Table of ContentsIntroductionJohn Wayne Gacy: BackgroundPsychological AssessmentThe Big 5 TheoryEysenck's Theory of PersonalityConclusionIntroductionJohn Wayne Gacy was active between 1972 and 1978. He was a murderer /rapist with 33 known homicide victims, all identified as young men and boys aged 14 to 21. Although Gacy didn't slaughter people, he was an outgoing neighbor who occasionally dressed up as "Pogo the Clown" to entertain children at parties. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Criminals can be analyzed in different ways using psychological theories. Psychological theories are a tool for explaining the thoughts and actions people have and do through various developmental, cognitive, social, behavioral, and affective mechanisms (Gannon, 2014). Trait theory is commonly used to determine a person's personality and can help determine whether a person is psychopathic, sociopath, or has antisocial personality disorder (Mulcahy, 2017). The psychological aspects of the subject have been explored by different Trait theories. We will mainly discuss the Big 5 theory and Eysenck's theory of personality. They would help determine the presence of a personality disorder and could also analyze whether people's intelligence quotient is relevant to the personality disorder. Traits are presumed to be reliable over time, meaning that the traits a child possesses will follow with them into adolescence and adulthood. Traits are also internal, in the sense that they do not result from environmental factors, but from a person's inner characteristics. The trait theories approach uses a set of common traits among criminals to analyze the personality of the person in question.John Wayne Gacy: BackgroundJohn Wayne Gacy lived a seemingly normal life blending into society despite his crimes. Whether his behavior can be explained by trait theories is what we will discuss further. Background He was not the type to have the quietest childhood, Gacy had an alcoholic father who beat him regularly. He was sexually assaulted at the age of nine and felt helpless to tell anyone fearing his father would have another reason to attack him (Mull, 2017). He was also bullied at school due to being overweight and his inability to participate in activities due to a diagnosis of heart disease. He also suffered head trauma which later led to fainting spells due to a clot triggered by the injury. His father rejected his head injury and every time he had a problem with his injury, his father mistreated him. Gacy had a decent relationship with his mother and siblings, but his father also used him as an infuriating factor to beat him. Over time, he became “apathetic and emotionally hardened” to both the beatings and other people (Buchanan-Dunne, 2017). John Gacy lived with his family, had a good job, was a political activist, and generally stood up for what appeared to be an outstanding citizen of Illinois, United States of America. People around him described Gacy as hardworking, reliable, and argumentative, but he was impartial, insensitive, and apathetic toward the feelings and desires of others. This wildly different view that the public had of Gacy is how he managed to hide with what he was doing. Throughout what he did,no one (including the police) alleged he was capable of such heinous things. The police may have arrested Gacy, but the cases were always dropped due to the witness/victim's failure to appear in court and other reasons. Ten years before his final arrest, he was accused of raping a young employee and was released after 18 months for good behavior (Taylor, 2003). Gacy was released and remarried, this alliance did not work out and after a few years they separated. The separation led Gacy to believe that he could do anything he wanted, and thus his crimes radically worsened. The political career he built collapsed as allegations against him of sexual misconduct against young boys mounted (Mull, 2017). The disappearance of a 15-year-old boy after approaching him for a job was the turning point in arousing Gacy's suspicions. This led to an investigation at his home, which resulted in the discovery of crucial evidence linking Gacy to several missing boys, but they didn't have enough to arrest him. He was under the surveillance of detectives who were waiting for any clues about the missing 15-year-old. At one point, he was obnoxious by urging police not to enter his home where they noticed the smell of decomposing flesh, leading to a search resulting in the recovery of the body. He was quickly arrested and confessed to police that he had killed at least thirty people and kept them in the crawl space of his house. He then tried to plead insanity in court, but this was rejected. His lawyer later tried to claim that the 33 murders were caused unintentionally by erotic asphyxiation (Taylor, 2003). In 1980, Gacy was sentenced to death by lethal injection and in 1994 he was finally executed. After 17 days of observation and interviews in 1977, evidence of antisocial personality disorder manifested itself in a disregard for others. