“Primal Fear” (1996) is a masterfully crafted film based on the novel written by William Diehl. Aaron Stampler (the main character) was on trial for the murder of an archbishop. He cunningly convinces his psychiatrist as well as his defense attorney (Martin Vail) that he suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder. Stampler then plead for insanity successfully and was transferred to a mental institution for “help”. In the end, the audience shockingly discovers that Stampler had been lying the entire time about his alter ego; he manipulated everyone and clawed his way to freedom. “Primal Fear” provides excellent insight into psychopathy and contains subconscious themes the writer projects through the actions of the main characters.
New studies reveal that psychopaths not only understand right from wrong, but can justify their morally inappropriate actions regardless of the consequences. Psychology experts Maaike Cima, Marc Hauser and Franca Tonnaer devised a hypothesis that could potentially render previous preconceptions about psychopathy moot:
“Adult psychopaths have deficits in ...
The Dangers of Fear Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worst attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point where they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous examples used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were.
In every society, throughout all of time fear is present. It is a an evolutionary instinct thought to have kept us alive, throughout the darkest moments in human history. However as time has progressed fear has had an unintended consequences on society, including the suffusion of incomprehension. During the Salem Witch Trials and Cold War a large sense of fear overcame these societies causing tragedy and misinformation to become commonplace. It is in these societies that it is clear that fear is needed to continue a trend of ignorance. Although bias is thought to be essential to injustice, fear is crucial to the perpetuation of ignorance because it blinds reason, suppresses the truth and creates injustice.
Without Conscience: Book Report Psychopaths all have something in common, and that's luring unexpected people in their traps. Its part of human nature to wonder and question the unknown. Psychopaths are a clear example of the unknown with their personalities and behaviors that are far from the norm on a continuum. We wonder what makes them do some of the unimaginable and horrific things to people and/or animals.
In this case, Treena develops anxiety from an incident which normally would not elicit a fearful response. This process is called classical conditioning and occurs through paired association and the incident becomes a neutral stimulus. In this case, fear conditioning involves the pairing of a neutral stimulus with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US). The neutral stimulus initially causes no emotional reaction, but after repeated pairings with the unconditioned stimulus, the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus triggering the onset of unconditioned stimulus and inducing anxiety and panic (Lissek, Powers, McClure, Phelps, Wolderhawariat, Grillon, Pine, 2015). When symptoms of anxiety is paired with this kinds of uncued panic attacks,
Diversity across cultures differs remarkably when it comes to social norms, but among all these different cultures lies one similarity: psychopaths. A psychopath is defined as a person suffering from a mental illness who portrays abnormal or violent behavior, has deficient emotional processing, and an absence of morals pertaining to appropriate decision making. Despite the growing research in the field of psychopathology and neurobiology, the neural substrates underlying these bizarre and fierce behaviors are still uncertain. However, a plethora of previous studies have linked psychopathic behavior to emotional cortical and subcortical areas, primarily the amygdala. The following three studies explore the relationships between affective brain areas and the eccentric behavior of a psychopath by using 3 different stimuli: images, words, and faces.
A simple definition of the human psyche is the embodiment of the human spirit. However, when one takes a more in-depth look, it becomes much more complex than the tidy little package that the definition would infer. The psyche has a direct link to thoughts, emotions, reactions and consequences. Of these components, emotions have the most significant impact on the human essence. The way in which humans view and react to the world around them is directly linked to the conscious and subconscious feelings associated with a particular activating event. The human psyche is driven by a wide variety of emotions ranging from love, hate, anger, happiness, fear, and courage to name but only a few. Of these, fear has the power to disrupt the body and spirit in profound ways as it encompasses all emotions. Therefore, it is the strongest emotion associated with the human condition.
Fear is a potent emotional response developed by the intrinsic need to learn in order for one to better their means of self-preservation. Though often overlooked, fear is a mental construct which presents great importance in understanding an individual’s thoughts and mannerisms. Children can help scientists to better recognize how these fears emerge. The early years of life can be considered the most daunting; everything in the environment surrounding a child is fairly new, strange, and unfamiliar. In the psychological community, it is widely accepted that fears are determined from two main constituents: biological and environmental factors. Both factors play an essential role in defining fear as well as the determination of what a child may
However, Glenn and Raine (2014) argue that the emotional deficits characteristic of psychopaths diminish their rational capacity, making them unable to be held accountable for the rash and harmful decisions. Additionally, psychopaths may display knowledge of right and wrong, however their understanding is substantially compromised (Maibom 2005). Therefore, because they cannot understand moral emotions, moral transgressions fail to motivate them and they cannot be held morally responsible for their actions. They treat moral transgressions as equal to conventional transgressions (Levy 2008); to them, they are merely breaking the rules. And although breaking the rules begets consequences, a short attention span prevents psychopaths from anticipating consequences. Nevertheless, say, for example, a psychopath on a different portion of the spectrum is aware of the consequences. In this case, they would be still be indifferent because their feelings of grandeur lead them to believe that they are removed from punishment (Gao, Glenn, Schug, Yang, Raine 2009). For these reasons, many argue that psychopaths should not be held responsible for their behaviors.
Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us describes how Hare began his career in a prison and first realized he was face to face with a psychopath named Ray, who was a prisoner. At that time, Hare believed the inmates could be rehabilitated. Ray was Hare’s first patient and they worked together for several months before Hare realized Ray was manipulating him. Hare used his own practices, diagnoses, as well as interviews from serial killers to let readers know what a psychopath was really like. Hare also believed a psychopath is not crazy or insane, but the decisions made by a psychopath are conscientiously made. Hare goes onto stress that not all serial killers are psychopaths, that some are actually insane. According to Hare, “psychopathy cannot be understo...
Harms, William. "Psychopaths Are Not Neurally Equipped to Have Concern for Others." UChicago News. The University of Chicago, 24 Apr. 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013. .
One area of research in psychopathy focuses on the set of structures in the brain known as the limbic system, but more specifically on a structure known as the amygdala. According to neuropsychology class slides, the amygdala is involved in emotions and storage of emotions in memory as well as the fear response when encountering threatening environmental stimuli. Osumi and colleagues (2012) note that the affective and interpersonal facets of psychopathy, such as cold-heartedness and lack of empathy, which are thought to be the core features of psychopathy, are associated with reduced activity in the amygdala. This is coupled with the fact that a less functional amygdala is associated with a psychopathic individual’s exhibition of antisocial behaviors, at least in part because he will not perceive the threat of punishment as a consequence of his actions. So whether it be the acts against other people or the acts of justice that may be carried out against the perpetrator, the psychopath will perceive both as less significant, as compared to a non-psychopathic individual. (Osumi et al., 2012)
...res of the psychopaths and gives the reader various examples of these individuals playing out these characteristics in everyday life. A widely used checklist is provided so the reader can get a wide spanning view of what is accounted for when scoring a psychopath. This form of research is very important within the deceitfulness of this population; it allows the professional to ignore their words and examine their actions. Hare made it clear that it is not uncommon for there to be an emotional and verbal disconnect from their actions. With virtually no emotional functioning psychopaths feel no remorse for the offenses that they commit and it is very important that we work towards using the opportunities we have to study and assist these populations; not only for them but for ourselves.
In the words of Bertrand Russell, “Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom” (Russell). Fear causes many problems in our lives. Fear influences many of a person’s actions and decisions. However, people usually regret the decisions or actions they made out of fear. Also, these actions and decisions can cause problems for those people in their future. Fear is a harmful emotion, for it clouds people’s judgement, disables them from taking action, and causes them to make decisions that they will regret later.
Mental health and its disorders are an intricate part of the individual and society. Mental health incorporates our emotional, psychological and social well-being. Understanding human behavior and the social environment in conjunction with biological, social and cultural factors helps in diagnosing and treating individuals accurately. Film can be used to understand and visualize how mental disorders may affect one’s life. This paper examines the film “Primal Fear” and explores the character Aaron Stampler and his mental illness, reviews literature on the diagnosis given and critically analyzes the film’s portrayal of the disorder.
According to research, psychopathic behavior can take many forms not all of which are violent. Ultimately psychiatrists say that there are pieces of a brain’s emotional machinery missing. As a result making psychopaths lack empathy, guilt or the ability to simply sow remorse (180rule.com). In an interview with James Fallon, a neuroscientist and neuroanatomist, states that there isn’t an acceptable definition of the word, psychopaths and that some psychologists do not even recognize it as a syndrome (Flatow). The closest way to identify a psychopath is through the Psychopathy Checklist – Revised, commonly known as the PCL-R (Hare). This test is used to determine if an individual has a mid- psychopathic disturbance, moderate psychopathic disturbance or if they are psychopathic (Brinkley). The test is scored on a 3 point scale (0, 1, and 2) with the highest score being a 40 which denotes a prototypical psychopath (Hare). When an individual scores a 30 or above it will qualify the individu...