History of Social Thought
On October 27, 1994, Susan Smith watched her burgundy MazdaProtege roll into the watery depths of John D. Long Lake carryingher two sons, Michael, 3, and his 14-month-old brother, AlexanderHenderson and Fields 1995). One can only wonder what could havecaused a mother to intentionally murder her two beautiful babyboys. The motive seemed to be that Susan Smith's wealthyboyfriend did not want the children. She also stated in herhandwritten confession that she knew he would never love her(Smith 1994). I can only speculate that she meant he would neverlove her as long as she had children. However, I believe thatSusan must have been deeply disturbed to commit such a horrible In order to better understand this unthinkable act, I choseto use the psychoanalytic theory from the psychologicalperspective. I think this theory can describe Susan's behaviorbetter than the cognitive consistency theory because the id, ego,and super-ego seem to observe mental processes more than thecognitive consistency theory does. Using the cognitiveconsistency theory would make it more difficult to observe themental processes of Susan Smith that I believe are necessary to
She believed she wouldgain positive reinforcement which would be the love of herboyfriend. Symbolic interaction theory does not deal with roles, and focusesmore on symbolic communications (Lecture notes, sociologicalperspective, symbolic interaction theory, 2000). Hopefully some day we canfully understand the nature of this crime, and crimes related toit, so that we may put a permanent stop to innocent children beingmurdered by the person that is supposed to protect them the most. However, some people do not follow socially accepted roles and norms. The id is sometimes thought of as our unconscious thoughtsthat we are unaware of. Hersuper-ego knew that killing her children was very wrong. I believe that it is a most obvious concept thatSusan Smith defyed her status and role of being a mother that oursociety accepts. Susan Smith learned that removing her children fromher life became negative reinforcement. These are motivators for our social behavior (Lecture notes,psychological perspective, psychoanalytic theory, 2000). Positive punishment consists of applying unwantedstimuli, and negative punishment can be defined as the removal ofwanted stimuli (Lecture notes, behavioral perspective, sociallearning theory, 2000). However, Ibelieve that the social learning theory can best explain thisheinous incident because it seems that Susan Smith was onlyconcerned with optimizing her rewards. She was so motivatedto receive her boyfriend's approval and love that she removed herprecious children from her life.
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