Developing on this, I'd specifically say that as you have to endure forced confinement by a kidnapper, the more you accept it and get used to it, the less painful and scarring will it be later, avoiding the mentioned PTSD if you remember the situation and kidnappers in a kind way. No trauma if it wasn't traumatic.
I think that's right. If a captive believes escape is not possible, then the next best thing is to survive as long as possible. So we instinctively generate the emotions we believe will make that possible.
Isn't this a bit like being in an abusive relationship? Like the abuser treats their partner very badly, but the abused one still stays, because they still see the abuser in a good way, somehow.
RDR what you are asking is "how is falling in love with someone different from being offered candy?" Most of the time the aggressive tendencies don't start to show or be obvious for years. A child likes candy, but the victim of domestic abusers has grown to genuinely love him/her
Maybe it's the victom's brain realizing that their life is in the captor's hands, like how babies form a bond with their parents partly because their brain knows that they aren't capable of surviving on their own.
I consider this plausible. It's essentially an extension of our natural sense of social hierarchy: being at the mercy of someone else's decisions evokes some social submissive thoughts and feelings, like a child to their parents/older siblings, a student to their senior peers, and any other time someone is on a "lower" spot in the chain of command and looks up to the ones who are "higher" up.
I really want SciShow Psych to do a video explaining the difference between psychopathy and sociopathy, and how accurately they have been represented in tv and movies.
the thing is that there arent any solid meanings of the 2. many psychiatrist and criminal psychologists have diffrent ideas and theories of what it is and what the causes are. along with that the youtube community is full of misconceptions about tje diffrence between the 2. people might be saying theyre wrong while they cant be. anyways, my psychology community considers sociopathy someone with anti social behaviour while psychopathy is a sub gerne of sociopathy which indicates they have anti social personality traits, mainly emotional underdevelopment
Officially there is no difference. Classifying someone as either a psychopath or sociopath is largely BS. The idea that a violent crazy person must be a psychopath while a Machiavellian ladder climber is a sociopath is a complete myth. They’re both labels for what is officially known as Antisocial Personality Disorder, characterized by low moral conscience and high impulsivity, and sometimes a lack of empathy. APD exists on a broad spectrum, it can range from slightly blunted empathy for others to complete lack of empathy and a long history of violent behavior. Some can even choose when they feel empathy to become better manipulators. And some can be completely uncharismatic and noticeably callous. Also, APD is sometimes (but not always) comorbid with other conditions like narcissism, PTSD, Bipolar, even ADHD, which makes it difficult to separate what behaviors are caused by APD and what behaviors are caused by those other disorders. The reason they don’t use “sociopath” and “psychopath” to categorize people with APD is because the range of behaviors and personalities between those affected with it can vary so much that there’s not really any traits or qualities we can use to neatly categorize them as one or the other.
I wouldn't even say it's an adaptive response. I think it's all about empathy. We are all human and if the criminal isn't being very nasty to us and see their situation it's very easy for us to rationalize it because we all have issues.
YEAH, it's SIMPLE: our evolutionary line is hierarchical, so new leaders are constantly being looked upon; someone who has the guts to take over a bank is easily looked up to as the new leader of our tribe.
Well…no with Stockholm syndrome you often get other symptoms from even other disorders. What’s different is their emotional response to them. They like it. They still want them. Everyone has a different reason. Like you said it could be an adaptive response, but it’s definitely not that simple. I’ve had it for 4 years it’s honestly tiring and you feel empty when they’re not around you. Like you dependent on them. And it’s sad…
Definitely not. It can start with whoever you meet at whatever age. When they meet you don’t automatically feel connected to them. It’s a whole process. Depending on how abusive and dangerous their captor was. When people have Stockholm syndrome they don’t think their abuser would hurt them in the first place thinking things like “they would never do that” or “they couldn’t they love me to much” or even worse “I don’t mind” because there’s a difference between using it for defense and actually genuinely feeling these feelings. It could be their own husband’s or wife’s. Parents. Friends. Personally for me it’s my older brother. and if you think about it if it was used for defense those girls wouldn’t have stayed, they would have ran away after they “tricked them”. It can be a lifetime experience. It’s scary, and tiring. And since there’s no cure you have to help yourself, or you have to get someone else to help you. But sadly most of the time they’ll always run abc, towards their captor. And you may not understand why…and sadly they may not know either.
Empathy. The captor is a human being doing these things for a reason, and once a captive realizes this, they empathize. This might also explain why the better they are treated, the more likely they are to get Stockholm syndrome. If the captor behaves like a monster, they will see them as a monster. If the captor behaves with some kindness, they will relate to their situation. Political beliefs might also have something to do with it.
I don't think that empathy alone would result in what we describe as stockholm syndrome. We empathize with basicly every human, but that doesn't mean that we necessarily like all other humans. To me it seems more likely, that the captors seemed to be morally correct in what they were doing in the eyes of the captives. The captives probably accepted their captivity in order for their new found heroes to succeed. However it then brings up the question whether or not the captives were manipulated or not.
Seph Imaru I doubt that a captor would be smart enough to plan for, or capable of the emotional manipulation needed to induce Stockholm syndrome. But I do believe that their emotions and humanity could be enough to make a hostage empathize with their situation in life and their motives. Empathy isn't something I do when I see a person on the street, or to a stranger walking past me. In order to empathize with them, I have to be able to understand their emotions and why they are feeling it, i need to be able to feel as they feel. I might feel sympathy for a person on the streets, but I don't empathize with them until I sit down and talk with that person. The more time I spend with a genuine authentic human being, the more likely I am to empathize. The captives spend more time with their captors than they do with the cops. The more time they spend, the more likely they are to empathize with them, and turn away from the system the captors are resisting. The law is inanimate, the captor is a human being. Just my opinion though. I'm probably wrong.
Brunosky Inc. I agree, to a certain extant. I suppose a big factor is how much a victim humanizes their captor in their minds. The more they humanize them, and feel how their aggressor felt, the more likely they are to get Stockholm syndrome. Even a bad person, is still a person, and some people are damn near predisposed to empathize with other people, even a terrible human being. For me empathy is almost involuntary. Often I don't voluntarily feel emotions, it is something that happens to me, whether I want it to or not. Empathy is similar. You don't actively seek to empathize (most of the time...), rather, it happens on its own.
To reconcile the idea that Seph Imaru mentioned that empathy alone wouldn't cause those feelings, I think it's a function of intense empathy when under the stress that was mentioned in the video. It mentioned that focusing on our feelings may help us cope with stress, and I believe it. It's often said that no bond is stronger than those forged in fire--in other words, we tend to bond with people much more strongly in times of struggle: stress. So I think this stress greatly intensifies our capacity for empathy, in a natural search of bonds to form to reduce that stress. With few others to choose from, the captors are readily-available targets for that empathy. I'd wager that captives also have good feelings about their fellow captives, but we just pay all our attention to the weirdness of having good feelings toward the primary antagonists of the situation. So I think captives will readily form strong bonds with _everyone_ as a result of the stress of the situation, and that includes the captors. Kindness on the captors' part just makes that empathy even easier. It may also have something to do with how we're always trying to make sense of our world, mulling over questions in our head until we have a mental model of why everything "fits". We have this innate "why?" floating around in our heads at any event we didn't expect, as part of our evolutionary history of learning and recognizing patterns. When assaulted by someone, the only information your mind has is the traumatic event and its perpetrator, making that "why" easily answerable with "because they're a bad person," since that matches with all your information. But with all the time that hostage situations take, we get to see the more complex, human side to the captors, so the "they're just bad people" conclusion doesn't make sense anymore with that extra personality information. Eventually, we arrive at the conclusion that we arrive at for most people--we make not totally like them, but we see the good in them. With that in mind, it may be the case that the stress of the situation raises the captives' capacity for empathy, and their mind trying to make sense of their captives' motives and actions just unconsciously puts the captors at the forefront of their thoughts and thus the most likely to be the primary targets of that intensified empathy.
I believe that in the horrifying experience, the brain attempts to make sense of the situation and create a more healthy, positive manner in dealing with it. Thus, the bond forms between the victim and other individual, sometimes one-sided, but not always. They also pick up on their captor's dislike or fear of authoritative figures, which often precludes their criminalized activities.
One of the victims from the incident in Stockholm explained in an interview that one of the robbers made certain a more violent robber didn't hurt the hostages. That was the person they developed friendly feelings towards.
our parents have 100% power over us, but still treat us kindly. as infant you grow to like your parents because even if they can act upon you badly, still are not. we all are or were in that situation and by being held as hostage, we get this feeling again. i would be very interested in a relationship between former hostages with stockholm syndrom and their parents
I almost wish I could just tell you guys to stop so graciously thanking us after every video, it's so adorable. You NEVER get tired of it and you NEVER sound less grateful and it's just too sweet haha.
