Ted Bundy 2 Ted Bundy: A Personality Comparison With The Theories Of Rollo May and Albert Bandura The objective of this case study is to examine the personality of one of the most notorious serial killers in modern history, Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy was alleged to have humiliated, tortured and murdered at least 50 women. Possibility more, but the true number will never be known. Because Ted Bundy kept the true number of his victims to himself and refused to inform authorities of the exact number of his horrific deeds, before he was executed on January 24, 1989 (Wikipedia, n.d.). Ted Bundy was once a Boy Scout and those who knew him in the labor force said that he had a promising career in politics, because Ted Bundy appeared to be an example of a good, upstanding citizen (L. Corpus, 1989). Still others, who knew Ted Bundy, described him as handsome and his nature as confident, friendly, educated and charming. This was the personality that Ted Bundy chose to exhibit in public to his girlfriend, friends and peers, which was quite different type of personality then the lurking monster that he hid internally from them, but displayed to his victims. Various articles and biographies about Ted Bundy’s life were collected on numerous websites in order to conduct a personality theory comparison. This research will try to analyze as well as make an effort to come to some sort of understanding or explanation of what could have caused or effected Ted Bundy’s personality in such a way that he felt the compulsion and need to kill without regards to human life (R. Bell, n.d., S. L. Scott, 2005,). This report will attempt to explore Ted Bundy life history. A comparison of personality theories from two well know psychologist, Rollo May who is Ted Bundy 3 best known existential psychologist and Albert Bandura a behaviorist who is often consider one of the fathers of the cognitive movement; will be used for better comprehension of the development of Ted Bundy’s personality (C.G. Boeree, n.d., B. Engler, 1999). Ted Bundy’s Biography Ted Bundy was born November 24, 1946 as Theodore Robert Cowell to an unwed mother. Ted would never know who his biological father was. For four years Ted was raised by his grandparents who treated him as their son. Due to societies prejudice, Ted Bundy was lead to believe that his birth mother was his older sister. It was a bit confusing, when fou... ... middle of paper ... ...hy are there people Ted Bundy 11 like Ted Bundy?” “Was his personality constructed by his environment, cognitive skills, or his genetics?” “Or was he born without a consciousTed Bundy 12 References Bell, Rachael. (2004). Ted Bundy. Court TV’s Crime Library. Criminal minds and methods. Retrieved May 23,2005, from http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notoerious/bundy/6.html. Boeree, George C. Welcome To My Homepage. Albert Bandura. Retrieved June 11, 2005, from http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/bandura.html. Boeree, George C. Welcome To My Homepage. Rollo May. Retrieved June 11, 2005, from http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/may.html. Corpus, Leilani. (March, 1989). What We Need To Learn From Ted Bundy. Retrieved J June 7, 2005, from http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0332_Ted_Bundy.html. Engler, Barbara. (1999). Personality theories An Introduction. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. Scott, Shirley, Lynn. (2005). Court TV’s Crime Library. Criminal minds and methods. Retrieved May 23,2005, from http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notoerious/tick/evils_12html?sect=l9. Wikipedia. Ted Bundy. Biography MS. Retrieved June 7, 2005, from http://ted-bundy.biography.ms/
Ted Bundy was a brutal serial killer. He was also very charming and handsome to
He was intelligent, articulate and handsome. During a gruesome killing spree, Ted Bundy slaughtered more than thirty five women within the span of five years, becoming one of the most notorious serial killers in American history. He grew up believing that his grandparents were his parents and his unwed mother to be his older sister. He was not very good at building relationships and had a lot of conflict with his stepfather and enjoyed the terms of violence and sex as a child. Ted shoplifted during his teenage years and enjoyed being above the law. He was generally very shy and gained a lot of popularity and self esteem in high school because of his good looks. It was there that he met his high school girlfriend Stephanie Brooks with whom he become obsessed, but the relationship did not last very long as she did not feel the same way for him so she broke up with him. Depressed by the break up, Ted dropped out of college and returned home with his family where he found out the truth about his biological mother. This left Ted in a state of confusion about his identity and he felt betrayed by the women in his life. He went back to high school where he and Stephanie got back together but right after she agreed to marry him, he broke up with her to seek revenge. After this charade his killing spree began, luring young women with lies, abducting, raping, physically abusing and killing them.
This criminal behavior psychological analysis paper is taking a look into the life of a serial killer, who is known as, John Wayne Gacy, Jr. He is best known for dressing up as a clown and committing violent killings of specific targets; the nickname he is known for is the “Killer Clown”. Moreover, Gacy is an important individual to study or analyze due to the many merciless anguish murders he committed and the factors that took place throughout his childhood to adulthood, which may have had influential elements of the actions he performed on his poor and vulnerable victims. Understanding Gacy’s actions and mindset can be quite complex to society as well as how he became one of the most prolific and notorious murders in the United States. The importance I find to be relevant, which played a major role in John Wayne Gacy’s numerous murders in Chicago, Illinois, are the social dysfunctional structures followed as: his father-son relationship, being antisocial in school, and environment. Future professionals in criminology can better understand and go into depth about the psychological theories found in most murderers in correlation to Gacy’s horrendous proceedings as some theorists have already been revealing theories of their own that relate to how Gacy grew up to be a murderer. For example, “Theorists consider moral behavior to be self-regulated through mechanisms of self-evaluation where one can approve or disapprove irresponsible or inhumane behavior. It is clear that Gacy showed a lack of moral behavior and hence, in the act was not able to disapprove his behavior adequately to avoid it completely” (“John Wayne Gacy Jr. | Criminology”, n.d.). The professionals can grasp the insight that there is value perhaps in keeping this...
