History of Social Thought essays

History of Social Thought essays 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 Smiths 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 Susans 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...