The more I hear about Stockholm Syndrome, the more I think about my capita- no, wait, wrong train of thought. In all seriousness, it sounds like a quite logical coping mechanism to me? I mean, kids who experience horrible situations in their homes often end up protecting their parents and hiding that something might be wrong.
That's not really the same thing though. Kids in abusive households don't tell that they're getting abused more because the fear of what their abuser will do outweighs any positives that come with their abuser being brought to light.
LogicOwl no wait, you mean they don't tell because they're scared of how their abusers will react to being outed? Because if so, that really wasn't what went through my head. I thought I deserved to be abused because I'd disappointed my dad, who deserved the world. Same with my mom, she worked so hard, I couldn't burden her with my being bullied. I protected my parents, as do and did many others. However, this might be more common in less severe situations than what's usually studied. All my information comes from stories similar to mine, with "everyday drunkards" or "holiday drunkards", guardians who are high-functioning alcoholics.
Sounds like charismatic people don't stop being charismatic just because they're in a shitty situation or doing a shitty thing. Kinda like an anti-hero, we were all rooting for Walter White but even more so for Jesse Pinkman. Them being total scumbags didn't change that we liked them.
I've heard that when you go through a stressful situation, you forge/strengthen emotional bonds with the people you went through it with. So it's possible that the fact that the hostages experienced high levels of stress, but came out okay, resulted in them forming these intense and unusual bonds in only a few days. I'm drawing this point from a book which looked at the effects of parenthood, the point in the book being that raising children qualifies as one of these stressful endeavors.
Very good example. You adapt to your situation and people naturally grow a bond towards people they are forced to be in relationships with (marriage or even platonic).
Beauty and the Beast is more a descriptor of Lima Syndrome than Stockholm Syndrome. Neither the Beast nor Belle like each other at first, and it isn't until the Beast starts showing feelings for Belle that she reciprocates.
No. It is not Stockholm syndrome. She doesn't develop feelings for him until he starts to change as a person. Then he lets her go. Yes, he starts out a tyrant, but character growth ultimately makes this a different scenario.
Also if you want to study stockholm syndrome, look at lifestyle advertisers, an abusive unsolicited relationship that gets the victim identifying with the perpetrator.
Just instinct. If I am not nice to this person I am going to die. It is kind of hard wired and thats why you genuinely start liking this person. For millenia women were kidnapped by other tribes or spoils of war. You either got with it and had babies or dead. So guess wich tendency got into our genes to switch our empathy on for a person we should not like.. It really is nothing but selfinterest.
they have actually grown a real emotional bond that cannot just be tossed away, just like people cant just stop having feelings for other people in relationships, even after misuse
i think i might have something worthwhile to contribute to this? I have PTSD from years of childhood sexual abuse (fun stuff) committed by my cousin. I wasn't held captive, of course, but when I was younger I absolutely LOVED said cousin, he was my favorite relative and I went out of my way to spend time with him. I think this was because the adults around us didn't know about the abuse (he was a few years older than me at the time but still a child, probably also abused himself) and always encouraged our affectionate relationship. So being close with this cousin who was traumatizing me = praise from the adults around me which, OH BOY, I loved. It wasn't until we were older and I wasn't spending as much time with this cousin that I stopped idolizing him and realized the extent of the trauma I had been through. I think a lot of my positive feelings for him was directly because of the fact I was a child but when I mentioned this to a therapist years ago she casually mentioned that it was like stockholm syndrome (she wasn't diagnosing me, she was just putting it into terms I could understand) so I thought maybe it was worth a mention.
Well i suppose it can be really helpful to make something good out of a situation like that. Showing sympathy towards the people under whose mercy you are increases your chances of survival and if your body can convince itself to actually like the people the whole situation will probably involve a lot less fear and stress, wich are also emotions the body is not prepared to be experiencing for periods of time that long. So it might just be the smartest thing for you to do in order to survive with as little damage to you as possible.
My girl has it from her adopted dad he did some messed up stuff like messed up stuff you can’t say yk and still talk about him and say she wanted to move back in with him before he goes to prison it’s real
bowing gracefully to a greater power and re-writing your internal narrative to match is a survival mechanism. we are 'social creatures'- we owe our success to being able to live together with limited confrontation. this is one aspect of that.
Some people think it’s like an abusive relationship but…it’s much more than that sadly. It doesn’t have to be how good of a manipulator they are. It can start with no reason at all actually. It can start with whoever you meet at whatever age. Yes even a child and since they’re a kid they don’t understand their feelings causing them to get caught deep with it. Usually the captor does something that might make them feel a certain way and the victim is aware of the persons cruelty, but they like that part too. When they meet you don’t automatically feel connected to them. It’s a whole process. Depending on how abusive and dangerous their captor was. When people have Stockholm syndrome they don’t think their abuser would hurt them in the first place thinking things like “they would never do that” or “they couldn’t they love me to much” or even worse “I don’t mind” because there’s a difference between using it for defense and actually genuinely feeling these feelings. It could be their own husband’s or wife’s. Parents. Friends. Personally for me it’s my older brother. and if you think about it if it was used for defense those girls wouldn’t have stayed, they would have ran away after they “tricked them”. It can be a lifetime experience. It’s scary, and tiring. And since there’s no cure you have to help yourself, or you have to get someone else to help you. But sadly most of the time they’ll always run back, towards their captor. And you may not understand why…and sadly they may not know either.
Human beings seek attachment. Attachment being a connection with a person of influence who will aid him or her. Even when a person is attacked, he will hope that the attacker will start connecting with the victim and start helping him or her. In fact, the victim will do things to try to stimulate that support, like saying supportive things to the abuser, like acquiescing to the abuser, like trying to succor the abuser.
I think there are hostage takers with charming characters and good intentions - maybe it is just liking someone with at least partially empathizeing what they are doing. We love those guys in the movies why not in real life - revolutionaries, fearless have to do what is to do for many that's not negative. Maybe it is just plain old sympathy.
If anything, the symptoms to me seem similar to C-PTSD and BPD, since both can involve the sufferer having positive feelings about someone who abused them.
People in the comments have suggested a lot of potential reasons: empathy, natural defense mechanism, learned adaptive response, and I think it probably a mixture of most of those things, probably to a different degree depending on the person. I’m personally rather empathetic, so if I developed Stockholm syndrome in such a situation it would likely be mostly because of that, but I’d also be aware that I could adapt to the situation and increase my odds of survival if I create a bond, so that would influence me too.
Every symptom of Stockholm Syndrome is familiar to any person who has grown up or lived in an abusive environment. The two situations have a lot of parallels - being trapped, being isolated, having a knowledge of the abuser/captor's reasoning, being harmed and cared for by the same people. That part about "not as bad as it could have been" is absolutely a phrase I've heard from many adults who were abused as children, including myself, and also from victims of domestic violence. I can't believe nobody has made this connection with Stockholm Syndrome before. "Being slightly less awful doesn't seem like it should be enough" to give the abuser a pass. It isn't enough, but when you're physically vulnerable and in a heightened emotional state and looking for solace anywhere, you will grasp at any source of comfort and hope. There is also a blurring of boundaries in these kinds of situations, where you and your captor become conflated into one being because of always being around each other and hearing about each other's lives, and so you end up dismissing the fact that they are abusive/criminal because it benefits you both to be on the same team. I grew up in an abusive family and it took years for me to realize that just because my relatives had a hard childhood didn't give them license to ruin mine. I spent a good deal of my childhood feel responsible for the way I was treated and trying to "fix" what was wrong with my abusers' lives, because I empathized so strongly with their experiences.
It is an extension of the "tend and befriend" reaction to traumatic events. Fight or flight are obvious methods of self preservation, the third self preservation behavior is the tend and befriend reaction. The video covered this slightly when it talked about the 2 way kindness. There is a stronger likelihood of surviving your captor if you can get and stay on their good side, and it needs to be an authentic display.
It really grated on me that the issue is presented as deciding whether or not this is an actual "Disorder". Stockholm Syndrome is a set of feelings and behaviors that might be hard to understand, but why call it a disorder? If, for instance, I meet a person in a social situation and our eyes meet, smiles are exchanged, and we start conversing resulting in our desire to spend more time together, is this a disorder? It certainly is a change in behavior and an interesting psychological phenomenon, but trying to figure out how it is a diagnosable disorder, is not likely to get useful results. Stockholm Syndrome may be psychologically explainable, but starting with the presumption that it is a disorder, is back-assward.
