The Murderer Next Door: Why the Mind Is Designed to Kill
David M. Buss
Language: English
Pages: 288
ISBN: 0143037056
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
As acclaimed psychological researcher and author David Buss writes, "People are mesmerized by murder. It commands our attention like no other human phenomenon, and those touched by its ugly tendrils never forget." Though we may like to believe that murderers are pathological misfits and hardened criminals, the vast majority of murders are committed by people who, until the day they kill, would seem to be perfectly normal.
David Buss's pioneering work has made major national news in the past, and this provocative book is sure to generate a storm of attention. The Murderer Next Door is a riveting look into the dark underworld of the human psyche—an astonishing exploration of when and why we kill and what might push any one of us over the edge. A leader in the innovative field of evolutionary psychology, Buss conducted an unprecedented set of studies investigating the underlying motives and circumstances of murders, from the bizarre outlier cases of serial killers to those of the friendly next-door neighbor who one day kills his wife.
Reporting on findings that are often startling and counterintuitive—the younger woman involved in a love triangle is at a high risk of being killed—he puts forth a bold new general theory of homicide, arguing that the human psyche has evolved specialized adaptations whose function is to kill. Taking readers through the surprising twists and turns of the evolutionary logic of murder, he explains exactly when each of us is most at risk, both of being murdered and of becoming a murderer. His findings about the high-risk situations alone will be news making.
Featuring gripping storytelling about specific murder cases—including a never used FBI file of more than 400,000 murders and a highly detailed study of 400 murders conducted by Buss in collaboration with a forensic psychiatrist, and a pioneering investigation of homicidal fantasies in which Buss found that 91 percent of men and 84 percent of women have had at least one such vivid fantasy—The Murderer Next Door will be necessary reading for those who have been fascinated by books on profiling, lovers of true crime and murder mysteries, as well as readers intrigued by the inner workings of the human mind.
people, like my friend, don’t seriously consider becoming killers. So I was left wondering what could have produced the homicidal rage I had seen in my friend. The anger I could understand perfectly well, but the murderous intent seemed to indicate deeper psychological processes at work. I also wondered why, even though I had never witnessed murderous fury before in my life, I had felt so keenly that I myself might have been in danger that night. The cases of cold-blooded contract killers, or
skyward. Men are far more likely than women to “go postal” when they lose their jobs, taking revenge by shooting a boss or rival co-workers who they blame for their demise. And men have had stronger incentives to make displays of violent force as a means of besting mating rivals. But the primary reason men are so much more given to violence, and specifically to the violence of murder, is that the stakes of the mating game are so much higher for men than for women, because there is much more
pushed him over the edge to kill you?] If I would have interrupted him beating my mom or tried to stop him. [What else did you think he might do, other than kill you?] I thought he might sexually molest me. In this case, we see a critical antihomicide defense in operation—remaining quiet and out of the way, hiding, and preventing her sister from uttering sounds that would betray their location. Also apparent is the threat of sexual predation. Fortunately, this girl lived to grow up, escaping the
into a sexual rival. Sometimes the damage comes from men who sexually use a woman for short-term sexual access and then boast about it, as illustrated by the following examples. CASE #P242, female, age 22. [Who did you think about killing?] A fellow student, a man who was 17 years old at the time. I had been intimate with this individual (who was at that point what I considered a friend)—but did not have sex with him. The following weekday he proceeded to tell the vast majority of his friends
circuitry behind killing the competition to get ahead and stay ahead became installed in the male brain over evolutionary time because it worked. Nine THE KILLERS AMONG US “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” —WALT KELLY, Pogo IN THE COURSE of this book, we have looked at the murderers who are all around us, from the man whose honor was insulted to the woman who sees killing as the only way out. Murder affects the lives of all of us. Have you ever felt the hair stand up on the nape of your