Week 4:Ego Threats and Gender Differences

What makes someone violent? What changes between men and women to make one conduct these acts on a more prevalent basis?

To answer these questions, Baumeister (1997) discusses self-esteem in regards to who commits violent acts. More specifically, he discovered that revenge occurs due to threats to an individual’s self-esteem, and that there is a link between egotism and revenge. Therefore, threats to self-esteem are the main category in which someone commits acts of revenge (Baumeister, 1997). Researchers have hypothesized, however, that low self-esteem is what causes violent acts. I can understand this, and do believe that although some people act out of low self-esteem, the majority commit violence due to threats to their high self-esteem, AKA psychopaths. As well, men are more violent (90% of violent crimes) than women and this can come back to the ideas of men having higher self-esteem than women. What do you guys think? Do you think that is why men commit more violent acts than women?

A specific example jumped into my mind when discussing the threats to ego between men and women, and the difference in violence between the two genders. This example is well-known in Canada, as Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo. It also provides insight into the ways the two genders may be similar when it comes to violence. Homolka represents the rare 10% of violent crimes committed by females and I thought this was an interesting point to touch on. Bernardo was seen to be a sadist, and this was only intensified by his relationship with Homolka, who encouraged this and shared in his fantasies (Dimuro, 2020). To go back to a topic discussed in the beginning of the course, people can be products of their environment which could be seen in Bernardo, whose father was charged with child molestation, and he was also a child of an affair between his mother and another man (Dimuro, 2020). I think this is a big factor in what made Bernardo so severely disturbed, and is something that is important to understand when looking at evil. Another point that was brought up in class was sadomasochism as a means to pleasure, which is something this couple performed, which I thought was interesting. When Bernardo sexually assaulted Homolka’s sister, she encouraged it as she knew about his previous assaults and ended up aiding in killing her (Dimuro, 2020). They ended up killing and sexually assaulting other girls as well. In the end when they were caught and she had left him he physically abused her, she sought a plea bargain and it worked to her advantage even after videotapes of her enjoying this spree were found. How do you think they differ in their acts of violence, if at all? I personally see them equally as violent since they committed terrible acts, as I do not see gender playing a role in this example. How do you think threats to their ego came into play? I see this as Bernardo having a hard upbringing and potentially lashing out at other women for his mother’s actions as a way to keep his ego high while Homolka seemed to always have high self-esteem.

Gender differences can account for the amount of psychopathic traits an individual experiences. de Vogel & Lancel (2016) studied an equal amount (197) of men and women at forensic psychiatric hospitals in the Netherlands who were admitted between 1984-2013. They separated the participants into 4 groups, women with and without psychopathy and men with and without psychopathy. It was discovered that both women and men who experience psychopathy had similar personal backgrounds as well as criminal histories. Women were found, however, to offend more out of frustration, were diagnosed more often with Borderline Personality Disorder and be more manipulative, while men were found to be more physically aggressive and obtain higher psychopathic tendency scores on the PCL scale (de Vogel & Lancel, 2016). This is important as men are more likely to demonstrate straightforward psychopathic traits as well as be more physical in their violence, while women are more manipulative, which demonstrates two different kinds of evil and can relate back to self-esteem. The physical aggression piece could demonstrate the ability to achieve high self-esteem and not to be thwarted by ego threats, while women are more likely to suffer from low self-esteem which could be why they choose to demonstrate more cunning tactics.

Would love to hear your thoughts on the topic of gender differences when it comes to violence and ego threats! Let me know what you guys think!