If you are in a situation where you have been taken hostage and locked up with the captor, even though they may be threatening; if the situation goes on for an amount of time, there is a shared intimacy maybe just by talking together. After being released, and some time later, there is an intense feeling of attraction for the captor, which may be very confusing for the victim. I think it happens because of the situation and the shared intimacy and even physical closeness that has been created.
I also think this is the main idea behind enjoying bondage/submission/masochism. Because if a person *learns to* enjoy punishment, it's significantly less harmful to them mentally. It's also one of the reasons why corporal punishment is flawed besides the obvious negative effect of pure fear.
My theory is that the people who develop it don't tend to find many friendships in their normal lives either, so even if they are being held hostage by someone, if they are treated kindly they take it as a good sign since they don't actually have anyone else who has treated them like that. It's a new experience for them to be treated with kindness, and they take it as friendship.
I mean, It kind of would make sense from an evolutionary point of view, if you develope feelings like that, maybe it's more likely that your captor/owner would like you more and treat you better? We've been enslaving eachother and kidnipping brides etc etc for a really long time and those that were nicer probably had a greater oppurtunity to pass on their genes. Just a thought!
I refused to give my groomers phone number and address to police because I formed a positive bond with him and had consensual intimacy with him but it was all apart of the abuse cycle, he would idealise me and be very kind and gentle followed by devaluing me and of course grooming me, which caused me to be threatened but still having “love” for him. Stockholm syndrome causes you to believe the abuser isn’t at all bad but yet you feel threatened by them. It damaged me for years, I’m still an adult and somewhat wonder how’s he’s doing in life. I am in therapy but it’s a very confusing mindset to break.
I think this is a big solution to the "why do women stay with their abusers" question. I think Stockholm syndrome is much more prevalent than this video acknowledges.
I'm sure Stockholm Syndrome doesn't just arise after a hostage operation, it can also arise after an abusive relationship. The victim refuses to let go of the one who abused him because it has become a part of his life and he has become accustomed to it . Thant established a kind of familiarity with the offending party. This is exactly what happened to me twice in my life. The first time lasted for about 12 years and the second time lasted for about 45 years and never realized it . Only , after studying Stockholm Syndrome, I found out that there is no difference between each other , only circumstances are the different
I'd like to know if there are any attempts at long-term studies. They're able to interview hostages shortly after the event; why haven't they done follow up with them over the course of several years to get a better understanding of the long-term effects? Wouldn't that be helpful for understanding if it is a condition that can impair someone's life?
Attempting a bond is probably a natural response to inhabiting space with someone. It makes sense to me that it would kick in whether a person was forced into the situation or not.
I don't understand how this could be considered a disorder - because that would imply that I negatively affects the person, but this positively affects people
The biggest question I feel like that needs to be asked here is this is it a case of a mental condition that affects them on a neurological scale or is it a case of getting to know your Captor and recognizing them as a person who's only doing what they're doing because they don't have a choice
it makes sense though if you form positive bonds with your captor, try to understand them and humanize them, you would have a better understanding of what might make them be nicer to you. It also a comfort knowing you're talking to a human being rather than a monster, which would lead you to believe that you're going home sooner or just not going to die or be harmed at their hands
this syndrome fascinates me so much. I'm looking forward to all the research that will be done in the future to understands what all happens with one who gets the syndrome. Also stockholm syndrome aftermath sounds pretty interesting, too.
I think it is an aspect of human empathy. Not all captors intend to abuse captives and sometimes people's situation can influence people's opinions on an emotional level when it is presented irl. People's capacity to empathize is only matched by people's cruelty.
I think it has a lot to do with the kindness thing. Kind of how an abusive relationships, people still choose to say because they still see the good in them. So when you're in a really stressful situation like that of being held captive, and you're not treated as badly as the others, or the simple fact that you got out of live, you feel some sort of gratitude or appreciation for the fact that you got out okay. And because the feelings are so intensified in a situation like that because I mean you're being held captive, your emotions are basically on overload, that could be a positive feelings as well. So possibly in situations like that since they do feel these gratitude that they kind of made it out okay, especially if others didn't, those positive feelings are Amplified and turn into a favorability of the person committing the crime and turns into more of a friendship type feeling just because those feelings are so intense.
Might want to create a video specific to the DSM to use as a reference. I think it's going to get old for both the viewer and the creators to keep describing what it is every single video it is brought up, which will be most videos. Anyway, I wonder if Stockholm Syndrome is mostly a matter of people accepting their fate. When you are exposed to something terrible over the course of a long time, it starts to not affect you so much, either because you learn to cope, you become jaded, or you're conditioned to adjust to it. In the case of being a hostage, it's pretty terrifying at first but it calms down quickly. What this means is the hostages had really low expectations of their happiness while being captured, but if they were mostly left un-harmed. Their experience ends up being better than their expected fate, so they don't show resentment.
I think it might be interesting to know if there's any difference in the incidence depending on the size of the groups involved, how many captors and captives, how the groups are divided, etc. The reason I'm wondering that is that I'm thinking it might be a kind of group empathy/in group mentality, if you have sufficiently few guards for a large enough group, or generally a fairly small group, it might be easier to see yourselves as being in the same situation, even if you know they have a different power level in the dynamic and they're responsible for the situation.
What people tend to leave out from the original event in Stockholm is that the police were rather cruel. I don't think anyone knew what to do in the case of a hostage situation, so it ended up as a stalemate and that is why it dragged on for so long. They cut off electricity, didn't seem to even try to get the hostages out or to help them or send them reassurance, and eventually teargassed everyone. In effect, the hostages had to go through the same ordeal as their kidnapper - (it was only one to start with, even if in this video she says 'robbers'. Another man joined him afterwards - well it is complicated, you can read the wiki). It could be the specific circumstances that led to this identification with the captor(s), rather than a general psychological syndrome.
Depends on how you think about the situation. If one thinks that terrorism is the result of society failing people, then you can think of the terrorist as a victim of circumstance. Assuming that freewill does not exist, one cannot blame a terrorist, only the circumstances that lead to their situation.
Perhaps to keep ones sanity someone would feel more inclined to have a positive outlook. Perhaps even empathy and don't wanna believe their situation is bad. They're perhaps in denial or too afraid to even comprehend it as a negative situation. So they begin to maybe fake believe everything is alright, until it becomes alright for them. To keep one sane perhaps someone would then see the other person's perspective to understand why it is happening at all ? Unless some people just believe things can be worked out, or they can keep their life by agreeing with the captors. And then end up actually agreeing with them just by pretending they agree with them. Who knows ? It must depend on the individual and their experience.
Near the end of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four when Winston Smith was in the Ministry of Love, did his trust towards O'Brien count as Stockholm Syndrome?
What about children feelings of dependence upon their parents or caretakers? There are family situations in which children are effectively held captive, or felt captive. Yet they also develop positive feelings toward their parent(s)/caretaker(s).
I think it's related to the person's childhood. Think a moment about even the best relationship with parents -- the child is still helpless and in the entire control of the parent, who sometimes does things that, from the child's perspective, are painful and inexplicable, such as holding the child down to get shots at the doctor's office, forbidding the eating of preferred foods such as junk food, forcing the child to brush its teeth, etc. The child, due to his or her state of dependence, must still trust and love the parent. Now imagine if the parent was a severe or even abusive parent. The child still loves the parent. I'm guessing that if researchers look at the relationship with the hostage's parents, they'll find the keys to Stockholm Syndrome.
could there be similarities with people stuck in abusive relationships?sometimes they defend the captor or believe the abuser loves them and deserves kindness. could there be any relation?
I would call it a survival strategy, bonding with the villains might help to save your live. Unless the villains are psychopaths. Than it won’t help. But because you don’t know if they are, bonding is good strategy. And if the villains are nice the probability they are not psychopaths grows, so bonding pays off. When the villains are not nice, it makes no sense to bond with them. Did they ever study the villains? I’m curious how they experienced the whole thing. And how their differences are related to the development of Stockholm survival strategy. When thinking about it, ptsd can be caused by the police involvement. A lot of hostage situations end in a brutal way. Because it’s sometimes more important to prevent this to happen again than to save the people who are taken hostage.
what about the mere exposure effect? Being in a hostage situation or as a captive to someone would result in being in close proximity over long periods of time. The mere exposure effect states that being physically close to someone results in more positive emotions towards that person, wouldn't that have an effect on the formation of symptoms of stockholm syndrome?
Stockholm syndrome must be a defence mechanism to humanise yourself in the eyes of the captor, also mechanism to cope with the situation - by befriending captor you make him a friend and `friends don't kill friends`...
