Neurological Correlates

 I don’t know whether killing a hawk with a 9-iron
was truly animal cruelty or just a really dumb way an upset pro golfer used to banish a hawk who was interrupting the filming of a golf instructional video.

Regardless, the reports don’t indicate that John Henry “Tripp” Isenhour III was launching golf balls at the hawk for fun. So I don’t think he’s evil.

He shot at the hawk, it is reported, in anger.

(I am presuming the shot was with a 9 iron as Mr. Isenhour was reported as within 75 meters of the bird when the shot was fired, er, swung. )

Mr. Isenhour is reported to have been upset because the noisy bird was slowing down filming. So Mr. Isenhour fired off a few shots at the bird. One was lethal.

Mr. Isenhour claimed the shot was “one-in-a-million“, but, on the other hand, he was filming, “How to Shoot Like a Pro“, so go figure.

Obviously, shooting golf balls at a live target is disturbing behavior, although, I must confess, I almost hit a chicken on a golf course in Hawaii once. The chickens roamed free, and you could buy bird seed and feed them, which was far more entertaining than my golf game but I digress.

Did Mr. Isenhour intend to kill the bird? Reportedly, no, he was trying to scare the bird.

Killing a hawk with a golf ball, dog fighting, cat hoarding, trapping, or other forms of animal cruelty each seem to have their own motivations: getting rid of a nuisance, power, OCD , or even cultural hunting practices. The animal cruelty is merely incident to some other goal. Even a way to release pathological anger. Each hideous, but, the hideousness is an off-hand byproduct.

One may argue that laboratory research’s noble goal — test drugs on animals first so we prevent undue harm in people — is no better than eating animals as food. Both are for serving the needs of people. (Although you could argue there is a less onerous alternative for food — like being a vegetarian — and, mostly, no other animal-free tests for drugs).

I’ve only seen animal cruelty once, as a child (and I’m going to try to change the details to not identify anyone specifically): two brothers down the street caught a frog, and, while it was still alive, cut it open and placed a piece of glass in its chest to see the heart beating. It didn’t live long. This was in a rural area during a time when everyone was absent from school when deer season opened in November.

The brothers grew up. One of the brothers lives a good life as a store manager; an upstanding citizen, good family life. I’m pretty sure the frog thing wasn’t his idea.

The other moved to backwoods Appalachia, got himself elected mayor of a small town (or maybe just took the job since no one else wanted it), and hunts and traps for food. I can’t remember how many times he married.

Growing up on the same street, occasionally I’d hear him shooting a gun in his backyard. Once he was shooting at a boat, testing the durability of bullet-proof vest material on the hull. It dented the boat. Or another time he wanted his picture in the paper. So he called the local reporter, and said an Olympic athlete was training on the river, and to meet there for some photos — of course, he’d go down to the river and do some dare-devil stunts. The reporter would stand on the road to take pictures from afar, not bothering to get in the water. So he’d get his picture in the local paper, with the label of some famous athlete. Or when I needed heavy lifting, he’d gladly do me the favor (he was close to 6′5″). I think in high school, he took to stealing things from the neighbors (like, sterling). No drugs involved, that I’m aware of. No one could figure that one out. He provided restitution, no one called the police, and everything was smoothed over.

I wouldn’t call him “glib” or “charming” or “beguiling” as in descriptions of a psychopath, like in the Hare Psychopathy Checklist -Revised. But he was an entertainer of sorts. He’d order a hot dog, and replace the hot dog with a fake plastic severed finger in the bun, and bring it back exclaiming, “this isn’t what I ordered!”. That was a crowd-pleaser in those parts. He used to buy foam rocks and throw them at people. (They’re like sponges, but look like real rocks).

A few years ago, I asked the “Mayor” why he had a finger splint. He told me he caught a wild turkey with his bare hands, killed it, dressed it, and prepared to cook and eat it. (A wild turkey bears no relation whatsoever to the big frozen ivory lump in grocery freezer. A wild turkey running around is more like a small velociraptor.)

After a long, dramatic chase, the “Mayor” caught the vicious bird, and wrung its neck on the spot. He said he was copying his grandmother’s way of killing chickens – as explained by Grandma, neck wringing was the quickest, least painful way to kill the bird. I can vouch for the grandma, who was in no way violent or felonious.

While preparing the bird (I guess it needs to hang upside down for a while), the “Mayor” went into town to brag. The locals got sick and tired of his bragging, and enlisted the local Fish and Game officer to play a trick on him – the real/fake officer knocked on his door and said he was looking for the turkey caught without a license, and that there was a huge fine, and the bird had to be confiscated. A fight ensued over trying to fake-confiscate the bird. I don’t know how it was sorted out, but the “Mayor” ended up with a finger splint. Apparently people told that story for years after; it won him several re-elections as Mayor (so he said, although I’m doubtful he could have lost, or if anyone really cared).

