Psychology - 9/30/2008

Psychology is very fascinating to me. I enjoy being able to justify an act with clear logic. I am not qualified by any degree to create any theories on psychological behavior. I just translate them into everyday uses. Today I am going to focus on Stockholm Syndrome.



Most of my entries will begin with a question. This weeks question is "What would cause us to remain loyal to those who put our lives in danger?"



Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological state when victims show loyalty, defend, and other actions to support their captors. Stockholm syndrome occurs frequently in rape victims, the victims claim that they "love" their captor, or that their captor loves them. Denying any form of rescue attempts. So going back to the question "What would cause us to remain loyal to those who put our lives in danger?". When in a circumstance such as kidnapping we are in severe mental and physical states. Now imagine that you are in a dark, small (10ft x 10ft) room, the only source of light is a yellow glow peering in from under a door to your left. You are locked in a chair and can only smell a garbage bin that appears to not been emptied for quite some time.



You have been sitting in this chair for 20 hours (give or take a few). You were abducted while taking a jog in the local park. You've become very hungry, thirsty, and the only thoughts you entertain are "am I going to survive?", "where am I", etc. You hear a faint sound of footsteps coming from outside of the door, they appear to be getting closer, in less that 20 seconds the door opens, revealing the silhouette of a large portly man. He turns on a light revealing nothing more than the rest of his figure and a ski mask that covered his face. He stares at you for 10 minutes straight. You end your ranting after the first 3 of them.



Now we need to consider what kind of thoughts are going through your head. "Who is this man" is a common one. But what's this? he is providing you with food and water. Why would this be? The next few days follow a similar pattern. Your captor is providing you with the very basic necessities to survive. He obviously isn't intending on killing you, yet... Your thoughts may start to change.



When we think we create logic (reasoning, solving problems, actions we will pursue). When we are being held captive our logic will be clouded by many things. Your perspective is altered by everything in your environment. The logic would go something like this...
"If he hadn't done away with you after that amount of time then he must like you, therefore he is a friend, and he brings you enough food and water to survive, that means he is a nice man, not wishing you harm by any means... Putting nice people in jail isn't right so I must defend him because he is nice.

This is obviously altered logic... There are four situations that can potentially cause this alteration

-The presence of a perceived threat to one’s physical or psychological survival and the belief that the abuser would carry out the threat.
-The presence of a perceived small kindness from the abuser to the victim
-Isolation from perspectives other than those of the abuser
-The perceived inability to escape the situation
(http://counsellingresource.com/quizzes/stockholm/index.html)

Just because a person shows the symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome does not make them crazy. Infact it is thought to be a self defence mechanism for survival. Due to a limited amount of time I am only going to discuss the presence of small kindness. Now your captor has fed you and kept you alive. This makes you start thinking and turning a small gesture into medal deserving greatness. Blowing this situation out of proportion is just a means of searching for hope. That he is keeping you alive for a reason.

Well that is my first Pyschological post! Thank you for reading, I am sure most people won't get to this point seeing the lack of entertainment in my writing, however just because you did finish I would like to thank you very much!