It sounds a lot like the same mechanism that is being taken advantage of with the "bad cop/good cop" routine. Good cop offers a brief relief from the wrath of bad cop during a stressful situation (interrogation), which leads the subject to trust good cop and be more inclined to cooperate with him. It's possible that our minds can adapt (maladapt?) during certain high risk situations and readjust in a way that reflects the immediate threat. That which is "least threatening" (this person who is "not really hurting" us during a high threat situation) somehow becomes the equivalent of "safe" compared to the threat of the situation itself, or the initial expectation of the threat vs. the actual threat (if that makes any sense). I'm just speculating based on my somewhat limited knowledge in psychology, I think there needs to be a way to objectively look at every detail that happened during such hostage situations in order to try and understand the phenomenon better, which I'm not sure is likely in the immediate considering how most of the evidence we have right now is based on personal account which tends to be inaccurate.
It's very common. Look around you, a lot of people have very positive feelings towards their pastors (or President) and have negative feelings towards the critiques.
Rare to those not having gone through it, when you’ve been through it…😢, let alone trying to figure out what has happened to your spouse after the fact…😢.
It exists to help women in our tribal past to adapt to their new tribe and family after marriage, even if she didn't want to be married or to leave her loved ones to move into another tribe.
Kinda surprised they didn't mention the 4 F responses to trauma/threat: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn. Fawn is when one takes care of the person who is a threat (often an abusive parent or spouse), and it's actually not that uncommon, especially in females and children. Pete Walker goes into more detail in From Surviving to Thriving. "Stockholm Syndrome" seems to be examples of the fawn response in extreme situations.
It makes a lot of sense as a coping mechanism to mentally survive an increadibly harrowing ordeal. To latch onto some type, any type of kindness shown because that's easier to process than the true horror of your situation. If I were going to be held captive for the rest of my life, I'd be less miserable if I didn't mind my captors that much.
I would want to compare the way people respond to hostage situations to the way they respond to jury duty. Some jurors develop a hostility to the police and prosecutor and a sympathy for the accused. And jury duty is a sort of hostage situation, especially if you are sequestered.
I think it's about fear and the expectations a hostage has in the situation. If the hostage has the lowest possible expectation, set by the situation itself, any humane act towards them might be better than said expectation, and the terrorist or criminal is not seen as the person responsible of the situation but as someone who lifted the expectations of the hostage. The connection between criminal and captivity as a result fades, making captivity an initial condition that simple and humane acts improve even slightly. Of course, being the entity that improved a condition of captivity, the criminal is seen positively as a consequence of this mis-association.
It might have something to do w the way emotions balance each other. Being captured causes extreme fear, so the other extreme, joy, rises to balance it out & bring ur emotions back to baseline, like the other side of cute aggression. If the captor shows kindness, then the joy becomes linked to him, & the victim can get stockholm syndrome. The other commenters r saying it's a defense mechanism, & I think that makes a lot of sense too. Good feelings towards the captor affect ur behavior & make u more likely to survive.
Seeing as how homo sapiens have been around for approximately 70000 years. And also taking into consideration the fact that for most of human history someone could have probably kidnapped you and there would be no organisation to help you and you could end up their prisoner/slave for life. It might have developed into an evolutionary instinct to start liking your captors as this way you have a better chance of survival as the captors will treat you better(as research mentioned has shown they do) and the situation will over all be less stressful,the good looking thing also creates the impression that because your brain thinks it's stuck with this person or persons they might be the only pathway for reproduction.
Yes I read that homo sapiens males would just kidnap the female they like and take them to a cave or something and probably make her pregnant , I guess the best option for female was to agree with the situation and get along with her captor.
The best theory I've heard about Stockholm Syndrome is that it is a simply a human defense mechanism that is triggered by the appropriate circumstances, not a disorder or syndrome. If you think your life is at great risk, and you're unable escape on your own, then you'll take actions necessary to reduce the risks to yourself, even if it means a change in attitude towards your captors. In relation to that, Michael Huemer suggested in his book, *The Problem of Political Authority*, that Stockholm Syndrome might explain why so many people inexplicably like and support authoritarian government, in spite of the rights violations and harm that governments tend to do. Right or wrong, it's certainly one of the most interesting ideas I've discovered in some time.
With regard to 00:04:05 we know that a lack of abuse is not an act of kindness. The question is if and why is it being perceived that way. Core emotional wounds from pre-adolescence, perhaps?
whats there not to not know.. when someone has total control over you by means of holding a gun to your head or something your instincts tell you to act nice or die. which should override any thoughts of being a hero by a huge margin. when the captor doesnt kill you or "allows" you to live it acts like a gift of life for which one is supposedly becomes grateful for and even more reinforces the niceness. the cases where captors like their robbers is because they probably get to know them and understand their reasoning behind the actions. for example when cops come to gun down the bank robbers, who are they stealing from. the people or the banks who steal from the people? maybe the people just get completely enthralled by the whole event that shatters their daily monotony and they love it. in most cases id guess if captors dont injure or kill anyone then the captives have no reason to be against them. assuming the whole thing is temporary not like someone kidnaps a person and holds them captive for months... there lies a much more sad story where a person devolves to basic instincts which are just being grateful to be given food on time and not starve to death which naturally forms a basic reliance bond which naturally evolves into being protective of your food source... so when the "master" is being threatened the damaged individual response may be that of trying to protect his captor because he simply links his survival to the captor and at least for a while he thinks that he cannot exist without him. if psychologists cant put these simple things together why are they even psychologists?
Well, for one thing, you just made that up. You don't have any actual scientific evidence. It's just an untested hypothesis. A psychologist is a scientist. They have to actually try to prove things. For another, you've not said anything that wasn't mentioned in the video as one of the hypotheses that psychologists have. You've also not provided any method of prevention, cure, or even whether it needs to be cured: is it harmful after the fact? And literally every idea you had came from info that was discovered by pscyhologists. The only reason why you can even create this hypothesis is that you are spouting off stuff from psychology. Maybe it's from actual schooling. Maybe it's from pop culture. Maybe it's just from this video. A huge problem in the world today is amateurs with lack of knowledge thinking they know more than experts. The Dunning Kruger effect has caused so much anguish.
it kind of seems like its just a coping mechanism or something like a survival tactic during the stressful event. But I guess that wouldn't explain why some people actually chose not to escape when they could.
It's a defense mechanism.
Developing on this, I'd specifically say that as you have to endure forced confinement by a kidnapper, the more you accept it and get used to it, the less painful and scarring will it be later, avoiding the mentioned PTSD if you remember the situation and kidnappers in a kind way. No trauma if it wasn't traumatic.
maattthhhh i was looking for this comment
Thats one way of putting it
So is running too fast so you can't see everything burning around you.
I think that's right. If a captive believes escape is not possible, then the next best thing is to survive as long as possible. So we instinctively generate the emotions we believe will make that possible.
Isn't this a bit like being in an abusive relationship? Like the abuser treats their partner very badly, but the abused one still stays, because they still see the abuser in a good way, somehow.
But if that were stockholm syndrome, it wouldn't be rare at all.
سلا
That's exactly what this is. It's much more prevalent than this video or the psychological community acknowledges.
I don't think so, because in most situations, that bond was formed before the abusive side started to show
Nae Harris how is it any different than a stranger using candy to lure a child?
RDR what you are asking is "how is falling in love with someone different from being offered candy?"
Most of the time the aggressive tendencies don't start to show or be obvious for years. A child likes candy, but the victim of domestic abusers has grown to genuinely love him/her
Maybe it's the victom's brain realizing that their life is in the captor's hands, like how babies form a bond with their parents partly because their brain knows that they aren't capable of surviving on their own.
Holly Carbine might as well try to "join them" if we can't "beat them" right? and maybe that's how a bond was forged between them
I consider this plausible. It's essentially an extension of our natural sense of social hierarchy: being at the mercy of someone else's decisions evokes some social submissive thoughts and feelings, like a child to their parents/older siblings, a student to their senior peers, and any other time someone is on a "lower" spot in the chain of command and looks up to the ones who are "higher" up.
Babies: the worst sufferers of Stockholm Syndrome. ;)
Dam, that could be it.
This makes the most sense to me of all the suggestions.
I really want SciShow Psych to do a video explaining the difference between psychopathy and sociopathy, and how accurately they have been represented in tv and movies.
