Stockholm syndrome
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For other uses, see Stockholm syndrome (disambiguation).
Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstorg, StockholmIn psychology, Stockholm Syndrome is a term used to describe a real paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness.[1][2] The FBI’s Hostage Barricade Database System shows that roughly 27% of victims show evidence of Stockholm Syndrome.[3] The Syndrome is named after the Norrmalmstorg robbery of Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm, in which bank employees were held hostage from August 23 to August 28, 1973. In this case, the victims became emotionally attached to their captors, and even defended them after they were freed from their six-day ordeal. The term "Stockholm Syndrome" was coined by the criminologist and psychiatrist Nils Bejerot, who assisted the police during the robbery, and referred to the Syndrome in a news broadcast.[4] It was originally defined by psychiatrist Frank Ochberg to aid the management of hostage situations.[5]
[edit] Evolutionary explanations
The Syndrome has also been explained in evolutionary terms a phenomenon sometimes referred to as "Capture-bonding".
In the view of evolutionary psychology "the mind is a set of information-processing machines that were designed by natural selection to solve adaptive problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors." [6]
One of the "adaptive problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors," particularly our female ancestors, was being abducted by another band. Life in the human "environment of evolutionary adaptiveness" (EEA) is thought by researchers such as Azar Gat to be similar to that of the few remaining hunter-gatherer societies. "Deadly violence is also regularly activated in competition over women. . . . Abduction of women, rape, . . . are widespread direct causes of reproductive conflict . . ." [7] I.e., being captured [8] and having their dependent children killed might have been fairly common.[9] Women who resisted capture in such situations risked being killed.[10]
Azar Gat argues that war and abductions (capture) were typical of human pre-history.[11] When selection is intense and persistent, adaptive traits (such as capture-bonding) become universal to the population or species. (See Selection.)
Partial activation of the capture-bonding psychological trait may lie behind battered-wife syndrome, military basic training, fraternity hazing, and sex practices such as sadism/masochism or bondage/discipline.[12] [13][14][15]
[edit] Notable examples
Mary McElroy was kidnapped and held for ransom in 1933 and released by her captors unharmed. When three of her four captors were apprehended and given maximum sentences (including one death sentence), McElroy defended them. According to reports, she suffered from feelings of guilt concerning the case which compromised her mental and physical health. She took her own life in 1940.
Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974. After two months in captivity, she actively took part in a robbery they were orchestrating. Her unsuccessful legal defense claimed that she suffered from Stockholm Syndrome and was coerced into aiding the SLA. She was convicted and imprisoned for her actions in the robbery, though her sentence was commuted in February 1979 by President Jimmy Carter, and she received a Presidential pardon from President Bill Clinton on January 20, 2001 (among his last official acts before leaving office).
Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted at age 11 by Phillip and Nancy Garrido at a school bus stop in 1991 and was imprisoned at their residence for 18 years. In August 2009, Phillip brought Nancy and Jaycee (who was living under the alias "Allissa") along with two girls that Garrido fathered with Jaycee during her captivity, to be questioned by Garrido's parole officer after he noticed some suspicious behavior. She did not reveal her identity when she was questioned alone. Instead, she told investigators she was a battered wife from Minnesota who was hiding from her abusive husband, and described Garrido as a "great person" who was "good with her kids". Dugard has since admitted to forming an emotional bond with Garrido with great guilt and regret.[16]
[edit] Lima syndrome
An inverse of Stockholm Syndrome called "Lima Syndrome" has been proposed, in which abductors develop sympathy for their hostages. It was named after an abduction at the Japanese Embassy in Lima, Peru in 1996, when members of a militant movement took hostage hundreds of people attending a party in the official residence of Japan's ambassador. Within a few hours, the abductors had set free most of the hostages, including the most valuable ones, due to sympathy.[17][18]
[edit] In popular culture
The popular tale Beauty and the Beast is a classic example of Stockholm syndrome.
The term Helsinki Syndrome has been used erroneously to describe Stockholm Syndrome, popularized by the movie Die Hard.[19] It is also used in The X-Files episode "Folie a Deux". Also, it was mistaken by BBC Top Gear's Richard Hammond while reviewing the Lamborghini Aventador in series 17.
The English rock band Muse wrote a song named Stockholm Syndrome which appeared on their 2003 album Absolution.
The American pop-punk band Blink-182 wrote a song named Stockholm Syndrome which appeared on their 2003 album Blink-182.
The American indie-rock band Yo La Tengo wrote a song named Stockholm Syndrome which appeared on their 1997 album I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One.
The World Is Not Enough - Bond girl Elektra King has her villainy blamed on Stockholm Syndrome to her captor Renard, whom she supposedly falls in love with and joins in the pipeline terrorist attack.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
^ de Fabrique, Nathalie; Romano, Stephen J.; Vecchi, Gregory M.; van Hasselt, Vincent B. (July 2007). "Understanding Stockholm Syndrome". FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (Law Enforcement Communication Unit) 76 (7): 10–15. ISSN 0014-5688.
