How Invasion of Privacy Be Judged for Murder - Essay Example

Psychology of Violence Prompt How Invasion of Privacy be judged for Murder Mr Ravi had been under investigastion for invasion of privacy since the 06 of August 2010 when his roommate committed suicide in April after having been filmed having a sexual encounter with another man. Mr Ravi is now being charged with a 15 count indictment: bias crime, bullying, invasion of privacy as a sex offense, acting with antigay motives. (Foderaro) There are several psychological theories involved. Since the case has not gone to court, only the indictments mentioned in the article will be applied to theories: social and behavioral psychology will be used to further explain why the acts were done. Though the article does not state Mr Clementi suffered from bullying, humiliation and invasion of privacy as a sex offense, Mr Ravi delegitimized him by taking all levels of privacy out of his hands. It is considered a sex offense because he broke the solitude Mr Clementi was after, by having the room until midnight, the intimacy of having a sexual relationship with anonymity and the reserve to decide under what terms. These four types of privacy were established by Mr Westin.(DeCew) As the police had already established that Mr Ravi had been bullying Mr Clementi since August, he will be tried for a bias crime. He was working for the reward of his own incertitude and from the reaction he got from the environment when he reacted. The two issue involved are the social learning theory or the SSM. To begin, the behaviorist model of learning will be presented. Behavioral Psychology is a theory that all behaviors are gained through conditioning: classical & operant. Conditioning occurs through interaction with the environment. Classical conditioning have two elements, the conditioned stimulus and the conditioned response. Operant Conditioning is the association between the behaviour and the consequence for that behaviour. From this conditioning, the learning theory was developed. Negative behaviour can be eliminated by taking away the benefit. A persons behaviour is learned by the consequences which can be external forces. His conscious is changed by the rewards he receives. Mr Ravi is an insecure young man as a new student; as psychologically needing to break his roommate; and who needs to make a place for himself in the dormitory. His name is Indian, so he has suffered prejudices for half of his life in the US. . He might also be questioning his own sexuality which could be common but not part of his own culture. Did he bully Mr Clementi because of his sexual orientation; or would he have done so to any roommate? The questions is his satisfaction in wanting to torture another individual. In putting the streaming of his encounter on the internet, was he showing his jealousy in Mr Clementis ability to perform on stage. Both acts represent the most intimate showing of the soul. Taking away privacy as a sexual level is psychological rape. Behavioral Learning Theory The humiliation and power he felt was a perverse reward he received upon controlling Mr Ravis privacy. The behavioral psychologist learning theory would say he had been severely humiliated as a child, and made no decisions himself. There would had been no limits in the interpersonal relationships at home. The environment would had made him hostel and aggressive but not emotive. Social Psychology, in simple terms, tells how people act, when they are with other people. Group behavior, conformity, interaction, perception, prejudice and leadership are all taken into account. Social Psychology Social Psychology is focused on the situation. Behavioral Psychology is focused on the consequences of the reward of the individual. Depended on the situation the person or persons act accordingly. Mr Ravi reasoning in behaving the way he did will requiring psychological testing. On a cultural context, Mr Ravi showed homophobic nature. He overstepped his ground. Using the internet as a means of psychological torture is yet to be part of the literature. As bias crimes are considered hate crimes, the social psychology hate theory can be applied. Mr Ravis outlook on society is determinant in the level of violence. The seven stage hate model (SHM)which was established in 2003 is universally applied. Though it is usually use as a tool to track hate groups, it can be used to analyze hate crimes. Several Assumptions: Mr Ravi had a following of people who were anti homosexual as he had a following on the internet who watched the film. The commentary was made by Mr Ravi. He kept people up to date. They did not know who was his roommate. His twitter following was not on campus.(doubt) Mr Ravi was in his dormitory; he had a twitter following; and had been bullying his roommate for the past 8 months. He had already filmed Mr Clementi one time. Does a social network group with "friends" or "followers" define the first two stages of the model: the Haters gather and define themselves as a group. Mr Ravi was responsible for the filming but those who watched the film or read his tweet, do they have any responsibility? The bullying of Mr Clementi represents the third and fourth stage where the target is psychologically tortured. The filming represents the fifth and sixth stage of attack were the first and second filming. If the court decides that Mr Ravi is responsible for Mr Clementis death, he will have destroyed the target or reach the last stage of the model. The Seven-Stage Hate Model can be used to predict violence before it occurs. (Ross ) Observers can track