Sam Yellek yeah!
the thing is that there arent any solid meanings of the 2. many psychiatrist and criminal psychologists have diffrent ideas and theories of what it is and what the causes are. along with that the youtube community is full of misconceptions about tje diffrence between the 2. people might be saying theyre wrong while they cant be.
anyways, my psychology community considers sociopathy someone with anti social behaviour while psychopathy is a sub gerne of sociopathy which indicates they have anti social personality traits, mainly emotional underdevelopment
Officially there is no difference. Classifying someone as either a psychopath or sociopath is largely BS. The idea that a violent crazy person must be a psychopath while a Machiavellian ladder climber is a sociopath is a complete myth. They’re both labels for what is officially known as Antisocial Personality Disorder, characterized by low moral conscience and high impulsivity, and sometimes a lack of empathy. APD exists on a broad spectrum, it can range from slightly blunted empathy for others to complete lack of empathy and a long history of violent behavior. Some can even choose when they feel empathy to become better manipulators. And some can be completely uncharismatic and noticeably callous.
Also, APD is sometimes (but not always) comorbid with other conditions like narcissism, PTSD, Bipolar, even ADHD, which makes it difficult to separate what behaviors are caused by APD and what behaviors are caused by those other disorders.
The reason they don’t use “sociopath” and “psychopath” to categorize people with APD is because the range of behaviors and personalities between those affected with it can vary so much that there’s not really any traits or qualities we can use to neatly categorize them as one or the other.
Maybe it's an adaptive response rather than a disorder.
I wouldn't even say it's an adaptive response. I think it's all about empathy. We are all human and if the criminal isn't being very nasty to us and see their situation it's very easy for us to rationalize it because we all have issues.
YEAH, it's SIMPLE: our evolutionary line is hierarchical, so new leaders are constantly being looked upon; someone who has the guts to take over a bank is easily looked up to as the new leader of our tribe.
thats a good point! i believe that could be true to some cases
Yeah it might be like how people "see" their loved ones after death.
Well…no with Stockholm syndrome you often get other symptoms from even other disorders. What’s different is their emotional response to them. They like it. They still want them. Everyone has a different reason. Like you said it could be an adaptive response, but it’s definitely not that simple. I’ve had it for 4 years it’s honestly tiring and you feel empty when they’re not around you. Like you dependent on them. And it’s sad…
I don't think I've said this before, but Brit is a really great host!
Yeah. She's really... captivating
maybe it's a defense mechanism that evolved to lower the likelihood of death or injury.
Scott Powers thats what i thought. It makes sense.
That goes for the captor too.
Definitely not. It can start with whoever you meet at whatever age. When they meet you don’t automatically feel connected to them. It’s a whole process. Depending on how abusive and dangerous their captor was. When people have Stockholm syndrome they don’t think their abuser would hurt them in the first place thinking things like “they would never do that” or “they couldn’t they love me to much” or even worse “I don’t mind” because there’s a difference between using it for defense and actually genuinely feeling these feelings. It could be their own husband’s or wife’s. Parents. Friends. Personally for me it’s my older brother. and if you think about it if it was used for defense those girls wouldn’t have stayed, they would have ran away after they “tricked them”. It can be a lifetime experience. It’s scary, and tiring. And since there’s no cure you have to help yourself, or you have to get someone else to help you. But sadly most of the time they’ll always run abc, towards their captor. And you may not understand why…and sadly they may not know either.
I think I might have Stockholm Syndrome. Brit is such a _captivating_ host.
^
+
^
do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. love is the law. love under will.
XerDav 93 ^_^
Empathy. The captor is a human being doing these things for a reason, and once a captive realizes this, they empathize. This might also explain why the better they are treated, the more likely they are to get Stockholm syndrome. If the captor behaves like a monster, they will see them as a monster. If the captor behaves with some kindness, they will relate to their situation. Political beliefs might also have something to do with it.
I don't think that empathy alone would result in what we describe as stockholm syndrome.
We empathize with basicly every human, but that doesn't mean that we necessarily like all other humans.
To me it seems more likely, that the captors seemed to be morally correct in what they were doing in the eyes of the captives.
The captives probably accepted their captivity in order for their new found heroes to succeed.
However it then brings up the question whether or not the captives were manipulated or not.
Seph Imaru I doubt that a captor would be smart enough to plan for, or capable of the emotional manipulation needed to induce Stockholm syndrome. But I do believe that their emotions and humanity could be enough to make a hostage empathize with their situation in life and their motives.
Empathy isn't something I do when I see a person on the street, or to a stranger walking past me. In order to empathize with them, I have to be able to understand their emotions and why they are feeling it, i need to be able to feel as they feel. I might feel sympathy for a person on the streets, but I don't empathize with them until I sit down and talk with that person. The more time I spend with a genuine authentic human being, the more likely I am to empathize.
The captives spend more time with their captors than they do with the cops. The more time they spend, the more likely they are to empathize with them, and turn away from the system the captors are resisting.
The law is inanimate, the captor is a human being.
Just my opinion though. I'm probably wrong.
That's fine and all, but it doesn't account for moments when this happens with not-so-humane captors, or even rapists.
Brunosky Inc. I agree, to a certain extant. I suppose a big factor is how much a victim humanizes their captor in their minds. The more they humanize them, and feel how their aggressor felt, the more likely they are to get Stockholm syndrome. Even a bad person, is still a person, and some people are damn near predisposed to empathize with other people, even a terrible human being.
For me empathy is almost involuntary. Often I don't voluntarily feel emotions, it is something that happens to me, whether I want it to or not. Empathy is similar. You don't actively seek to empathize (most of the time...), rather, it happens on its own.
To reconcile the idea that Seph Imaru mentioned that empathy alone wouldn't cause those feelings, I think it's a function of intense empathy when under the stress that was mentioned in the video. It mentioned that focusing on our feelings may help us cope with stress, and I believe it. It's often said that no bond is stronger than those forged in fire--in other words, we tend to bond with people much more strongly in times of struggle: stress. So I think this stress greatly intensifies our capacity for empathy, in a natural search of bonds to form to reduce that stress. With few others to choose from, the captors are readily-available targets for that empathy.
I'd wager that captives also have good feelings about their fellow captives, but we just pay all our attention to the weirdness of having good feelings toward the primary antagonists of the situation. So I think captives will readily form strong bonds with _everyone_ as a result of the stress of the situation, and that includes the captors. Kindness on the captors' part just makes that empathy even easier.
It may also have something to do with how we're always trying to make sense of our world, mulling over questions in our head until we have a mental model of why everything "fits". We have this innate "why?" floating around in our heads at any event we didn't expect, as part of our evolutionary history of learning and recognizing patterns. When assaulted by someone, the only information your mind has is the traumatic event and its perpetrator, making that "why" easily answerable with "because they're a bad person," since that matches with all your information. But with all the time that hostage situations take, we get to see the more complex, human side to the captors, so the "they're just bad people" conclusion doesn't make sense anymore with that extra personality information. Eventually, we arrive at the conclusion that we arrive at for most people--we make not totally like them, but we see the good in them.
With that in mind, it may be the case that the stress of the situation raises the captives' capacity for empathy, and their mind trying to make sense of their captives' motives and actions just unconsciously puts the captors at the forefront of their thoughts and thus the most likely to be the primary targets of that intensified empathy.
I believe that in the horrifying experience, the brain attempts to make sense of the situation and create a more healthy, positive manner in dealing with it. Thus, the bond forms between the victim and other individual, sometimes one-sided, but not always. They also pick up on their captor's dislike or fear of authoritative figures, which often precludes their criminalized activities.
The victim also has to have a level of empathy..
Stockholm Syndrome by Muse is an amazing song and the reason I’d heard of this before.
Same here
I won't stand in your way...
One of the victims from the incident in Stockholm explained in an interview that one of the robbers made certain a more violent robber didn't hurt the hostages. That was the person they developed friendly feelings towards.
Also weren't the cops in that incident unprofessional and incompetent
Our pets have Stockholm syndrome 😂😂
Wtf 😂
😂💀😭
Why would you say that 😭😭
Yep.
Damn… That begs the question on how many disorders humans have already put domesticated animal in their lifespan
our parents have 100% power over us, but still treat us kindly. as infant you grow to like your parents because even if they can act upon you badly, still are not. we all are or were in that situation and by being held as hostage, we get this feeling again. i would be very interested in a relationship between former hostages with stockholm syndrom and their parents
"Still treats us kindly" speak for yourself
Nia Bride Are you actually comparing a criminal holding hostages to a parent raising up his/her kid?
abdulaziz rushdi no
Nia Bride Good :D
i was thinking about this and my childhood with my mother. this could definitely apply to me
I almost wish I could just tell you guys to stop so graciously thanking us after every video, it's so adorable. You NEVER get tired of it and you NEVER sound less grateful and it's just too sweet haha.