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) states that there are specific characteristics (traits) that an individual must possess to be classified as having ASPD. An important characteristic of Gacy that matched the characteristics of ASPD was the lack of remorse following actions. Gacy's lack of empathy towards his victims was striking, as he went so far as to blame his victims for their plight (Taylor, 2003). He believed that "50% of American families will be single parents, which shows a failing of the Church which is not capable of keeping families together and children run away from home to seek love elsewhere" to validate his actions (Gacy, 1992). Gacy has several traits consistent with his personality disorder. Non-compliance with social norms, fraud and uncontrolled disregard for the safety of others. Although he met most of the ASPD criteria, he did not meet some of them. He planned his actions as well as other life events, which made him non-impulsive. He had a secure job, a seemingly normal life, was not angry, and for the most part was not involved in any violence aside from the crimes he committed in secret. These serious factors do not only correspond to ASPD, Gacy was a true psychopath, a disorder difficult to determine in reality, because they lead you with a normal and charming exterior but a manipulative and volatile interior that lacks conscience and empathy (Cook, 2011).Psychological evaluationGacy is classified as a psychopath and not a sociopath. Indeed, despite the similarities between the two, Gacy had a seemingly stable life and was meticulous in planning his attacks. The psychologist who evaluated Gacy in 1977 was unable to make an evaluationpersonality, because Gacy was not only cunning and manipulative, but he actually tried to hide who he really was. A competent serial killer. (Mull, 2017). Once Gacy was finally captured, further sightings and interviews were conducted on him. Medical experts testified that he suffered from borderline schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder, and antisocial behavior (Mull, 2017). Schizophrenia is a chronic mental disorder that causes the patient to have a distorted sense of reality, a mixture of hallucinations, illusions, and distorted thoughts that affect daily functioning. Severity can increase significantly if there is a lack of appropriate medication (Mayo, 2017). The cause of schizophrenia is unknown; many researchers believe it is due to an imbalance of dopamine and glutamate, chemicals naturally present in the brain, so it could happen to anyone at any time. stage of his life (Mayo, 2017). Multiple personality disorder is a form of intensive dissociation, it is a course where the brain does not connect a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions or sense of identity. This disorder is often the result of acute trauma that occurred during early childhood. Gacy suffered severe trauma as a young child and was unsurprisingly at risk of developing these disorders. His mental illness diminished his ability to understand the depth of his own crimes. He was neither sane nor capable of mind and was therefore proven to be criminally insane at the time the murders were committed (Mull, 2017). The Big 5 Theory The Big 5 is an important method used in trait theories to aid understanding. a person's personality and why they made the decisions they did. The big % includes openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. There are some correlations between the big five and crime. Convicted child sex offenders are likely to exhibit the following characteristics: High neuroticism, low extraversion, low conscientiousness, and low open-mindedness. Trait Neuroticism is often associated with depression and anxiety. High neuroticism means that a person is sensitive to stressors, is more likely to have frequent activations of negative emotions, and reactions tend to be intense; and will last longer and take longer to return to baseline (Henriques, 2017). Having low extroversion makes you an introvert, they thrive when alone and feel uncomfortable when around people. People low on conscientiousness tend to act impulsively, are not goal-driven, and are spontaneous, impulsive, and noncompliant (McGreal, 2014). Low open-minded people will seek familiarity, they try not to venture into the unknown, they are expected to pass up opportunities, try new activities or a new job, they tend to be accustomed to predictive lives. Gacy, being a child convicted of sexual intercourse The offender had several personality traits that correlated him with the above. Gacy lived most of his life himself after his divorces, he attended social gatherings, but not as Gacy, but as Pogo the Clown, this was a warning of his split personality disorder . Pogo the Clown was Gacy's method of extroversion. Gacy rarely traveled, grew up in Illinois, lived most of his adult life in Illinois, and died in Illinois (Buchanan-Dunne, M. 2017). He also did not have.