Psychological principles
It was during our usual visit to the park and after a long walk, we decided to take some cold drinks at a nearby restaurant. While we were taking our drinks with my friend, we saw some interesting news on the local paper Cedar Rapids (AP) and we decided to borrow the paper so that we can get the news clearly. According to the paper, detectives had arrested a second person who was believed to have been involved in the slaying of 50 ducks at a children’s Zoo in Cedar Rapids. This news was shocking from the first instance while on the other hand it was interesting for someone to have kill duck for no apparent reason. Because of human nature and psychology, we had to enquire more on the whereabouts of the suspect although the paper stated that he had been arrested.
The fact of hearing someone being arrested caused a lot of stimulation and I thought I should read more to understand better the condition of such a person who was on a killing spree of ducks and the reasons why he chose to do that. This stimulation led to my curiosity, which was suppressed on confirmation that the detectives had been pursuing another man who had committed the same crime. The city claimed that a man known as Shane Smalling, 19, from Twenty-nine Palms, Calif, turned himself to the authorities while he was being pursued. These are usually normal anticipation in such a situation in that before you get the facts, one or two other people are more than willing to explain something to new comers. The officials proved the claims stating that Smalling was arrested because he was facing charges of wrongdoing of criminal mischief and a heightened transgression count of livestock abuse. In relation to this, I had previously read on a piece of daily papers that in September that year, a 19 year old boy, Zachary Kanellis, also of Cedar was arrested and charged with second-degree offense misconduct and livestock abuse. This observation led to other thoughts again, which had occurred some few years back.
In June 25, 2008, a similar case had occurred with a discovery of 50 dead ducks at Bever Park Children’s Zoo. Workers of the zoo had arrived to work as usual to only find broken locks on the building and cages inside. After close investigation, police asserted that the ducks were killed by being stoned to death by unidentified person. In the same incident, forty-five other ducks were found save (Houran, 2009).
These series on interrelated events illustrate various principles of psychology influencing people when faced in such a situation. From the first instance, we have our own perception on daily observations and it is through this that we form certain psychological characteristics. The state of stimulation does not just occur because of the work at hand, persons get stimulated through an interesting, varying, or changing environment that develop the feeling towards that activity. When we do not get things as we expect for example in this case we were just on our usual visits to the zoo, but on arrival there were change of events. This resulted in increasing alertness and becoming more observant to the situation. Other psychological principles states that stimulations can also be caused by conversation with other people and the degree of stimulations varies according to the situation. Some can be over-done leading to shock and confusion. Such situation includes situations that are too fast or changes with many disparities, too bright or many colors and sudden change of direction and events (Houran, 2009).
Most activities are done with uncertainty and no one individual person can handle more that what they expects. When faced with something we also tend to remember some past events. In this case, three different events occurring in different times of the year, but because they demonstrate almost the same conditions, they become similar and we think that the same person must have done it. This is normal psychological process and it strongly uses the power of the memory. One might have forgotten something; however, when similar conditions are presented, an individual will be in a position to tell every detail of the past event (Houran, 2009).
The detectives on the other hand are humans with feelings the same as everyone’s. When they encountered these similar situations, they applied the theory of reasoned action. Just like the way comedians put that men are extra-evaluative and women over-emotional, the truth of the matter is all are human beings with essentially emotional and brain creatures. We only make precise decisions of selections and charging dependent on characteristic intentions. Intentions developed from two forces: attitudes and prejudiced custom. Attitudes are stated as the person’s constructive or destructive thoughts concerning operating character. In our case, the detectives though they want to present themselves as above emotions, this conditions leaves one wondering why should a normal person kills ducks by stoning. Prejudice custom on the hand support attitude in that it is how one views a situation. Psychologist believes that this is based with a lot of biasness. Nevertheless, the degree of any outside proposal is scaled by the stretch to which the person feels encouraged to accept someone else opinion (Houran, 2009).
Psychologists and other scholars also believe that there is principle commonly known, as ‘similarity is a bridge builder’. This has been kept as the base for most detective activities. Someone may put it as birds of the same feather flock together. This might be true to some extent but not always. The detectives in our case were applying this psychological principle that by arrested one of the suspects, he may lead them to where the rest are hiding. Since the criminals were all targeting ducks, there must be something common stimulating their interests in wanting to kill ducks. In business, usually you will find people who have the same status being together while the other are grouped on the other side of the coin. Criminals know themselves and the reasons they are being together is the survival tactics. This is a fact to psychologists and every detective will use this phenomenon in an attempt to unearth the other with the same intentions (Houran, 2009).
The other principle is the social compliance principle. When I first saw the detectives at where we were heading, it sent some fears through my spines. This is because the community trains individuals not to interfere with the authority. People are usually taught the moral society principles and in most tradition those moral are superior to any other law of the land. So one has to maintain his side of the law, and when the authority directs their finger on you, be prepared to face both the consequences of the authority as well as those of the society. In life, there are a lot more other psychological principles that are used to explain why certain conditions happens and for what professional growth (Houran, 2009).
Reference:
Houran, J. (2009). Five Psychological Principles Everyone Should Know and Use. Retrieved
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