The more I hear about Stockholm Syndrome, the more I think about my capita- no, wait, wrong train of thought. In all seriousness, it sounds like a quite logical coping mechanism to me? I mean, kids who experience horrible situations in their homes often end up protecting their parents and hiding that something might be wrong.
That's not really the same thing though. Kids in abusive households don't tell that they're getting abused more because the fear of what their abuser will do outweighs any positives that come with their abuser being brought to light.
LogicOwl I'm... not sure I follow?
LogicOwl no wait, you mean they don't tell because they're scared of how their abusers will react to being outed? Because if so, that really wasn't what went through my head. I thought I deserved to be abused because I'd disappointed my dad, who deserved the world. Same with my mom, she worked so hard, I couldn't burden her with my being bullied. I protected my parents, as do and did many others. However, this might be more common in less severe situations than what's usually studied. All my information comes from stories similar to mine, with "everyday drunkards" or "holiday drunkards", guardians who are high-functioning alcoholics.
Sounds like charismatic people don't stop being charismatic just because they're in a shitty situation or doing a shitty thing. Kinda like an anti-hero, we were all rooting for Walter White but even more so for Jesse Pinkman. Them being total scumbags didn't change that we liked them.
I've heard that when you go through a stressful situation, you forge/strengthen emotional bonds with the people you went through it with. So it's possible that the fact that the hostages experienced high levels of stress, but came out okay, resulted in them forming these intense and unusual bonds in only a few days. I'm drawing this point from a book which looked at the effects of parenthood, the point in the book being that raising children qualifies as one of these stressful endeavors.
I love chain watching this channel. Thank you for existing!
So... Daenerys Targaryen developed Stockholm Syndrome towards Khal Drogo?
LulitaInPita Probably, yes.
Very good example. You adapt to your situation and people naturally grow a bond towards people they are forced to be in relationships with (marriage or even platonic).
There's something that just wasn't there before 🎶
Beauty and the Beast! Was it Stockholm Syndrome?
nati O From what I've heard, not really, but she does fall for her captor which was always creepy to me. XD
Beauty and the Beast is more a descriptor of Lima Syndrome than Stockholm Syndrome. Neither the Beast nor Belle like each other at first, and it isn't until the Beast starts showing feelings for Belle that she reciprocates.
No. It is not Stockholm syndrome. She doesn't develop feelings for him until he starts to change as a person. Then he lets her go. Yes, he starts out a tyrant, but character growth ultimately makes this a different scenario.
Exactly, Bathany. Seen Lindsay Ellis' video on it? It's very good.
Also if you want to study stockholm syndrome, look at lifestyle advertisers, an abusive unsolicited relationship that gets the victim identifying with the perpetrator.
Just instinct. If I am not nice to this person I am going to die. It is kind of hard wired and thats why you genuinely start liking this person.
For millenia women were kidnapped by other tribes or spoils of war. You either got with it and had babies or dead. So guess wich tendency got into our genes to switch our empathy on for a person we should not like.. It really is nothing but selfinterest.
thijsjong then why didn't they testify against him after they were brought back to safety?
iP00WN Because they probably convinced themself so hard (just seeing pro and cons of the situation) that it's hard to change your mind afterwards
they have actually grown a real emotional bond that cannot just be tossed away, just like people cant just stop having feelings for other people in relationships, even after misuse
True, and it's worth pointing out that more women than men have been documented with cases of the syndrome.
thijsjong [citation needed]
i think i might have something worthwhile to contribute to this? I have PTSD from years of childhood sexual abuse (fun stuff) committed by my cousin. I wasn't held captive, of course, but when I was younger I absolutely LOVED said cousin, he was my favorite relative and I went out of my way to spend time with him. I think this was because the adults around us didn't know about the abuse (he was a few years older than me at the time but still a child, probably also abused himself) and always encouraged our affectionate relationship. So being close with this cousin who was traumatizing me = praise from the adults around me which, OH BOY, I loved. It wasn't until we were older and I wasn't spending as much time with this cousin that I stopped idolizing him and realized the extent of the trauma I had been through. I think a lot of my positive feelings for him was directly because of the fact I was a child but when I mentioned this to a therapist years ago she casually mentioned that it was like stockholm syndrome (she wasn't diagnosing me, she was just putting it into terms I could understand) so I thought maybe it was worth a mention.
Well i suppose it can be really helpful to make something good out of a situation like that. Showing sympathy towards the people under whose mercy you are increases your chances of survival and if your body can convince itself to actually like the people the whole situation will probably involve a lot less fear and stress, wich are also emotions the body is not prepared to be experiencing for periods of time that long. So it might just be the smartest thing for you to do in order to survive with as little damage to you as possible.
My girl has it from her adopted dad he did some messed up stuff like messed up stuff you can’t say yk and still talk about him and say she wanted to move back in with him before he goes to prison it’s real
bowing gracefully to a greater power and re-writing your internal narrative to match is a survival mechanism.
we are 'social creatures'- we owe our success to being able to live together with limited confrontation. this is one aspect of that.
Some people think it’s like an abusive relationship but…it’s much more than that sadly. It doesn’t have to be how good of a manipulator they are. It can start with no reason at all actually. It can start with whoever you meet at whatever age. Yes even a child and since they’re a kid they don’t understand their feelings causing them to get caught deep with it. Usually the captor does something that might make them feel a certain way and the victim is aware of the persons cruelty, but they like that part too. When they meet you don’t automatically feel connected to them. It’s a whole process. Depending on how abusive and dangerous their captor was. When people have Stockholm syndrome they don’t think their abuser would hurt them in the first place thinking things like “they would never do that” or “they couldn’t they love me to much” or even worse “I don’t mind” because there’s a difference between using it for defense and actually genuinely feeling these feelings. It could be their own husband’s or wife’s. Parents. Friends. Personally for me it’s my older brother. and if you think about it if it was used for defense those girls wouldn’t have stayed, they would have ran away after they “tricked them”. It can be a lifetime experience. It’s scary, and tiring. And since there’s no cure you have to help yourself, or you have to get someone else to help you. But sadly most of the time they’ll always run back, towards their captor. And you may not understand why…and sadly they may not know either.
Human beings seek attachment. Attachment being a connection with a person of influence who will aid him or her. Even when a person is attacked, he will hope that the attacker will start connecting with the victim and start helping him or her. In fact, the victim will do things to try to stimulate that support, like saying supportive things to the abuser, like acquiescing to the abuser, like trying to succor the abuser.
I think there are hostage takers with charming characters and good intentions - maybe it is just liking someone with at least partially empathizeing what they are doing. We love those guys in the movies why not in real life - revolutionaries, fearless have to do what is to do for many that's not negative. Maybe it is just plain old sympathy.
If anything, the symptoms to me seem similar to C-PTSD and BPD, since both can involve the sufferer having positive feelings about someone who abused them.
not all hostage situations are abusive
@@Ghorda9 Oh yes they are. Imprisonment is a huge type of abuse.
People in the comments have suggested a lot of potential reasons: empathy, natural defense mechanism, learned adaptive response, and I think it probably a mixture of most of those things, probably to a different degree depending on the person. I’m personally rather empathetic, so if I developed Stockholm syndrome in such a situation it would likely be mostly because of that, but I’d also be aware that I could adapt to the situation and increase my odds of survival if I create a bond, so that would influence me too.
Every symptom of Stockholm Syndrome is familiar to any person who has grown up or lived in an abusive environment. The two situations have a lot of parallels - being trapped, being isolated, having a knowledge of the abuser/captor's reasoning, being harmed and cared for by the same people. That part about "not as bad as it could have been" is absolutely a phrase I've heard from many adults who were abused as children, including myself, and also from victims of domestic violence. I can't believe nobody has made this connection with Stockholm Syndrome before.
"Being slightly less awful doesn't seem like it should be enough" to give the abuser a pass. It isn't enough, but when you're physically vulnerable and in a heightened emotional state and looking for solace anywhere, you will grasp at any source of comfort and hope. There is also a blurring of boundaries in these kinds of situations, where you and your captor become conflated into one being because of always being around each other and hearing about each other's lives, and so you end up dismissing the fact that they are abusive/criminal because it benefits you both to be on the same team. I grew up in an abusive family and it took years for me to realize that just because my relatives had a hard childhood didn't give them license to ruin mine. I spent a good deal of my childhood feel responsible for the way I was treated and trying to "fix" what was wrong with my abusers' lives, because I empathized so strongly with their experiences.
It is an extension of the "tend and befriend" reaction to traumatic events. Fight or flight are obvious methods of self preservation, the third self preservation behavior is the tend and befriend reaction. The video covered this slightly when it talked about the 2 way kindness. There is a stronger likelihood of surviving your captor if you can get and stay on their good side, and it needs to be an authentic display.
