On October 27, 1994, Susan Smith watched her burgundy Mazda
             Protege roll into the watery depths of John D. Long Lake carrying
             her two sons, Michael, 3, and his 14-month-old brother, Alexander
             Henderson and Fields 1995). One can only wonder what could have
             caused a mother to intentionally murder her two beautiful baby
             boys. The motive seemed to be that Susan Smith's wealthy
             boyfriend did not want the children. She also stated in her
             handwritten confession that she knew he would never love her
             (Smith 1994). I can only speculate that she meant he would never
             love her as long as she had children. However, I believe that
             Susan must have been deeply disturbed to commit such a horrible
             In order to better understand this unthinkable act, I chose
             to use the psychoanalytic theory from the psychological
             perspective. I think this theory can describe Susan's behavior
             better than the cognitive consistency theory because the id, ego,
             and super-ego seem to observe mental processes more than the
             cognitive consistency theory does. Using the cognitive
             consistency theory would make it more difficult to observe the
             mental processes of Susan Smith that I believe are necessary to
             understand this crime (Lecture notes, psychological perspective,
             cognitive consistency theory). I will also use the social
             learning theory under the behavioral perspective because I believe
             positive and negative reinforcement can make it more clear as to
             why Susan Smith killed her children. I chose not to use the
             social exchange theory because, in this case, Susan Smith is not
             negotiating anything as social exchange theory explains. It also
             tends to be a hedonistic view of the human (Lecture notes,
             behavioral perspective, social exchange theory, 2000). The last
             theory that will be discussed from the sociological perspective is
             the role theory. I believe that it is a most obvious concept that
             Susan S...