individuals and groups as they pass through each of the seven stages and develop intervention strategies before violence occurs. Had the police been tracking from the first "bias-intimidation charges dated from Aug. 6, the day Mr Ravi learned the name of his future roommate, to the day of the suicide Sept 22, they could possibly have used the SHM to stopped it. Mr Ravi had already indicated on his twitter account and showed the first film. If he did belong to a cyber group, social psychology and the SHM will be necessary to find out the stage of the group and each individual member to determine the group dynamics and the level of commitment. Social psychology employs scientific methods and factual study of events of society. The individual is part of society. Social psychology is focused on situations. Social psychologists are interested in the impact that social environment and interaction has on attitudes and behaviours Solomon Asch, psychologist, proved through experiments that people conform to their social structures. Conformity is defined as following the "unspoken" rules or behaviours of a social group. Stage 4 of the Hate Model is an example. He conducted a series of experiments designed to demonstrate the power of conformity in groups. He defined that if there was one student, there would be no impact on the groups conformity; If there were three confederates, the group would answer towards the three confederates. It is important to find out if Mr Ravi was alone or with other students. Group response was important. If there were more than three confederates in the group the group would not be influenced. If he represents the leader of a anti-gay group it has to be known who are the two other leaders. Multiple Experiments in addition to Milgrams have been conducted to research levels of obedience. A level of obedience can be explained even in sadistically acts if there is a figure of authority who is competent and can be relied upon. If the leader can be trusted, then his requests must be acceptable. Is Mr Ravi responding to the Conformity Theory? Is it a response to a family or religious issue. If he has lost a sense of reality because of his constant use of the computer and the violent computer games, it can be argued that he has no sense of morality because it no longer exists. Very little fact is known in terms of this article. I have tried to explain the possible reasons in his doing what he did. If the behavioral learning theory is used, he should not be held responsible for the death of Mr Clementi. If the Seven Stage Hate Model is used, he achieved the last stage of the model and thus is responsible for his death. Prompt 2: The Theory of Perception and The Five Fs to combat aggressive electronic behavior Violent video games, cell phones and computer social networks are changing the way our adolescents and young adults responds to societal problems. Though there is much conflicting data, the so called problem child often has been shown to have played hours of a violent video game before doing a heinous act. At a certain point, a child who kills 1000 times on a video, has become desensitized to societys rules and regulations. The assumption will be made that this de-socialization of young adults, adolescents and children is a contributing factor to their aggressive behavior. It will be shown thru the concept of perception that behavior is modified and thus violence has the potential of existing. A program should be put into effect teaching the Five Fs. The rules of society have changed across the globe: reality is virtual; people no longer talk, they text; and videos set social rules and limits. All virtual devices function on impulse reaction and self control even obsession. There is no more perception between what is right or wrong. In explaining the laws of perception, a theory will be drawn to demonstrate how electronic media can control violence through self education There are two types of concepts of behavior which follow from perception: the cognitive approach and the evolutionary approach. We have a need to understand what is going on in the environment. Our adaptive perception is a result of the behavior responding to the environment. It is when we comprehend and understand that we behave accordingly. The second "way to look at this is by taking an evolutionary perspective. In the course of our development as a species, perceptual abilities and functions developed because we started to behave, not because we started to understand." (Dijksterhuis 866 ) If we go to a soccer match and the crowd starts to throw bottle onto the field, there is a high chance that our evolutionary perception will lead to doing the same thing. When we take the environmental stimulus; filter it in the proper sense organ; process the information, the physiological arousal depending on the part of the brain will manifest the behavior. One explanation is that, upon seeing, soccer hooligans, one may..without being aware of it…start to act like them. (Dijksterhui 865) Adolescents who thrive on violent video games start to imitate their characters. "Virtuality" becomes Reality. The cognitive approach would be in such calm surrounding where our physiology arousal in not the same. Our gustatory senses would not have the same physiology arousal if it were a question of life or death or if it were a question of just being hungry. Our perception of food and our behavior of food would not be the same. This is important to bring to the for front as it will be a test factor for self education. The 5 responses directly relate to the cognitive