It really grated on me that the issue is presented as deciding whether or not this is an actual "Disorder". Stockholm Syndrome is a set of feelings and behaviors that might be hard to understand, but why call it a disorder?
If, for instance, I meet a person in a social situation and our eyes meet, smiles are exchanged, and we start conversing resulting in our desire to spend more time together, is this a disorder? It certainly is a change in behavior and an interesting psychological phenomenon, but trying to figure out how it is a diagnosable disorder, is not likely to get useful results.
Stockholm Syndrome may be psychologically explainable, but starting with the presumption that it is a disorder, is back-assward.
If you are in a situation where you have been taken hostage and locked up with the captor, even though they may be threatening; if the situation goes on for an amount of time, there is a shared intimacy maybe just by talking together. After being released, and some time later, there is an intense feeling of attraction for the captor, which may be very confusing for the victim. I think it happens because of the situation and the shared intimacy and even physical closeness that has been created.
I also think this is the main idea behind enjoying bondage/submission/masochism. Because if a person *learns to* enjoy punishment, it's significantly less harmful to them mentally. It's also one of the reasons why corporal punishment is flawed besides the obvious negative effect of pure fear.
It's a "looking at the bright side" mentality.
I like this girl a lot. Straight to the point, yet relaxed. Informative, not annoying. And she's fairly good-looking but not distracting.
My theory is that the people who develop it don't tend to find many friendships in their normal lives either, so even if they are being held hostage by someone, if they are treated kindly they take it as a good sign since they don't actually have anyone else who has treated them like that. It's a new experience for them to be treated with kindness, and they take it as friendship.
I mean, It kind of would make sense from an evolutionary point of view, if you develope feelings like that, maybe it's more likely that your captor/owner would like you more and treat you better? We've been enslaving eachother and kidnipping brides etc etc for a really long time and those that were nicer probably had a greater oppurtunity to pass on their genes. Just a thought!
its a primal instinct. youve gone trough a stressfull period with them so your brain assumes they keep you safe leading to trust and sympathy
I refused to give my groomers phone number and address to police because I formed a positive bond with him and had consensual intimacy with him but it was all apart of the abuse cycle, he would idealise me and be very kind and gentle followed by devaluing me and of course grooming me, which caused me to be threatened but still having “love” for him. Stockholm syndrome causes you to believe the abuser isn’t at all bad but yet you feel threatened by them. It damaged me for years, I’m still an adult and somewhat wonder how’s he’s doing in life. I am in therapy but it’s a very confusing mindset to break.
I think this is a big solution to the "why do women stay with their abusers" question. I think Stockholm syndrome is much more prevalent than this video acknowledges.
Intresting. But that abusive guy is obviously triyng to attract girls while a bank robber or a kidnapper dosen't. Good point still.
I'm sure Stockholm Syndrome doesn't just arise after a hostage operation, it can also arise after an abusive relationship. The victim refuses to let go of the one who abused him because it has become a part of his life and he has become accustomed to it . Thant established a kind of familiarity with the offending party. This is exactly what happened to me twice in my life. The first time lasted for about 12 years and the second time lasted for about 45 years and never realized it . Only , after studying Stockholm Syndrome, I found out that there is no difference between each other , only circumstances are the different
I'd like to know if there are any attempts at long-term studies. They're able to interview hostages shortly after the event; why haven't they done follow up with them over the course of several years to get a better understanding of the long-term effects? Wouldn't that be helpful for understanding if it is a condition that can impair someone's life?
She recorded her voice over the video.. I can tell. Great job thou very informative.
great info. i learned a lot.
Attempting a bond is probably a natural response to inhabiting space with someone. It makes sense to me that it would kick in whether a person was forced into the situation or not.
I don't understand how this could be considered a disorder - because that would imply that I negatively affects the person, but this positively affects people
because most villains actually look good
The biggest question I feel like that needs to be asked here is this is it a case of a mental condition that affects them on a neurological scale or is it a case of getting to know your Captor and recognizing them as a person who's only doing what they're doing because they don't have a choice
This sounds like how packs for in nature. One dominant individual forcefully takes the lead, and the rest follow and defend that individual.
it makes sense though if you form positive bonds with your captor, try to understand them and humanize them, you would have a better understanding of what might make them be nicer to you. It also a comfort knowing you're talking to a human being rather than a monster, which would lead you to believe that you're going home sooner or just not going to die or be harmed at their hands
this syndrome fascinates me so much. I'm looking forward to all the research that will be done in the future to understands what all happens with one who gets the syndrome.
Also stockholm syndrome aftermath sounds pretty interesting, too.
I think it is an aspect of human empathy. Not all captors intend to abuse captives and sometimes people's situation can influence people's opinions on an emotional level when it is presented irl. People's capacity to empathize is only matched by people's cruelty.
I think it has a lot to do with the kindness thing. Kind of how an abusive relationships, people still choose to say because they still see the good in them. So when you're in a really stressful situation like that of being held captive, and you're not treated as badly as the others, or the simple fact that you got out of live, you feel some sort of gratitude or appreciation for the fact that you got out okay. And because the feelings are so intensified in a situation like that because I mean you're being held captive, your emotions are basically on overload, that could be a positive feelings as well. So possibly in situations like that since they do feel these gratitude that they kind of made it out okay, especially if others didn't, those positive feelings are Amplified and turn into a favorability of the person committing the crime and turns into more of a friendship type feeling just because those feelings are so intense.
Brit is fast becoming my favourite Nerdfighteria host.
Might want to create a video specific to the DSM to use as a reference. I think it's going to get old for both the viewer and the creators to keep describing what it is every single video it is brought up, which will be most videos.
Anyway, I wonder if Stockholm Syndrome is mostly a matter of people accepting their fate. When you are exposed to something terrible over the course of a long time, it starts to not affect you so much, either because you learn to cope, you become jaded, or you're conditioned to adjust to it. In the case of being a hostage, it's pretty terrifying at first but it calms down quickly. What this means is the hostages had really low expectations of their happiness while being captured, but if they were mostly left un-harmed. Their experience ends up being better than their expected fate, so they don't show resentment.
I think it might be interesting to know if there's any difference in the incidence depending on the size of the groups involved, how many captors and captives, how the groups are divided, etc. The reason I'm wondering that is that I'm thinking it might be a kind of group empathy/in group mentality, if you have sufficiently few guards for a large enough group, or generally a fairly small group, it might be easier to see yourselves as being in the same situation, even if you know they have a different power level in the dynamic and they're responsible for the situation.
What people tend to leave out from the original event in Stockholm is that the police were rather cruel. I don't think anyone knew what to do in the case of a hostage situation, so it ended up as a stalemate and that is why it dragged on for so long. They cut off electricity, didn't seem to even try to get the hostages out or to help them or send them reassurance, and eventually teargassed everyone. In effect, the hostages had to go through the same ordeal as their kidnapper - (it was only one to start with, even if in this video she says 'robbers'. Another man joined him afterwards - well it is complicated, you can read the wiki). It could be the specific circumstances that led to this identification with the captor(s), rather than a general psychological syndrome.
Depends on how you think about the situation. If one thinks that terrorism is the result of society failing people, then you can think of the terrorist as a victim of circumstance. Assuming that freewill does not exist, one cannot blame a terrorist, only the circumstances that lead to their situation.
Is it possible that people with it has to much empathy ? Or have longed for an adventure? Or are lonely?
Perhaps to keep ones sanity someone would feel more inclined to have a positive outlook. Perhaps even empathy and don't wanna believe their situation is bad. They're perhaps in denial or too afraid to even comprehend it as a negative situation. So they begin to maybe fake believe everything is alright, until it becomes alright for them. To keep one sane perhaps someone would then see the other person's perspective to understand why it is happening at all ? Unless some people just believe things can be worked out, or they can keep their life by agreeing with the captors. And then end up actually agreeing with them just by pretending they agree with them. Who knows ? It must depend on the individual and their experience.
I could definitely see this happening to me
Near the end of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four when Winston Smith was in the Ministry of Love, did his trust towards O'Brien count as Stockholm Syndrome?
This is the 2nd time I hear my country's name (Belarus) in the SciShow video!
What about children feelings of dependence upon their parents or caretakers? There are family situations in which children are effectively held captive, or felt captive. Yet they also develop positive feelings toward their parent(s)/caretaker(s).
Aren't people more likely to bond in scary situations?
Thank you Brit for your tattoo Le Bonheur (Happiness)
I think it's related to the person's childhood. Think a moment about even the best relationship with parents -- the child is still helpless and in the entire control of the parent, who sometimes does things that, from the child's perspective, are painful and inexplicable, such as holding the child down to get shots at the doctor's office, forbidding the eating of preferred foods such as junk food, forcing the child to brush its teeth, etc. The child, due to his or her state of dependence, must still trust and love the parent. Now imagine if the parent was a severe or even abusive parent. The child still loves the parent.
