Psychology bridging task:
Person one: John
Late night drinking.
Got into argument resulting in him throwing his
drink.
Large scale barfight broke out,
Realised that he left his friend in the bar after
fighting his way out.
Went back to see that his friend had his face
smashed with a broken beer glass, saw the eye
hanging out of its socket,
With rest of friends took 2 handguns and 2
shotguns.
When bouncer opened door he pressed one of the
guns to the bouncers chest ordering him back
inside.
The bouncer refused to do this so as the gun was
pointed at the bouncers chest that resulted in the
bouncer being shot in the chest.
Biological factor is a problem with the amygdala
the section of the temporal cortex that is in charge
of emotions and the fight or flight reflex
This problem being a small area of tissue from the
amygdala being shrunken affecting the brains
ability to control the fight or flight reflex and
emotional regulation.
This factor of a shrunken amygdala causes a
reduction in the person ability to experience fear,
this could be the reason as to John being
seemingly fearless as he held the gun to the
bouncers chest.
Paul:
Possibility of hormones as biological factors,
Aggressive behaviour dated from the age of
twelve,
Theory of hormones being true as Paul has over
2.5x the average levels of testosterone when
compared to the control group of the average male
testosterone levels,
Paul regrets his previous actions,
During the pregnancy with Paul his mother was a
raging alcoholic,
This was proved to be true as other family
members saw that his mother was drinking so
much while pregnant that they were quote
“surprised he wasn’t born with a bottle of vodka”,
Alcohol affects the brain of a foetus as a form of
neurotoxin,
This can actually damage brain cells causing
possible disability or emotional issues,
Suffered from a significant degree of prenatal
testosterone exposure which can lead to
significantly violent behavioural outbursts,
Anthony:
Abnormal brain development which caused the
hippocampus to be smaller in volume,
This affects his ability to learn and remember
things,
This also made it highly likely that Anthony had
ADHD as a child,
This possible ADHD could have caused
challenging and ruling behaviour in school,
This then mixed with multiple negative experience
within Anthony’s home environment,
At age of 10 suffered from incidents of sexual
abuse,
This is believed to have blunted how Anthony’s
body reacts to stress and fear,
As he lacked the stress response, he would have
gotten into more trouble that would have been
stressful for the average person,
These factors could have reacted with Anthony’s
surge in hormones during puberty influencing
aggressive behaviour,
Almost 3x the average post puberty male
testosterone levels,
Excessively high levels of testosterone then
leading to issues like an overwhelming sense of
dominance and potential aggression,
Upon being excluded from school became
completely immersed in criminal behaviour,
During this time of his criminal life Anthony
suffered from several head injuries,
These head injuries further increasing his risk of
committing violence,
Was involved with carefree weaponised drug deals
in which violence was the only means of resolving
issues,
The night of the murder was impulsive, he didn’t
originally intend to kill but instead get the money
he was owed by the person he killed,
Had a cognitive disorder reducing his ability to
make good decisions as well as planning his
actions,
This then linked in with his ADHD,
This then meant that taking the gun was not a very
good decision,
The high testosterone levels driving aggression to
peak levels,
Was ready to use a weapon as a means of getting
the money back,
Had a low fear response,
Only intended to push the victim back by forcing
the barrel to his chest but this ended with the
victim trying to fight back and Anthony then in the
heat of the moment pulled the trigger therefore
killing the man.
Similarities:
Paul and Anthony both had highly excessive
testosterone levels, this causing increased
aggressive behaviour and actions of dominance.
All three had biological issues with brain function
reducing ability to respond to fear and stress.
John and Anthony both killed due to a fight.
John and Paul were affected by alcohol, despite
this similarity, John had been drunk from the
earlier barfight whereas Paul’s mother caused
damage to his neurotransmitters as during
pregnancy was a raging alcoholic.
Conclusion:
To conclude the research i have previously recorded
about each of the three people in this document, the
three major factors of the psychological behaviours of
these three murderers includes the environmental
factors of alcohol and abuse in the home setting, the
biological factors being either extreme hormonal
abnormalities as seen in both Paul and Anthony or an
abnormality in the brain affecting the persons response
to fear and stress.
these factors were the main ones as it was stated that it
was very common for people who had committed
murder in the past to have these abnormalities that
affect psychological tendencies.