evolutionary approach to behavior, referred to as the five fs: freeze, flee, fight, food, or fornication depend on the type of senses and thus will manifest in different types of behavior(Cibelli 2011) The chaos-complex behavior also applies as it is a quick response of a fraction of a second which determines the behavior. The five fs are taken away with too much stimuli from electronic games. The stimulus of the senses will manifest in different types of behavior. What if the senses and the five fs have been altered, the behavior of the individual can manifest in ways that have not been put in literature. If he kills 100 people in a war game and make sure he stays alive, his freeze response is a heartbeat or a stop of ones breathing depending on his auditory senses. The sound he hears is not realistic. He is sitting down. Fleeing is a false response. He will never have to flee in a situation, he is still sitting down. Food is not necessary unless his gustatory senses tell him that he is hungry. If his fight response is stronger he will not listen to his food response. Fornication is not even a question, he would have to turn off the machine. In the real world, the fight response is the most important behavioral response that comes from playing this game. His perception of the society in determinate by his fight response which causes a change in his senses creating his behavior. With this parallel, the perception of young adolescence who spend their time texting is damaged thus producing behavior modified aggression. The five Fs do not exist. He is blocked in a world where he doesnt have the freeze or flee response. He does not have the fight response loosing many of the communication skills necessary to exist in todays world. Food is not part of texting. If he is allowed to text while he is eating, he is missing out on many of the social rules of society. The last, fornication depends on his age but I do hope he is not texting. The cognitive approach assumes that there are learnt (social) perceptions as there is a weakness in the sensorial stimulus. Therefore this approach is information based. Social perception is learned but can stem from a sensorial stimulus. A young adolescent who spends hours playing video games where there are gangs and has no social contact, has the stimulus which has caused the behavior of the fear of others and racial prejudice. He might transfer this fear into the social perception that men of the race of that particular gang are violent. Perhaps this is a weak example but it is also an example of how hate crimes begin. So much is being said about the use of too much technology. Has anything been done to teach or educate those in the five f? A proposition in teaching young adults and adolescents the need of integrating the concept of perception, the five fs and sensorial behavior in every aspect of their lives. There can be annual courses in high school, and a required hour course in University. It should be made illegal for phone companies to allow children, and adolescents the right to unlimited texting. Teachers should be taught proper signs of unsocial behavior due to virtual playing (video, computers, texting). Aggression behavior as proven by the perception model is different than other theories of violence. This is a personal theory. There is a need to create a standardized test which would be given each semester allowing the students to answer questions which would illustrate anti-social virtual behavior. It would have to be established by psychologist and is beyond the scope of this paper. This test would not be a questionnaire as one of the earliest signs is truncating words. The financing of this educational plan can be done by the phone companies. References Cited Bandura, A. (1973). Social Learning Theory. Retrieved May 02 2011, from http://www.learning- theories.com/social-learning-theory-bandura.html Cibelli, C. (2011). The Relationship of Perception and Behavior Interview Phd in psychology DeCew, J. (2008) Privacy, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition). Retrieved May 16 2011 http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/privacy Dijksterhuis Ap & Bargh, J. (n.d.) The Perception-Behavior Expressway: Automatic Effects of Social Perception on Social Behavior. University of Amsterdam John A. Bargh New York University. Retrieved May 15 2011, from http://www.baillement.com/texte-perception-behavior.pdf Dijksterhuis Ap & Knippernberg Ad. (1998). The Relation Between Perception and Behavior, or How to Win a Game of Trivial Pursuit Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74:4, 865-877 Foderaro, L.W. (2011). Roommate Faces Hate-Crime Charges in Rutgers Case. The New York Times, April 20, 2011. Retrieved May 16 2011, from http://www.nytimes.com Milgram (1974). Obedience to Authority . Retrieved May 16 2011, from http://gyanpedia.in/Portals/0/Toys%20from%20Trash/Resources/books/milgram.pdf Ross, R (2011). 7 Stages of Hate Module. Retrieved May 17 2011, from http://www.rickross.com/reference/hate_groups/hategroups355.html References Cited 7 Stages of Hate Module http://www.rickross.com/reference/hate_groups/hategroups355.html Bandura, Albert (1973). Social Learning Theory Access 02 May 2011 http://www.learning- theories.com/social-learning-theory-bandura.html Foderaro, Lisa W. (2011). Roommate Faces Hate-Crime Charges in Rutgers Case. The New York Times, April 20, 2011 Accessed 03 May 2011 http://www.nytimes.com Milgram (1974) Obedience to Authority . Accessed 02 May 2011 http://gyanpedia.in/Portals/0/Toys%20from%20Trash/Resources/books/milgram.pdf Read More