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/public...nload/file. Retrieved 17 November 2010.
^ "'Stockholm Syndrome': psychiatric diagnosis or urban myth?" (in London, UK.). Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, Hampstead Campus (Royal Free and University College Medical School). 2007 November 19.. PMID 18028254.
^ G. Dwayne Fuselier, “Placing the Stockholm Syndrome in Perspective,” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, July 1999, 22-25.
^ Nils Bejerot: The six day war in Stockholm New Scientist 1974, volume 61, number 886, page 486-487
^ Ochberg, Frank "The Ties That Bind Captive to Captor", Los Angeles Times, April 8, 2005
^ Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer - Leda Cosmides & John Tooby
^ Published in Anthropological Quarterly, 73.2 (2000), 74-88. THE HUMAN MOTIVATIONAL COMPLEX: EVOLUTIONARY THEORY AND THE CAUSES OF HUNTER-GATHERER FIGHTING Azar Gat Part II: Proximate, Subordinate, and Derivative Causes"
^ "The percentage of females in the lowland villages who have been abducted is significantly higher: 17% compared to 11.7% in the highland villages." (Napoleon Chagnon quoted at Sexual Polarization in Warrior Cultures)
^ "Elena Valero, a Brazilian woman, was kidnapped by Yanomamo warriors when she was eleven years old . . . . But none were so horrifying as the second [raid]: ‘They killed so many.’ . . . The man then took the baby by his feet and bashed him against the rocks . . . ." (Hrdy quoted in Sexual Polarization in Warrior Cultures)
^ "The Shaur and Achuar Jivaros, once deadly enemies . . . . A significant goal of these wars was geared toward the annihilation of the enemy tribe, including women and children. . . . . There were however, many instances where the women and children were taken as prisoners . . . . A woman who fights, or a woman who refuses to accompany the victorious war-party to their homes and serve a new master, exposes herself to the risk of suffering the same fate as her men-folk." (Up de Graff also in Sexual Polarization in Warrior Cultures)
^ Published in Anthropological Quarterly, 73.2 (2000), 74-88. THE HUMAN MOTIVATIONAL COMPLEX: EVOLUTIONARY THEORY AND THE CAUSES OF HUNTER-GATHERER FIGHTING Azar Gat Part II: Proximate, Subordinate, and Derivative Causes"
^ Being captured by neighbouring tribes was a relatively common event for women in human history, if anything like the recent history of the few remaining primitive tribes. In some of those tribes (Yanomamo, for instance) practically everyone inthe tribe is descended from a captive within the last three generations. Perhaps as high as one in ten of females were abducted and incorporated into the tribe that captured them. Once you understand the evolutionary origin of this trait and its critical nature in genetic survival and reproduction in the ancestral human environment, related mysterious human psychological traits fall into place. Battered-wife syndrome is an example of activating the capture-bonding psychological mechanism, as are military basic training, fraternity bonding by hazing, and sex practices such as sadism/masochism or bondage/discipline. Evolutionary Psychology, Memes and the Origin of War, H. Keith Henson, Mankind Quarterly, Volume XLVI Number 4, Summer 2006.
^ Traumatic entrapment, appeasement and complex post-traumatic stress disorder: evolutionary perspectives of hostage reactions, domestic abuse and the Stockholm Syndrome.
^ Human Chemistry (Volume Two)
^ Psychology Behind Ragging © Harsh Agarwal, 2010
^ Allen, Nick (November 5, 2009). "Jaycee Lee Dugard showed signs of Stockholm Syndrome". The Daily Telegraph (London).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopi...drome.html. Retrieved May 24, 2010.
^ PTSD. Springer Science+Business Media. 2006. ISBN 4431295666.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=FUOHCwnHFKUC&pg=PA149&dq=%22Lima+Syndrome%22.
^ "Africa Politics". International Press Service. July 10, 1996.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-2527009.html. Retrieved 2009-05-08.
^ "Memorable quotes for Die Hard (1988)". Internet Movie Database.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095016/quotes?qt0466629.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: de Fabrique, Nathalie; Romano, Stephen J.; Vecchi, Gregory M.; van Hasselt, Vincent B. (July 2007). "Understanding Stockholm Syndrome". FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (Law Enforcement Communication Unit) 76 (7): 10–15. ISSN 0014-5688.
http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/public...nload/file. Retrieved 17 November 2010.
[edit] External links
'Understanding Stockholm Syndrome'(pdf, page 10), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Love and Stockholm Syndrome: The Mystery of Loving an Abuser Psychologist Dr Joseph Carver, writing at CounsellingResource.com
Nils Bejerot's article about the events at Norrmalmstorg [1]
"Unbewußte Liebesbeziehung zum Folterer?" Kritik und Alternativen zu einer "Psychodynamik der traumatischen Reaktion", von Freihart Regner (German)
Why do kidnap victims sometimes fail to escape, even when they have a chance to run? at everydaypsychology.com
The Relationship Between Stockholm Syndrome and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Battered Women
A Brief History of Stockholm Syndrome from Time.com
Stockholm Syndrome Prime Health Channel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
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