffrey Dahmer had no one close in his life to give him a child's needs it could very likely be one of the reasons why Jeffrey felt urged to commit his murders. This also portrays certainty of being nurtured into inhumane …show more content…

Ed’s father abandoned him when he was at a young age, so he grew up with his mother and his two sisters. Although before his father left his mother always accused Ed’s father of being too nice to his son and not nice enough to his daughters. Ed’s mother was quite scared of him, so in order to protect herself and his two sisters she would lock Ed in the basement with the kitchen table dragged over the only exit. According to Charles Cooley “we actually become the kind of person we believe others see us to be.” Cooley explains this as Looking Glass Self because Ed grew up to believe his mother's opinion of him being a monster he grew to become a monster. Also, Ed shown a form of

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