It is an interesting concept that many world societies are amazed and shocked by the workings of serial killer. Mass killings have been apart of world history for many years, but in the past hundred years or so the world has seen an emergence of singular mass killers. As referenced by Culhane et al in “MMPI-2 Characteristics of Male Serial Murderers”, “Hickey (2010) estimates there are between 35 and 100 serial homicide offends operating at any given time in the United States” (Culhane et al. , 2014, p. 25).
Serial killers/murderers are mostly perceived to be white males under the age of forty, live in isolation, maintain no close or intimate relationships, are unemployed or have minimal work, and feel they are treated unjustly by others (Auxemery, 2015). These ideas and perceptions of a serial killer do not really fit to what an actual serial killer is like. There are serial killers who are of different ethnicities, ages, and genders. It has now become more difficult to pin point who is or can be considered a serial killer.
When comparing the three characteristics, the main reason serial killers act out in the ways they do are to feel relief from their constant anxieties. Anxiety is most likely brought on at a young age as a child begins to develop a relationship with their mother. If a child grows up with an unresponsive mother worry will begin to become a major part of that child’s life. As that child grows older, they will begin to test and see what fills their relief from their anxiety. It becomes a problem when they fill that void with aggression and destruction because they learn early on that it is an okay way to deal with their anxiety.
When that child reaches adult age they realize how dominance and power quickly relieve their anxiety and give them the opportunity to have control of a situation. Providing control and dominance feeds the self-esteem and allows it to grow to a distorted selflove. The levels of anxiety, aggression, and narcissistic personality traits all depend on each other, but their influence is all the same in that it controls a serial killer actions. The development of anxiety begins in infancy and relates to the child’s connection with his/her mother.
Erikson created a childhood development model that explains the goals and importance of each stage in a child’s development. He includes that in the first part of life an infant is learning whether or not to trust its caregiver. If that trust is broken the child will then be controlled by the pressures around them (1963). As a child’s life continues and if the mother continues to be unresponsive to her child, that child will become anxious because of their constant worry if they will be taken care of or not (Whitman, 2004). Whitman explains how an anxious child will begin taking part in autoerotic activities to reduce their anxiety.
He elaborates by saying those activities become a form of pleasure to them and eases them from worry (2004). The development of anxiety predisposes a child to develop into a serial killer later in life. As a child, like the one above, continues to get older, they will begin having fantasies and more destructive thoughts that are abnormal. The premature violent fantasies begin in childhood of young serial killers because they easily become an escape from worry and provides them a place to express themselves emotionally and to have control over others (Ressler et al, 1992).
Sullivan agrees and continues by saying destructive thoughts and words give the child a feeling of strength and dominance which reduces his/her anxiety and provides pleasure (1956). Over all the main solution to relive anxiety for a serial killer is if they cause pain or death on another (Whitman, 2004). Filling pleasure and acting violently feeds aggression while suppressing anxiety. As stated earlier, it all begins in early child development and their attachment with their mothers.
Freud emphasizes the importance of a mother’s interaction with her hild and further explains how she is supposed to provide food, comfort, love, and relaxation to her child. If she does so she will allow the baby to learn to love, and if she does not provide those things to her child it will not learn to love. Rejecting that baby and not providing it with care will ruin the potential for a child. Freud forgoes to say that the child will begin to become aggressive and possessive as it grows older. They will also become extremely jealous and have impulses to kill rivals.
The aggression will feed off hostile behaviors over friendly behaviors and if not fixed that child will develop major problems for delinquency and criminality (Freud, 1965). The impulses to kill rivals might provide a reason as to why serial killers attack who they chose because they see them as a potential threat or rival. Attempted attacks at rivals or redirecting the aggression to something else can explain why many of the to-be serial killers are involved in minor delinquencies. In some serial killers the rage of aggression emerges through sexually sadistic actions such as rape or sodomy.
As explained earlier, sexual and sadistic fantasies emerge because of the desire to suppress a serial killer’s anxiety and give them the feeling of power. In the case of a male being the sexual serial murderer and the victim being a female, the male will not only feel power through deciding their fate, but also by controlling them and forcing actions upon them. It can possibly be inferred that a male who sexually murders women will more likely be more aggressive and violent toward their victims then normal murderers.
For example, stated by a former sexual serial murderer who murdered and raped five women, Roy Norris, “The rape wasn’t the real important part, it was the dominance” (Drukteinis, 1992). His comment supports the theory that aggression is fed by the feeling of dominance and power; that dominance is providing and feeding the aggression that will suppress their anxiety. As anxiety levels decrease and aggression levels increase in a serial killer, the narcissistic trait begins to flourish. For narcissism to be considered a trait in a serial killer, that person must not have low self-esteem.
Low self-esteem contradicts the selfadmiration brought on by narcissism. Aggression begins to shape the development or narcissism because it provides the feeling of power and dominance, which raises that person’s selfesteem (Schlesinger, 1998). Narcissists will also look upon people as objects to feed to their desires for self love. They will look at others as if they are looking into a mirror. Then they will begin to idealize certain traits or attributes that another person holds and will reflect it back onto themselves as if it were a trait of their own to feed their self-esteem (Knight, 2006).
They seek out what they see as most admirable in themselves in others and use that to their advantage. This could be why they go after certain people because they want to feel the effect of looking into a mirror and seeing a great quality. Although serial killers normally differ in many physical aspects, they normally contain the same personality traits. David Nichols from Pacific University lists possible characteristics of a serial killer such as, “panicky, paranoid, passive, perfectionistic, phobic, promiscuous, prudish, psychopathic, psychotic, pugnacious, and punitive” (Nichols, 2006, p. 42). However, the three main personality traits are anxiety, aggression, and narcissism. A serial killer will begin to reduce their anxiety by increasing their aggression levels. The aggression levels will then feed into the growth of narcissism because of its powerful effect in decreasing low self-esteem. Anxiety, aggression and narcissism play off of each other like a domino effect that persuades a serial killers actions.