I'm guessing that if researchers look at the relationship with the hostage's parents, they'll find the keys to Stockholm Syndrome.
could there be similarities with people stuck in abusive relationships?sometimes they defend the captor or believe the abuser loves them and deserves kindness. could there be any relation?
I would call it a survival strategy, bonding with the villains might help to save your live. Unless the villains are psychopaths. Than it won’t help. But because you don’t know if they are, bonding is good strategy.
And if the villains are nice the probability they are not psychopaths grows, so bonding pays off.
When the villains are not nice, it makes no sense to bond with them.
Did they ever study the villains? I’m curious how they experienced the whole thing. And how their differences are related to the development of Stockholm survival strategy.
When thinking about it, ptsd can be caused by the police involvement. A lot of hostage situations end in a brutal way. Because it’s sometimes more important to prevent this to happen again than to save the people who are taken hostage.
what about the mere exposure effect? Being in a hostage situation or as a captive to someone would result in being in close proximity over long periods of time. The mere exposure effect states that being physically close to someone results in more positive emotions towards that person, wouldn't that have an effect on the formation of symptoms of stockholm syndrome?
Stockholm syndrome must be a defence mechanism to humanise yourself in the eyes of the captor, also mechanism to cope with the situation - by befriending captor you make him a friend and `friends don't kill friends`...
It sounds a lot like the same mechanism that is being taken advantage of with the "bad cop/good cop" routine. Good cop offers a brief relief from the wrath of bad cop during a stressful situation (interrogation), which leads the subject to trust good cop and be more inclined to cooperate with him.
It's possible that our minds can adapt (maladapt?) during certain high risk situations and readjust in a way that reflects the immediate threat. That which is "least threatening" (this person who is "not really hurting" us during a high threat situation) somehow becomes the equivalent of "safe" compared to the threat of the situation itself, or the initial expectation of the threat vs. the actual threat (if that makes any sense).
I'm just speculating based on my somewhat limited knowledge in psychology, I think there needs to be a way to objectively look at every detail that happened during such hostage situations in order to try and understand the phenomenon better, which I'm not sure is likely in the immediate considering how most of the evidence we have right now is based on personal account which tends to be inaccurate.
Yuki and Yuno.
It's very common. Look around you, a lot of people have very positive feelings towards their pastors (or President) and have negative feelings towards the critiques.
Rare to those not having gone through it, when you’ve been through it…😢, let alone trying to figure out what has happened to your spouse after the fact…😢.
Brit please tell my the psychology behind learning better when a beautiful person like you is the teacher
It exists to help women in our tribal past to adapt to their new tribe and family after marriage, even if she didn't want to be married or to leave her loved ones to move into another tribe.
Kinda surprised they didn't mention the 4 F responses to trauma/threat: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn. Fawn is when one takes care of the person who is a threat (often an abusive parent or spouse), and it's actually not that uncommon, especially in females and children. Pete Walker goes into more detail in From Surviving to Thriving. "Stockholm Syndrome" seems to be examples of the fawn response in extreme situations.
It makes a lot of sense as a coping mechanism to mentally survive an increadibly harrowing ordeal. To latch onto some type, any type of kindness shown because that's easier to process than the true horror of your situation. If I were going to be held captive for the rest of my life, I'd be less miserable if I didn't mind my captors that much.
Great video
Why does ketamine work (whereas memantine fails) for depression?
I would want to compare the way people respond to hostage situations to the way they respond to jury duty. Some jurors develop a hostility to the police and prosecutor and a sympathy for the accused. And jury duty is a sort of hostage situation, especially if you are sequestered.
I think it's about fear and the expectations a hostage has in the situation. If the hostage has the lowest possible expectation, set by the situation itself, any humane act towards them might be better than said expectation, and the terrorist or criminal is not seen as the person responsible of the situation but as someone who lifted the expectations of the hostage. The connection between criminal and captivity as a result fades, making captivity an initial condition that simple and humane acts improve even slightly. Of course, being the entity that improved a condition of captivity, the criminal is seen positively as a consequence of this mis-association.
1:20
Heh, I'd know some about that one XD
(Not trying to be creepy, I just noticed how a lot of the books/movies etc. that I like include it)
maybe a skill human developed for better survival chance? a bond with capitor -> more cooperative -> better chance to survive
You could do the Barnum Effect.
It might have something to do w the way emotions balance each other. Being captured causes extreme fear, so the other extreme, joy, rises to balance it out & bring ur emotions back to baseline, like the other side of cute aggression. If the captor shows kindness, then the joy becomes linked to him, & the victim can get stockholm syndrome. The other commenters r saying it's a defense mechanism, & I think that makes a lot of sense too. Good feelings towards the captor affect ur behavior & make u more likely to survive.
Seeing as how homo sapiens have been around for approximately 70000 years. And also taking into consideration the fact that for most of human history someone could have probably kidnapped you and there would be no organisation to help you and you could end up their prisoner/slave for life.
It might have developed into an evolutionary instinct to start liking your captors as this way you have a better chance of survival as the captors will treat you better(as research mentioned has shown they do) and the situation will over all be less stressful,the good looking thing also creates the impression that because your brain thinks it's stuck with this person or persons they might be the only pathway for reproduction.
Yes I read that homo sapiens males would just kidnap the female they like and take them to a cave or something and probably make her pregnant , I guess the best option for female was to agree with the situation and get along with her captor.
The best theory I've heard about Stockholm Syndrome is that it is a simply a human defense mechanism that is triggered by the appropriate circumstances, not a disorder or syndrome. If you think your life is at great risk, and you're unable escape on your own, then you'll take actions necessary to reduce the risks to yourself, even if it means a change in attitude towards your captors.
In relation to that, Michael Huemer suggested in his book, *The Problem of Political Authority*, that Stockholm Syndrome might explain why so many people inexplicably like and support authoritarian government, in spite of the rights violations and harm that governments tend to do. Right or wrong, it's certainly one of the most interesting ideas I've discovered in some time.
With regard to 00:04:05 we know that a lack of abuse is not an act of kindness. The question is if and why is it being perceived that way. Core emotional wounds from pre-adolescence, perhaps?
Read the book Stolen by Lucy Christopher. It's a great book that includes Stockholm syndrome.
It's easier to hate people you don't know. As a hostage, you get to know your captor.
whats there not to not know.. when someone has total control over you by means of holding a gun to your head or something your instincts tell you to act nice or die. which should override any thoughts of being a hero by a huge margin.
when the captor doesnt kill you or "allows" you to live it acts like a gift of life for which one is supposedly becomes grateful for and even more reinforces the niceness.
the cases where captors like their robbers is because they probably get to know them and understand their reasoning behind the actions.
for example when cops come to gun down the bank robbers, who are they stealing from. the people or the banks who steal from the people?
maybe the people just get completely enthralled by the whole event that shatters their daily monotony and they love it. in most cases id guess if captors dont injure or kill anyone then the captives have no reason to be against them. assuming the whole thing is temporary not like someone kidnaps a person and holds them captive for months... there lies a much more sad story where a person devolves to basic instincts which are just being grateful to be given food on time and not starve to death which naturally forms a basic reliance bond which naturally evolves into being protective of your food source... so when the "master" is being threatened the damaged individual response may be that of trying to protect his captor because he simply links his survival to the captor and at least for a while he thinks that he cannot exist without him. if psychologists cant put these simple things together why are they even psychologists?
Well, for one thing, you just made that up. You don't have any actual scientific evidence. It's just an untested hypothesis. A psychologist is a scientist. They have to actually try to prove things.
For another, you've not said anything that wasn't mentioned in the video as one of the hypotheses that psychologists have.
You've also not provided any method of prevention, cure, or even whether it needs to be cured: is it harmful after the fact?
And literally every idea you had came from info that was discovered by pscyhologists. The only reason why you can even create this hypothesis is that you are spouting off stuff from psychology. Maybe it's from actual schooling. Maybe it's from pop culture. Maybe it's just from this video.
A huge problem in the world today is amateurs with lack of knowledge thinking they know more than experts. The Dunning Kruger effect has caused so much anguish.
More of this presenter please!
it kind of seems like its just a coping mechanism or something like a survival tactic during the stressful event. But I guess that wouldn't explain why some people actually chose not to escape when they could.
Ugh. This gives me horrible flashbacks of disturbing books I've read about this subject.
What 1994 experiment is that? I'd like to read about it.