The point: Here we have two clear animal abuse cases, the golf shot killing the hawk, and the wild turkey chase. But are either perpetrators a danger to society?

Maybe the golfer killed in anger, which would make me vote for some kind of criminal aspect. But can he be re-trained ? My guess is that you can’t be impulsively violent and a pro golfer. He’d have to pick at some point.

As to the “Mayor”, NIMBY – who would want that guy in the condo next door? No problem – he wouldn’t want to live in the suburbs. But he did pretty well living the life of a century ago, and kept the job as Mayor for quite a while. So — perhaps on the fringes — the Mayor is an asset to society.

Abusing animals for “fun” is hideous. The “fun” is had at the atrocious cruelty and misery of another. People who enjoy making other living beings suffer, whether it’s animal cruelty or people (of course) are undeniably evil. Premeditated cruelty toward an innocent, just for kicks, has a depravity surpassing the instrumental cruelty — the purpose of the cruelty is entertainment.

So, it’s not too tough to see how Hensley and Tallichet’s research turned out (hint: those who abuse animals with the motivation of “it’s fun” tend to grow up to be violent adults). Personally, I think the animal abuse laws should have a dotted line to monitoring people for later violent crimes. One thing that surprises me about the Hensley and Tallichet report is that the inmates self-reported cruelty — I would think they’d lie about it. The other thing is that childhood animal cruelty done in anger correlates less well than the “fun” motivation with later adult violence. Probably the impulsivity goes down in adulthood, though.

I think this also undermines the Stanford Prison Experiments, somewhat. The Stanford Prison Experiments purport to show that in the right context, anyone can “turn” evil. Well, the animal cruelty study shows that some people probably are evil to begin with.

And so, and this seems to be a contentious issue, Carnahan and McFarland reran exact duplicates of adverts as in the Stanford Prison Experiments — the self-selecting volunteers tended toward the power hungry. So was the evil displayed really just a result of the context? Or was it sought out by those with a propensity to do evil?

The Effect of Inmates’ Self-Reported Childhood and Adolescent Animal Cruelty

Motivations on the Number of Convictions for Adult Violent Interpersonal Crimes

Christopher Hensley University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Suzanne E. Tallichet

Morehead State University, Kentucky

Few researchers have investigated the potentially predictive power of motives for childhood and adolescent animal cruelty as it is associated with interpersonal violence in adulthood. Based on a sample of 261 inmates at medium- and maximum-security prisons in a southern state, the present study examines the relationship among several retrospectively reported motives (anger, fun, dislike, and imitation) for animal cruelty and violent crime convictions (assault, rape, and murder). Almost half reported abusing animals out of anger, whereas more than one third did so for fun. Dislike for the animal and imitation were less frequently occurring motives. Participants who abused animals at an earlier age and those who did so out of anger or for fun were more likely to repeat the offense. Regression analyses revealed that abusing an animal out of fun in their youth was the most statistically salient motive for predicting later interpersonal violence as adults.

Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: Could Participant Self-Selection Have Led to the Cruelty?

Thomas Carnahan Western Kentucky University

Sam McFarland

Western Kentucky University, sam.mcfarland@wku.edu

The authors investigated whether students who selectively volunteer for a study of prison life possess dispositions associated with behaving abusively. Students were recruited for a psychological study of prison life using a virtually identical newspaper ad as used in the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE; Haney, Banks & Zimbardo, 1973) or for a psychological study, an identical ad minus the words of prison life. Volunteers for the prison study scored significantly higher on measures of the abuse-related dispositions of aggressiveness, authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and social dominance and lower on empathy and altruism, two qualities inversely related to aggressive abuse. Although implications for the SPE remain a matter of conjecture, an interpretation in terms of person-situation interactionism rather than a strict situationist account is indicated by these findings. Implications for interpreting the abusiveness of American military guards at Abu Ghraib Prison also are discussed.

Hensley, C., Tallichet, S.E. (2007). The Effect of Inmates’ Self-Reported Childhood and Adolescent Animal Cruelty: Motivations on the Number of Convictions for Adult Violent Interpersonal Crimes. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 52(2), 175-184. DOI: 10.1177/0306624X07303913

Carnahan, T., McFarland, S. (2007). Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: Could Participant Self-Selection Have Led to the Cruelty?. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33(5), 603-614. DOI: 10.1177/0146167206292689