Does the name Ted Bundy ring a bell? A Handsome smart and conniving young man that’s responsible for about forty murders between 1964 through 1978. Ted (Theodore) Bundy was born November 24, 1946 in Burling, Vermont. Mother Eleanor Cowell was at the stage in her life where she was a single mother that could take care of her child. So she let her parents step in and raise young Theodore. With this happening Theodore grew up believing his birth mother was his sister and his grandparents where his parents.
Mass Murderers and Serial Killers are nothing new to today’s society. These vicious killers are all violent, brutal monsters and have an abnormal urge to kill. What gives people these urges to kill? What motivates them to keep killing? Do these killers get satisfaction from killing? Is there a difference between mass murderers and serial killers or are they the same. How do they choose their victims and what are some of their characteristics? These questions and many more are reasons why I was eager to write my paper on mass murderers and serial killers. However, the most interesting and sought after questions are the ones that have always been controversial. One example is; what goes on inside the mind of a killer? In this paper I will try to develop a better understanding of these driven killers and their motives.
Unlike regular homicide, serial killers are driven by desire and instinct, often leading to the victims being unassociated with the killer. Though serial killers only make up for only one percent of total victims, about a dozen of them make up for one hundred to two hundred fatalities annually (Fox 102). In a study conducted criminologist, Eric Hickey, in which he assembled a database of nearly four hundred serial killers, he found that “eighty four percent of killers were male, twenty percent were of African American descent, and that the first murder committed by a serial killer was at the average age of twenty seven and a half years old” (Fox 106). Although the exact number of serial killers throughout history is unknown, estimates range that as high as 1,500 serial killers have roamed the world, taking one life at a time (Newton,
03 March 2014. Bell, R. (n.d.). Ted Bundy. A Time of Terror — — Crime Library. Retrieved March 4, 2014, from http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/n.
Ted Bundy who was he, what was his childhood like, what were his interest, and what lead him to purse these horrid acts? These are all the things you need to learn to try and understand when it comes to understanding killers and their motives. Bundy was born November 24th, 1946 in Burlington, Vermont to a woman who was so embarrassed of him he grew up calling her his sister.
Ted Bundy is a serial killer who murdered many girls and women. He got the death penalty when he was found guilty. In his last interview he talked about why he did these things to these women. Bundy blames his actions on the environment he put himself in and not his parents but I believe his parents genetics had some part in the way he behaved. His personality fits best with Eysenck’s personality theory because he believes both biology and the environment create someone’s personality.
' God, I've never done anything. Help me, help me, help me! God, why is this happening? Help Me!'; Robert Violante screamed as the Son of Sam's .44 caliber bullet tore through his temple (Mitchell p.15). At this moment Robert Violante must have asking himself why this was happening, what could cause someone to do something so atrocious? This paper examines issues related to the definition and study of serial murder. It probes the minds of some of the world's most infamous killers all the while asking the question WHY. It examines methodological issues such as problems with the FBI's so called serial murder profiling system: the fact that the serial killer stereotypes does not necessarily stand true. This paper argues that the killer is not the only one to blame for his/her actions. Together we will probe the minds of killers such as Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy. I ask you, 'Are they Murderers or Victims?'; I personally have come to the conclusion that they are both murderers and victims.
Ted Bundy is one of the most infamous, sadistic serial killers known to man. During his tenure as a killer, Bundy confessed to the murders of 30 women, though the official number of kills is unknown to this day. Bundy’s sadistic habits began at an early age due to his rough upbringing and abusive parents. His tactical methods of killing left miniscule amounts of evidence, which remained undetectable by the “still rudimentary forensics techniques of the 1970s” (Crime Museum). Bundy also managed to uphold an impressive “clean-cut appearance” and portrayed characteristics of an “upstanding character” (Crime Museum). Ted Bundy, through the course of a troubled childhood and keen wit, managed to successfully become known as one of the most infamous
Arndt, W., Hietpas, T., & Kim, J (2004). Critical characteristics of male serial murderers. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 29(1).
Introduction: On the spectrum of criminal activity, serial killers are rather rare. Rarer still is a serial killer like Ted Bundy. Bundy confessed to killing 28 women in the 1970s in ghastly fashion and some believe he may have killed far more. It is hard to imagine what could cause any person to cross the mental boundary into such macabre behavior as Bundy perpetrated. Nevertheless, it is important to try to understand that behavior because only though such an understanding would society be able to identify and deter mass murderers in order to save lives.
By 1978, roughly thirty women were dead and mutilated by the same man with little explanation as to why. Ted Bundy, one of the most infamous serial killers in history brutally took the lives of numerous women for seemingly no reason at all. His justification for these murders was simply that he felt like committing them. A serial killer is defined as someone who has killed more than three people over a period of a month or more for seemingly no reason at all. Most serial killers have no real motive for killing; for them it is an urge that they must satisfy. Was Ted Bundy and others like him always a violent psychopath or did certain events cause him to behave this way? One common belief is that abusive childhoods and other environmental factors are the main reason serial killers develop the way they do. The other belief is that serial killers are born with an innate desire to kill. The answer to this question lies within both arguments and there is no secret serial killer formula. Serial Killers are neither born nor made; instead many factors, both biological and psychological, contribute to the making of these destructive monsters.
Ted Bundy was born with the name Theodore Robert Cowell in Burlington, Vermont, on November 24th, 1946(Wikipedia). Bundy came from a middle class family, was a white male that was born to his mother, Eleanor Louise Cowell. His mother made a living by working as a department store clerk. His father was an Air Force veteran that did not play a part in ted’s childhood or mature life. For majority of the years Ted and his mom lived with his mentally challenged grandfather in Philly. Later on down the road Ted started to call his grandparents his parents and his mother he would call her his older sister. This went on so long he began to believe it was really true. This could have been where it all started he seemed to be confused and living in a fantasy.