trait of hatred
After a number of women were ambushed and murdered while hiking in the San
Francisco Bay area, David Carpenter was arrested. He had suffered under an emotionally abusive father, a physically abusive mother, and childhood peers who made fun of his stuttering. He was cruel to animals and had a violent temper and a strong sex drive (Douglas, 1995). Remember that trait theorist Gordon Allport (1961) described cardinal traits as personality characteristics that are ubiquitous and highly influential in an individual’s personality and that dominate the individual’s day-to-day actions.
When we consider Carpenter and similar others filled with hatred and aggression
(like Ted Bundy), it seems clear that these are cardinal traits, defining characteristics of their personalities.
For trait theorists, traits like aggression are part of the dynamic organization of personality, parts of personality that incline an individual to behave in certain ways.
Raymond Cattell (1966), using factor analysis to extract the common human traits, isolated those source traits that, if manifest to an extreme degree, seem to characterize a killer. Individuals low on factor A are aloof and critical, people low on factor C are emotionally unstable, people high on factor E are dominant and aggressive, those low on Factor I are tough-minded, and those high on factor L are suspicious.
Extreme scores on these factors could conceivably combine to describe a coldblooded killer. Because these traits are descriptive (derived from factor analysis), they are not incompatible with other theoretical formulations. They are merely a different view of the same phenomenon.
For Hans Eysenck, the personality dimension most relevant to hate is psychoticism.
As we have seen (Chapter 8), a person high on this dimension is impulsive, cruel, tough-minded, and antisocial. (In terms of the Big Five scheme, the counterpart would be low Agreeableness and low Conscientiousness.) For Eysenck, these
Francisco Bay area, David Carpenter was arrested. He had suffered under an emotionally abusive father, a physically abusive mother, and childhood peers who made fun of his stuttering. He was cruel to animals and had a violent temper and a strong sex drive (Douglas, 1995). Remember that trait theorist Gordon Allport (1961) described cardinal traits as personality characteristics that are ubiquitous and highly influential in an individual’s personality and that dominate the individual’s day-to-day actions.
When we consider Carpenter and similar others filled with hatred and aggression
(like Ted Bundy), it seems clear that these are cardinal traits, defining characteristics of their personalities.
For trait theorists, traits like aggression are part of the dynamic organization of personality, parts of personality that incline an individual to behave in certain ways.
Raymond Cattell (1966), using factor analysis to extract the common human traits, isolated those source traits that, if manifest to an extreme degree, seem to characterize a killer. Individuals low on factor A are aloof and critical, people low on factor C are emotionally unstable, people high on factor E are dominant and aggressive, those low on Factor I are tough-minded, and those high on factor L are suspicious.
Extreme scores on these factors could conceivably combine to describe a coldblooded killer. Because these traits are descriptive (derived from factor analysis), they are not incompatible with other theoretical formulations. They are merely a different view of the same phenomenon.
For Hans Eysenck, the personality dimension most relevant to hate is psychoticism.
As we have seen (Chapter 8), a person high on this dimension is impulsive, cruel, tough-minded, and antisocial. (In terms of the Big Five scheme, the counterpart would be low Agreeableness and low Conscientiousness.) For Eysenck, these